So I know this chapter is extremly short. But bare with it! You'll understand why it's so short at the end, and the next chapter!
CHAPTER 3
Kirsten had run the whole way to HOAG clutching hope to her chest, a package that grew heavier and more unwieldy with every step. But Sandy was not in the ER waiting room, and all of her wishes for a manageable injury- a broke arm or a light concussion- had vanished when she'd stumbled upon Neil in the triage are. "Look again," she demanded of the triage nurse.
"Seth Cohen."
The nurse nodded. "He was in here a while ago," she said. "I just don't know where they've taken him." She glanced up sympathetically. "Why don't I see if anyone else knows something?"
"Yes," Kirsten said as imperiously as she could, wilting as soon as the nurse turned her back.
She let her eyes roam over the serviceable Emergency entranceway, from the empty wheelchairs waiting like wallflowers at a dane to the television shackled to the ceiling. At the edge of the area, Kirsten saw a swatch of red fabric. She moved toward it, recognizing the scarlet overcoat she and Maya had found for eighty percent off at Filene's.
"Maya?" Kirsten whispered. Maya lifted her head, her face just as stricken as Neil's had been. "Is Summer hurt too?"
Maya stared at her for a long moment. "No," she said carefully. "Summer is not hurt."
"Oh, thank God-"
"Sum," Maya interrupted. "is dead"
-
"What's taking so long?" Kirsten asked for the third time, pacing in front of the tiny window in the private room that had been assigned to Seth. "If he's really all right, they how come they haven't brought him back yet?"
Sandy sat in the only chair, his head in his hands. He himself had seen the CT scans, and he'd never looked over one with such fear of finding an intracranial contusion or an epidural hemorrhage. But Seth's brain was intact; his wounds superficial.
They had taken him back to the ER to be stitched up by a surgeon; he would be montored overnight and then sent for additional tests the next day.
"Did he say enything to you? About what happened?"
Sandy shook his head. "He was scared, Kirsten. I wasn't going to push him." He stood up and leaned agaisnt the doorframe. "He asked where they'd brought Summer."
Kirsten turned slowly. "You didn't tell him," She said.
"No." Sandy swallowed thickly. "At the time I didn't even think about it. About them being together when this happened."
Kirsten crossed the room and slipped her arms around Sandy. Even now, he stiffened; he had not been brought up to embrace in public places, and brushes with death did not alter the rules. "I don't want to think about it," she murmured, laying her cheek agaisnt his back. "I saw Maya, and I keep imagining how easily that could have been me."
Sandy pushed her away and walked toward the radiator, belching out its heat. "What the hell were they thinking, driving through a bad neighborhood?"
"What neighborhood?" Kirsten said, seizing on the new detail. "Where did the ambulance come in from?"
Sandy turned to her. "I don't know," he said. "I just assumed."
Suddenly she was a woman with a mission. "I could go back down to Emergency while we're waiting," Kirsten said. "They have to have that sort of information logged." She strode purposefully toward the door, but as she went to pull it, it was opened from the outside. A male orderly wheeled in Seth, his head swathed in thick white bandages.
She was rooted to the floor, unable to connect this sunken boy with the strong son who had towered over her just that morning.
The nurse explained something that Kirsten didn't bother to listen to, and then she and the orderly left the room.
Kirsten heard her own breathing providing a back beat for thin drip, drip of Seth's IV. His eyes were glassy with sedatives,
unfocused with fear. Kirsten sat down on the edge of the bed and cradled him in her arms. "Ssh," she said, as he started to cry against the front of her sweater, first thin tears and then loud, unstoppable sobs. "It's all right."
Within minutes Seth's hiccups leveld, and his eyes closed. Kirsten tried to hold him to her, even after his big hody went slack in her arms. She glanced at Sandy, who was sitting in the chair beside the hospital bed like a stiff and stoic sentry.
He wanted to cry, but he wouldn't. Sandy hadn't cried since he'd been seven.
Kirsten did not like to cry around him, either. It was not that he ever told her she shouldn't, but the plain face that now he wasn't as visibly upset as she was made her feel foolish rather than sensitive. She bit her lip and pulled open the door of the room, wanting to have her breakdown in private. In the hallway, she flattened her palms agaisnt the cool cinder block wall and tried to think of just yesterday, when she had gone grocery shopping and had cleaned the downstairs bathroom and had yelled at Seth for leaving the milk out on the kitchen counter all day so it spoiled. Yesterday, when everything had made sense.
"Excuse me."
Kirsten turned her head to see a tall, dark-haired woman. "I'm Detective-Sergeant Marrone of the Newport police. Would you be Mrs. Cohen?"
She nodded and shook the policewoman's hand. "Were you the one who found them?"
"No, I wasn't. But I was called in to the scene. I need to ask you some questions."
"Oh," Kirsten said, surprised. "I thought you might be able to answer mine."
Detective Marrone smiled; Kirsten was momentarily stunned at how beautiful that one transformation made her. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours," she said.
"I can't imagine I'll be much help," Kirsten said. "What did you want to know?"
The detective took out a pad and a pen. "Did your son tell you he was going out tonight?"
"Yes."
"Did he tell you where he was going?"
"No," Kirsten said. "But he's seventeen, and he's always been very responsible." She glanced at the hospital room door. "Until tonight," she added.
"Uh-huh. Did you know Summer Roberts, Mrs. Cohen?"
Kirsten immeadiately felt tears well in her eyes. Embarrassed, she swiped at the them with the back of her hands. "Yes," she said. "Sum is... was like a daughter to me."
"And what was she to your son?"
"His girlfriend." Kirsten was more confused now than before. Had Summer been involved in something illegal or dangerous? Was that why Seth had been driving through a bad neighborhood?
She did not realize that she'd spoken aloud until Detective Marrone's brows drew together. "A bad neighborhood?"
"Well," Kirsten said, coloring. "We know there was a gun involved."
The detective snapped shut her notebook and started for the door. "I'd like to talk to Seth now," she said.
"You can't," Kirsten insisted, blocking the other woman's way. "He's asleep. He needs his rest. Besides, he doesn't even know about Summer yet. We couldn't tell him, not like this. He loved her."
Detective Marrone stared at Kirsten. "Maybe," she said. "But he also may have shot her."
Dun, Dun, Dun. Or not. You guys expected that I'm sure. Please review!