Part Two
*~*~*
Blair sat still, blowing air out of his mouth and breathing deep in through his nose, sorry that he hadn't done his swan dive onto the changing bench instead of sinking all the way to the floor. Now he had to pull himself up onto shaky legs. The room was small but warm and it only took him a few tries to get his pants on.
The knocking had stopped some time ago and he could only hope that the doctor had given up and was now printing up his release waiver, because he was leaving, no doubt about it.
He fumbled his phone, pulling it from his pocket, pressing the speed dial. Jim picked up on the first ring. "Done already?"
"Umm, yeah...where are you?" He sank onto the bench, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear, pulling on one shoe with a shaky hand.
"I'm in line at J.C. Penny's. I can..."
"No, no Jim. I'll wait out front for you; take your time, man." He reached for his other shoe, drawing in a short breath as a sharp pain zipped through his thigh.
"Blair? What aren't you telling me?"
He'd bet all the money in his wallet that Jim wasn't in line anymore. "I'm fine, stay and finish shopping, really."
"Blair..."
"Jim. Come on, man. I'll tell you all about it over dinner at the diner."
After he hung up, he went in search of the doctor. The man was on the phone, talking urgently into the receiver, back turned to Blair.
He considered just walking out, but with a little more time to think, he knew he would have to talk things through with the man, see if he had any other alternatives. What he really needed was more options…other options.
Finding a bank of chairs along the wall in the narrow hallway, he sat, waiting. The doctor consulted a gadget he pulled from his pocket and then went back to his phone conversation.
It was a good twenty minutes before Dr. Sallings hung up, scratched his head and turned slowly in a circle before spotting Blair. "Mr. Sandburg." He came around the nurse's kiosk, hands shoved deep into his lab coat pockets. "I have to admit, I'm at a loss here. You need this surgery, it's not a matter of if, if you don't have this procedure soon, your intestines will die, your waste will back up and start to leak, slowly poisoning you and you will die. How can I make you..."
Blair held up his hands, not wanting to hear anymore. There had to be some way, anyway besides going under the knife. "Look, Dr. Sallings. I hear you, okay? I just need some time..."
"But Mr. Sandburg. That's what I'm telling you, there is no time."
"Time for what?" a familiar voice asked.
Crap on a stick.
Turning, he saw Jim moving toward them from the elevator. "Jim, I thought I told you I'd meet you out front, man." Blair blew out a hurried breath, running a nervous hand through his hair.
He didn't have a choice all those years ago, but he wasn't a little boy anymore.
"I'll be out in a minute." It came out strained and he could tell that Jim wasn't satisfied as he turned from his friend; mad as hell at the turn of events.
The doctor looked beyond him, hoping to find some support from Jim, but thankfully Jim didn't say a word.
"I'm going home Dr. Sallings. I'll be in touch." He turned on his heels and walked quickly passed Jim to the elevator at the end of the hall.
He needed to get away from this place, needed time, time to think about what he had to do.
*~*~*
Surprisingly, Jim drove without comment.
Blair was ready for the confrontation that he was so sure would start as soon as he got in the truck, but his friend was strangely quiet.
The silence grew as Jim turned off the interstate, taking the exit for Rainier, pulling into the diner parking lot. The metal framed building glittered in the early evening sunset, customers waited to be seated, some sitting on the bench that abutted the entryway, some leaning against and gazing at the huge glass-enclosed dessert case.
Blair loved the giant éclairs, the creamy filling and fragile pasty covered in milk chocolate. He would even cut it in half and take home the other chunk for a midnight snack...that is if Jim didn't get to it first.
The waitress soon called Jim's name, sitting them in a booth, leaving a huge menu with multiple dinner specials, but once Blair opened the vinyl cover, he found he wasn't really hungry. In fact his stomach was queasy, rumbling in hunger, but something heavy sat in the pit, seemingly pressing his other organs up. Slow churning bile worked its way up to his throat.
He closed his menu, head down, eyes staring at the floating ice in his water glass.
Finally Jim broke his silence. "You know, Chief, you're gonna have to do something..."
He looked at his friend, "I know, man...I know."
"Is it because you're scared? Has something..."
"No." his denial was sharp, but he lowered his eyes back to his glass, hazily noting the running drops of condensation. "Not really."
Man, this is so stupid.
"Than what is it?" Jim asked, pushing his menu aside, folding his hands on the table in front of him. "You know you can talk to me, here? I won't judge you."
And he knew that was true.
Jim was his friend, his best friend...hell, more like a brother.
So why is it so hard to tell him?
It's silly, that's why, a stupid childish fear.
Blair smiled a little, sitting back in the booth, picking up his straw paper and twirling it over his finger, twisting the paper around and around. "When I was younger, I was staying with my grandparent's while Naomi was on some retreat. I was playing with a kid that was staying with his aunt, Mrs. Danbush. She was a really nice lady, used to invite me over for homemade cookies and chocolate milk." The warm memory filled his belly, taking away some of the tightly coiled knot in his gut. He loved spending time with his Memaw and Dedad.
They were one of his best childhood memories and he really missed them.
"Sounds nice, Chief."
"Yeah, yeah it was. Anyway, Micky and I were making a fort in one of the trees in her backyard. He'd made this pulley system to bring up some old two by fours and planks we found in an old wood mill down the road."
Jim sat still, one hand resting on his drinking glass, the other palm down on the table. His friend was listening; really listening to him and it made the whole thing seem all the more ridiculous.
"Anyway, on one of my trips up to lay the floor, I slipped...fell about ten feet and knew as soon as I hit the ground my arm was broken. I could hear it snapping." A fine tremor ran the length of his arm as he thought about that horrible day, the pain and confusion, his grandmother holding him and singing softly as he cried in the back seat of their old station wagon, his grandfather speeding down the rural road they lived on to the interstate that would take them to the nearest hospital.
"What happened?" Jim asked, shifting in his seat, bringing Blair back to the here and now.
"Poor Mrs. Danbush almost had a coronary; she was so beside herself, she really panicked. Micky ran and got my grandpa and he took me to the emergency room."
Blair shifted back, not sure how to say the rest. He didn't want to sound stupid or immature. It had happened so long ago, yet he could still remember the pain. Even now as he thought back to that day, it all came back in a rush and he could tell his face was flushing, feel rivets of sweat run down between his shoulder blades.
"Blair?"
He shook his head, running a shaky hand through his hair. "Sorry, it's just not a very pleasant memory."
"You've got nothing to be sorry for. Whatever happened wasn't your fault."
And in his heart he knew that. But his brain was hard to get around sometimes.
"Um…they had to set my arm, so they gave me an anesthetic. The E.R. doctor waited for a bit...I could really feel the pain by then, but they didn't give me anything because the sedation should have taken care of it. It only made me drowsy though, did nothing for the pain and I kept telling them it hurt, but they didn't believe me, so..."
Jim sat up in his chair, lax hands forming into fists. "Are you saying that they reset your broken arm and you could feel..."
"Every bit of it, man." A cold chill ran up his spin with the thought of it. Images of sitting on an exam table passed behind his closed eyes. His arm was raised in some kind of traction contraption, each finger incased in some kind of mesh, holding his arm upright, the doctor kept telling him to calm down and to stop crying. 'Come on; settle down, it can't hurt, kid.'
He cleared his throat a couple of times before finishing. "I tried to tell them, but for whatever reason they didn't believe me." He shivered more; wrapping the straw paper so tight around his finger the tip was turning bright red. "But I still remember how that felt. Alone and scared and hurting and the one person that's suppose to help you doesn't give a shit because you're just a dumb little kid."
"Did he say that to you, Blair?"
"What…yeah, I guess. It's a little fuzzy. The drugs they gave me made me tired, I thought I was dying because I was floating, you know. I can remember him talking about his weekend. He talked to the tech while they held me down and set my arm. It was so surreal."
"Blair, I…"
"I can still feel it, Jim. I remember the feeling of my bones rubbing together as he twisted my arm back and forth, the sound of them scraping against each other and I just can't...I know it's stupid..."
"It is not." Jim's jaw clinched and Blair smiled. Not like Jim could do anything about it now. "You were just a little boy and the doctor should have made sure you had good pain control, but Blair, you gotta know that was one man's mistake. I can see why you're not too fond of doctor's in general, but we both know you need this surgery."
He dropped his eyes once again, fiddling with the menu still in front of him.
He had always known that it was a very real possibility.
"I hate this."
"Look, if you don't like Dr. Sallings, we'll find another doctor and if that guys a jerk, we'll look some more, but you have got to do this."
He knew Jim was right. It wasn't gonna go away this time.
But dread still settled in his stomach, making him queasy and he just didn't want to have to think about it for now. "Look, Jim, I know you're concerned but I don't really want to deal with it right now." He took a quick drink; the ice had long since melted. "I need time to think." He started to get up, but Jim reached out and grabbed his arm, the same one that had been broken in a fall so long ago. "Let go."
"Not until you listen to some reason." Jim's eyes softened. Blair supposed he saw the panic in his eyes. "Come on, Chief. You're not a little kid anymore. You're a grown man…"
"You're right. So get the hell off of me and let me go." He wrenched his arm from Jim's grasp, quickly picking up his backpack and turning to leave.
"Blair, wait…"
But he didn't stop. He pushed through the heavy metal door into the cold, half expecting Jim to stop him. Walking quickly down the ramp, he turned onto the street, passing Jim's truck and kept walking. Jim called to him again from somewhere behind, but he didn't turn, just picked up his pace. It didn't matter that Jim didn't understand. He didn't even understand what he was feeling and he needed time to think.
Yanking his cell phone from his pack, he dialed Missy Lambert at home. When she answered, her voice seemed muzzy, like maybe she had been sleeping. "It's Blair. Did I wake you?"
He could hear her shifting on sheets and blankets, clearing her throat. "I was just catching a cat nap. What's wrong?"
He shouldn't have called her. "I'm sorry, I'll…"
"No, don't hang up. I'm up. Come over and we'll talk."
"Are you sure, I mean I don't want to…"
"Just come. I'll make you some waffles with whipped cream."
He laughed, relaxing as he flagged down a cab, scooting into the back set, giving the address to the cabbie. "It's not time for breakfast."
"Ah, but does it really matter? You love waffles."
As the car lurched forward he sighed, resting his head back on the seat. "I'll see you soon."
*~*~*
TBC
