You Can't Hide It
His eyes pried open. He glared around the blurry room. He cringed at the pain of moving his body. His eyes closed. Her eyes opened just enough to clearly see the end of the bed she was in. She glanced over at the man in the bed next to her. Slowly, she swung her legs over the side of her bed and staggered over to the man's side. She picked up his chart and read the page thinking to herself that he won't be awake for hours thanks to all the drugs they gave him. She scooped his hair in between her fingers and kissed his forehead, then walked away.
"Abby, you need
to stay in bed."
Abby's head raised to see a figure in the
doorway.
"I was just checking to see how he was doing."
"I
know. I saw you." Carter smiled because he had been standing in
that doorway for hours just watching Abby sleep.
"In the bed,
darling."
Standing next to her bed with her back to Carter, Abby
looked down with a sense of worry as if wondering why Carter called
her darling. She laid down and looked up into this brown eyes walking
towards her.
"Carter? What happened?"
Carter looked at Jake
then back at Abby. Instead of answering her question, he asked "What
were you doing laying in the ambulance bay? What's going on?"
Abby
stared at Carter long and hard like it would ge3t him to take back
his question. Finally she looked down at the sheet draped over her
legs. Silently and subtly, tears started to drown her eyes. Carter
noticed and droped down quickly to her level to comfort her. He
wrapped his arms around her frail figure s she buried her eyes into
his shoulder.
"I saw him, John. I thought I saw
him."
"Who?"
"I thought he came here. I thought he
found me."
"Who, Abby?"
"The man from the street."
"Who
is he, Abby? Why would he want to find you?"
"He doesn't
want to find me, he wants to kill me!"
"Abby, what happened?
Relax and try to tell me what happened."
She breathed in as deep
as she could then leaned back to look Carter in the eyes.
"Two
nights ago. I was walking home. Someone was following me. I ran away.
It's ok, I'm fine."
Carter cut her off. "You don't look
fine."
Abby disregarded his comment and continued. "I got
inside, but, before I did, I turned. I saw his face. And I swear I
saw that face on a pacient yesterday. I was so scared when I got
home. I couldn't fall asleep. I couldn't stop thinking about it.
I messed up, John."
"How? How'd you mess up?"
"I
promised you I wouldn't drink anymore."
"It's ok, Abby."
Abby's sad eyes reflected into Carter's as they sat and looked at
each other for what felt like hours. In a momentary lapse of
judgment, Abby leaned in and kissed Carter who didn't do anything
close to stopping her. There they sat, on Abby's bed, with Carter's
arms enclosing Abby's body into his, making out in the darkness.
They were both so focused on what was happening that neither of them
heard nor saw Jake sit up in his bed.
