Chapter 23 - Triage
Harris pulled into the drop-off zone in front of the hospital and put his car into park so he could open the passenger door for me.
We hadn't had much more time to discuss what I meant by being wrong about him before the hospital shortly afterward came into view. I wondered if Harris would simply drop me off and head back to the academy, or if he'd stay to get things clarified with me. Already I felt super guilty for not telling him upfront what my sister had said. He was right; apparently, I still liked to play baby games. And me, a woman in her mid-thirties, at that!
With a squeak of the door's hinges, Harris opened the passenger side door and held out his good hand for me to take. I placed a tentative foot outside the car first and grabbed onto his wrist, lurching out of the car awkwardly. My near-drowning had certainly screwed up my coordination. Was this Gumby-like feeling in my legs permanent?
I held on tightly to Harris's forearm as he slowly strode toward the emergency door of the hospital. Thankfully someone inside the ER opened the door for us and he led me to a chair inside.
"Lemme go park the car, and then I'll be right back," Harris said, clearly impatient.
I sighed as he left the emergency department. If this was really true that he had not only not asked creepy financial questions but had in fact defended me, I had been totally in the wrong to break up with him. Would he call me out on that? I would be finding out soon.
Within a matter of minutes, Harris strode into the emergency department, taking the empty seat right next to me. I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding, wondering how we could discuss anything any further in the crowded waiting room.
"You were saying…" he began, in a low, expectant tone, his eyes glittering with excitement.
"How are we going to talk about that now?" I asked, glancing around the small room. "It's too crowded in here."
"Have they brought you to triage yet?" he asked. The nurse's triage station was directly behind us, and I'd only just signed in. No one had called on me yet, or even acknowledged me, for that matter.
"Of course not," I murmured. "ERs are a waste of time. I'll probably have to sit here for hours, only to be sent back to the academy."
"Well, let me take care of that for you," he said, pulling out his badge. He stood up dramatically and strode quickly over to the triage nurse, who was within earshot of our chairs.
"Ma'am, this is official police business," he asserted, flashing his badge at her. I supposed it was a good thing that he always wore his official police uniform, even when working at the academy. "My client needs to be evaluated right away."
The lady behind the counter looked up at him quizzically and then over at me as he pointed towards me.
"What is your client's name?" she said, picking up the sign-in sheet lying on the counter.
"April Carnegie," he replied. The woman peered at the list, running her finger down it.
"Sir, our patients are evaluated in the order they arrive. Your client is number… twelve on the list. Please be patient, Sir."
"The thing is, Ma'am, the sooner you can evaluate her, the sooner I can close this case and head out to this, uh… emergency call at the orphanage," he said, patting the radio at his hip. His voice softened when next he spoke. "Please, Ma'am—the children need me. I'm the closest unit nearby." He looked stricken, staring off into space. "If I don't get there in time, there's no tellin' what we might find…"
I had to admit, the man was not ashamed to lie.
I turned around to see that Harris's eyes were fearfully widened, as he stared fretfully at his wristwatch and then back up at the sky, mumbling some kind of fake prayer under his breath.
"Fine," the nurse said, rolling her eyes. "Bring your client over."
I stood up shakily and walked around to the side of the triage, where another nurse approached me with a thermometer and stethoscope. They asked me some questions, evaluated my vitals, and found my blood oxygen was apparently alarmingly low.
"Being as you nearly drowned and have concerningly low oxygen saturation, you should be admitted overnight," the nurse told me.
My jaw literally dropped. Wow. I had to admit, I was shocked. This academy was truly kicking my ass. I'd already had a hospital stay for dehydration and now this.
When I was brought to my room in a wheelchair, everything really hit home. I was going to be stuck here hoping the academy would cover yet another hospital stay.
Harris had not followed my wheelchair up to the room, instead rushing out of the emergency department in his ruse to save the orphans. I shook my head as I watched him go. Lying came so naturally to him. Even though he'd insisted he'd left the party right away, he lied as often as he breathed. Speaking of breathing, my wheelchair was soon flanked by someone lugging an oxygen tank and mask. Just great.
I was helped out of my bathing suit and into a hospital gown by two nurses, glad that I was quickly able to slip under the sheets of the hospital bed before anyone else could see my exposed ass. I made a glum face as the oxygen mask was positioned over my nose and mouth, as well as a little white clamp-like thing that was placed on my finger that beeped every couple of seconds and glowed red. I hoped that I would not need to have an IV, like last time. Someone in scrubs came in and put electrodes on my chest and hooked it up to a machine that showed my heart rhythms and breathing rate.
I was left alone with the constant sounds of beeps and clicks from the various things stuck to me. Somehow I'd ended up in a room by myself, the only good thing to come of this stay. Even so, it was maddening being left totally alone again, with just my thoughts.
So not only was I a weakling who needed hospitalized from running and now from swimming, but the only guy who'd ever defended me against my intimidating family had been kicked to the curb while I gave all the credit—and smiles—to a guy who'd not only had been ordered to rescue me, but who was surely falling for the squad bicycle (Brookstone, that is—everyone will have had a ride!).
In short, I sucked. And I hated that now I had to lie here until tomorrow with only my thoughts about myself to keep me company. I could feel my tears starting yet again. And this time, no one in my family would dare visit me. I was now more of a pariah than I'd ever been before. I literally had no one.
I wished I could take it back, my breakup with Harris. It was clear that Callahan had been trying to rub in the breakup, pairing me with Conrad, having him pin me down, and whatever she'd been discussing with Harris when they'd arrived at the obstacle course the other day.
Uh, why hadn't I grabbed some magazines from the waiting room on the way up? I wasn't in the mood to watch TV, so I'd just be lying here all day, totally bored.
I lie back in bed, using the buttons on the bed to lean it back to almost horizontal. I guess I could catch some shut-eye. What else was there to do to pass the time?
"April," a gravelly voice said.
I opened my eyes to find Lieutenant Harris had entered my room, respectfully holding his hat in front of him. He looked concerned as he scanned my face and body, seeing all the wires and tubes that had been attached to me.
"Hi," I said into the mask, my voice coming out muffled.
"What do they think?" he asked. "Did they say what they were gonna do?"
"They said I have to get my oxygen levels up," I replied, hoping he could understand me. He walked in with a strange amount of hesitancy, finally making it to my bedside.
"Can I sit here?" he questioned, pointing to a chair by my bed.
I nodded.
"I guess that's what that mask is for," Harris said, crossing his leg and getting comfortable. "You just wait—you'll be leavin' here in no time."
"Well, tomorrow at the earliest," I glumly replied. "Ugh, I hate hospitals. They are so bright and noisy. I'm never gonna get any sleep tonight."
At that, Harris rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously.
"I really do feel like shit for not noticing somethin' was goin' on sooner. Coulda saved you all this hassle."
"What were you going to do, jump into the water with your sling and police uniform?" I replied. "Then we could both drown?"
He made a brief face of hurt and immediately replaced it with more talking.
"So," he said carefully, "do you think you can talk with that thing on?"
"Uh, have I not been doing just that?" I replied, making a face at the strange question.
"Yeah, but this is in regards to what we were talkin' about earlier, just before we got to the hospital."
"Oh, that," I said, swallowing. The stupid oxygen mask was already making my throat dry out badly. Thank God that my eyes were also free from tears, but could I keep them away?
"I think you were saying something about bein' wrong about me again; is that right?" he said, a little smile playing on his lips. "Please, correct me if I'm wrong."
"That's right," I replied, grimacing behind the mask, my voice definitely muffled. "It's just—my stupid sister never calls me—so for her to go through all that trouble to lie… I dunno. It just seems so—"
"Seems pretty suspicious to me," he said, raising his eyebrows. "Maybe I was on to somethin', questioning your future brother-in-law. They all seemed awfully high-strung once they found out my line of work."
"True," I responded, "but what could they be doing? My siblings are already fairly well-off. Why would they want to be criminals?"
"You don't think rich people commit crimes? You ever hear of Leona Helmsley? She was a billionaire and a criminal to boot."
"It's not that, it's just—I always considered myself the black shee—"
He put up a finger, making a face of caution.
"Uh-uh," he interrupted, making a noise of disagreement. "In fact, I'll bet good money your sister or her little fiancé are involved in far shadier stuff than car-borrowing or ash tray-dumping."
I froze at his comment, wondering if that could possibly be true. Until half an hour ago, I hadn't even considered the idea that she'd been lying in her message, let alone why she was lying.
"Truth to tell," he replied, "I'm not even mad at your sister for her possible role in some kind of crime. I'm mad at her 'cause she got you to end things with me for no damn reason."
So there it was. Wow, so he was upset that we had broken up! I immediately felt self-conscious.
"Really, though, you should be mad at me," I muttered, swallowing. "I should have told you upfront what my sister said, and this could have all been avoided."
"You should have, but you chose to run away and avoid me, never tellin' me how you think I wronged you."
Damn it—my eyes were starting to water already. Was I really this pitiful all the time, or had the water done something to my brain?
"I suck," I said, voice breaking. Shit, here come the waterworks too. "I'm sure you realized it when you first saw me in that cell," I explained. "I mean, as far as boyfriends go, apparently I swing from total avoidance to grand theft auto, with nothing in between."
I could see him roll his eyes as I spoke.
"Is that right?"
"Apparently."
"I see. So tell me, how does bitchin' about yourself fix any of this?"
I lifted my hand to my face, wiping away a tear.
"Well, what would fix it?"
He seemed to already be poised with an answer. He raised his eyebrows as he spoke, looking matter-of-fact.
"How about pretending this last week didn't happen at all?"
I gave him a look of confusion, which apparently was the emotion that was able to stop my crying successfully. Wait—was he suggesting what I think he was suggesting?
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He raised his eyebrows patronizingly.
"Think about it, Carnegie," he answered, poking himself in the head with a finger. "You gotta get those water-logged brain cells back to work."
I frowned at him as I considered if he actually meant what he said. Was he in fact suggesting we get back together? His face didn't change expression; he just quietly waited for me to process what he'd said. I was most definitely gaping at him behind my mask.
"Are you suggesting we forget about the breakup—"
"Uh huh."
Now he was grinning, his head held high, as he watched my responses.
"But what about my being an asshole to you these past couple of days?" I replied. "I let you fall on the tires and didn't even look back. I definitely checked out most of A squad. I wasn't even—"
"That don't matter," he cut in, raising an eyebrow. "No one would ever mistake me for Mother Theresa. Now, up until your family started runnin' their mouths, were we not… enjoying ourselves?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This bitter, cynical man was willing to just let bygones be bygones? It didn't seem like him—hell, he was still holding onto grudges against cadets from the mid-eighties! Was he really being serious about this?
I must have let the silence linger for too long, because he spoke again.
"Maybe this is the wrong time to talk about this," he said, looking momentarily self-conscious. "I mean, you coulda actually died today, and you're not even in the clear just yet." He stood up abruptly, tucking his hat under an arm. "I oughta let you rest."
I could only look up at him, not sure exactly what to say. I didn't know him well enough to know if he really meant that we should get back together, or if he was planning to turn around and dump me right back. Apparently my silence unnerved him.
"If I don't get back to the academy tonight, there's gonna be lots of questions," he said. He glanced down briefly at his wristwatch then back up at me. "You're missing the municipal code exam right now, you know."
"No, I get it; you have to go back," I replied. "Thanks for bringing me here and for sticking around to talk."
"I'll be back tomorrow," he said with a poor attempt at a reassuring smile, "You just rest up and get better real soon."
With that, he patted my leg, his smile fading. He gave me a little bow of the head and turned around to go. Now was my chance—should I make an impulsive decision or sleep on it? I was certainly impulsive when I broke up with him. I lowered my mask, wanting to be as clear as possible in my reply.
"Uh, Thaddeus?" I began, awkwardly enough. He stopped in place, and I could see him straighten his shoulders. I continued speaking.
"I'm okay with forgetting the last week—if you are."
Immediately he turned back around, his expression completely transforming from uncertainty into happiness. For a moment, he gave a little suspicious look, raising an eyebrow.
"You sure about this?"
Now I smiled at him, still keeping my mask lowered.
"Yeah," I said. "I am."
