After
The gurney wheel is wobbling. It's squeaking and shimmying and rattling my bones. Tyler's getting dibs on the x-ray and CAT scan. They want to be sure his spine and brain are ok before they start working on his face. I wonder if he's going to be … disfigured …
The thought makes me feel light-headed and scared. I don't want to be here, but closing my eyes just takes me back to his van skidding toward me. Just like that, and everything is changed. What you thought your world was when you woke up in the morning is gone, and something else is in its place.
What would I do if I looked in the mirror and the face that I saw was … altered? If I could never get my old face – my real face – back, ever again?
My dad can't be here; I know that. I wonder if he's in the woods by now, tracking – what would it be? A bear, I guess. He'll be ok. He's good at what he does. He was an Eagle Scout. He's the one they call for stuff like this. I'll be ok, too. I've never done the whole hospital thing by myself, before, but I'm not eight anymore, either.
It's my turn for the machines now. In the meanwhile, someone has come to stick me with a needle for blood. Yes, the hospital is secretly staffed by vampires. Don't tell anyone.
I look away and close my eyes and think of Edward's face instead. So close to mine that I felt the breath of his nostrils exhale over my face. Sweet and cool. Like medicine. Like the breeze you long for in summer. And his eyes. Not black. Golden. The color of honey with the sun shining through it. Even though this morning was as grey and dark as every other.
I hear someone saying they might send me to Port Angeles for an MRI. Please don't. And how come they're not sending Tyler?
I think about Edward. I think about my dad. I tell people my name and date of birth and no I'm not having any pain, about a zillion times. I get pushed around like meat on a slab from room to room to room.
X-ray was fast. CAT scan is slow. My head and upper body are in the machine, now, and my feet are sticking out. I'm supposed to hold really still. It's making a bunch of loud clinking noises. "Half an hour," the tech said. To get sliced six ways to Sunday by the radiation. "Try not to breathe." I hear new voices rushing by, out in the hall.
"… that boy … thousand times … seat belt …"
Must be Tyler's parents. Maybe they'll give me a ride home when all of this is done. If they're still here. I hope he's ok.
After CAT scan, I'm put back in one of the little screened-off bays – all by myself, now, since they're done with the tests and the needles, and I'm not hurt. I am hooked up to an I.V. drip, though. I watch the fluid go drip, drip, drip, from the bag into the little reservoir thingy that feeds it into the tube, and into my arm. The shakes come and go. Sometimes I feel a little nauseous. Sometimes I want to cry. I want to go home, now. I hope they don't really send me to Port Angeles. How will anybody ever find me over there?
I hear some kind of a commotion, over where I can't see. A door bangs against a wall.
"She's in station 2."
"Thanks."
It's my dad's voice, short and clipped.
I'm off the table before I even know what I'm doing. A sharp tug on my arm stops me. I almost fall. There's a little blood, but I haven't pulled it out, thank God.
"Bella!"
He's lifting me up and putting me back on the table. He's still strong enough to do that. I'm still small enough that he can.
"That boy's not driving again 'till he's thirty!"
"Dad, it wasn't his fault! There was ice. I couldn't even walk without holding onto something …"
"Save it."
And then his hands are all over me. "Are you hurt? What did the docs say? Can you see ok?"
"Dad, I'm fine. Serious." I'm such a liar.
"Where's Carlisle?"
He came. My dad came.
"I hear the Chief's daughter is here."
The clear voice is like a call, and I look up to see a blond man walk through the swinging door into the ER. He is dressed in a very traditional and doctorly white coat, and although he isn't remarkably tall, his strides are long and quick.
In no time, he's here at the bed where I'm sitting, all cross-legged and clumsy and out of place. My Dad and he give each other the kind of short nods that men do when they've worked together before, on things that are serious and not pleasant.
"Carlisle."
"Charlie."
The doctor turns his attention to me.
… …
He is not a 'super-hottie surgeon'.
He is a seraph.
Somehow descended from heaven.
I'm staring like a fool – I don't even know how long – confusing his face with pictures of the Annunciation. But he never even blinks. His eyes are just gentle and kind, his mouth sweet and soft, as he offers me his hand.
Too close. Too close. Too beautiful. Straight nose, clear brow, pale skin; and flaxen hair that seems to glow under the fluorescent lights.
"Hello, Bella. I'm Dr. Cullen."
I realize that his eyes are golden, too. Darker than his hair. The same honey hazel as Edward's.
I say "Hi," back, and shake his hand.
It's as cool and smooth as a river stone.
That is a rule, you know. All doctors have to have cold hands. They throw you out of medical school if you don't.
"How are you feeling, Bella?"
"I'm fine, actually. I don't even need to be here." All I want right now is to go home and curl up under the covers. Edward escaped all of this. The collar. The stretcher. The ambulance ride. The QUESTIONS. It's not fair. He left me. Just left me. All alone on the little wedge of asphalt between Tyler's van and my truck. With the broken glass all around.
My Dad is talking.
"CAT scan show anything, Doc?"
"All clear. X-rays, too." Dr. Cullen has allowed himself a small smile, and for a moment I see, really see, how terribly youthful he is. He really doesn't look that much older than his adopted children. No wonder people talk. Then he puts his professional face back on, and looks some generic doctor age again. "The Crowley boy is going to be fine, as well," he says. "Looks like we dodged the bullet this time."
My Dad just grunts at that. Tyler's going to be in his bad books for quite a while, yet.
Dr. Cullen turns back to me. "Bella, I know Dr. Lindsey has already examined you, but, with your permission …"
How can I say no?
Dr. Cullen runs his fingertips over my skull, shoulders, ribs and back, then presses on my stomach and tests my elbows, wrists and hands, knees, ankles and feet; all the while asking, "Does this hurt? Any pain when you move this way?" He is completely absorbed in every tiny movement, with his eyes half closed, and even cocking his head this way and that, as if listening to my joints as he puts them through their paces.
I don't know what he's looking for. Maybe he doesn't trust the machines. I only know that he is listening to me with his hands, knowing me all the way to the center of my bones, and … it's all right. There's something about his face, something so strangely sad, as though life is too precious to him. It makes me wonder where he may have practiced before coming here. Maybe he was in Iraq, too?
Last of all, he's taking out his penlight and shining it in my eyes, then making me follow as he moves it up and down and to all different sides. From start to finish, my Dad is watching everything like a hawk. I think he trusts Dr. Cullen more than the scanners, too.
"Any headache? Dizziness? Nausea?" I shake my head at each one. "Any blurry vision or flashes of light?"
"Edward saved me!"
I just blurt it out. It had been building up inside. All through the tests, and the waiting, and the rides back and forth on wobbly gurney wheels. Staring into Dr. Cullen's face, I can't hold it in even one second more.
My Dad looks sharply at the doctor.
"Your boy?"
"He saved my life," I repeat.
How can I say what had happened? The way Edward got to me so fast – too fast to even see – and stopped the skidding van with one hand … The nightmare that didn't happen … The mess that he and I should have been – body parts too smooshed together to ever separate. I'm shaking again.
"I think everyone was very, very lucky today, Bella," Dr. Cullen answers, putting his penlight back into the breast pocket of his coat. His free hand is on my shoulder; cool, even through my clothes, but steadying me all the same.
My Dad's hands are shoved deep into his own pockets. "So, can I take her home, now, Doc?"
Dr. Cullen looks slightly uncomfortable. "Well, actually, Charlie, I'd like to keep her here for observation."
"What? NO! Dad -!" I want to do my shaking and recovering in my own room, in my own bed, under my too-thin quilts, with the new bulb in the nightlight shining in the corner.
"You said her X-rays were clear."
"They are. But she's suffered a head injury, and twenty-three hour observation is standard, even when the patient isn't showing any symptoms. You know that, Charlie."
"My head is fine!"
Dr. Cullen smiles gently and runs his fingers down the back of my skull. It's a little tender, and I wince before I can stop myself. But it was Edward's knuckles that had smashed into the pavement as we fell, not my head. He'd put his hands under my head, made a cage around me of his arms and legs. I remember the elbows of his jacket and the knees of his pants when he got up. They were shredded.
Dr. Cullen is talking to me. "Your brain is made of very soft and delicate tissue, Bella. And it's one of the most highly vascularized organs in your body. A bleed could develop later, even hours after the injury."
"Can't my dad just bring me in if I start to feel bad?"
"He could. But do you want him to be up all night doing neurochecks on you? And worrying about getting you here in time to avoid brain damage if something does go wrong?"
Wow, he sure knows how to make me stop resisting. I just hang my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad glancing at Dr. Cullen with a shit-eating grin. I'm out-numbered and out-conspiracied. Again.
Dr. Cullen seems to take pity on me.
"How about this, Bella. We'll just admit you for the night. If you're still doing fine by morning, I'll have the nurses discharge you in time for school tomorrow."
He's looking at me with that strange, sad kindness in his eyes again.
"Do we have a deal?"
His golden, golden eyes.
Just like Edward's.
What are the odds of that? When they're not even related.
I nod my head.