Chapter Text
⋮
It’s 6:30pm on a Friday night and I am definitely in hell.
The sun went down 15 minutes ago, casting beautiful oranges and reds all over the refractive surfaces of the B&G offices.
Josh had gotten up and closed the blinds. Said it was “too distracting to work properly.”
We’re both here, suffering, with no end in sight.
Every year, Gamin has hosted an annual meeting for the Board of Directors, authors, agents, and “friends of the company” to reassure them of our stability. Bexley, instead, put out a full glossy annual report that puts Vogue to shame.
Now, after the merger, we’re doing both.
“I don’t know why Helene asked you to run the Q2 numbers. You know I’m doing a company-wide report, right?” Joshua taunts from the desk across from me.
The event has to go perfectly. Since we merged, everyone is especially curious how successful we’ve been weathering the storms of print media. Two other publishing houses have gone under since then - one a boutique shop and the other similar to our size.
Everyone is a little panicked.
“Oh, Joshua. One day you’ll make a mistake, and I can’t wait to be here to see it. Besides, haven’t you heard of risk contingency? Having one person in charge of all the data is just begging for problems…”
He’s not looking at me, typing furiously at his computer. I match his speed perfectly. I’m not even working on text, I just have a document open next to my powerpoint slides and I’m typing out my meal plan for the week. Maybe the month. He types very fast.
My eyes flicker over to him. His jaw is tense.
“That’s not the proper use of that term.”
“Oh? Perhaps you can instruct me. I know how much you love explaining things.”
“Lucinda.”
“Joshua.”
“You’re distracting me.”
He’s not looking, so I let myself smile.
Fortunately for all of us, Helene and Bexley have been so nervous about our first joint meeting-slash-report that they stopped bickering long enough to make some good decisions. Namely, putting me in charge of the event, and Joshua in charge of the report.
I have almost everything complete. The investor breakfast is at 9am on Monday, and the author meet and greet right after. Even the coldest of the money people love schmoozing with the authors. It’ll warm everyone up just before the state-of-the-union-type presentations, the first of which features Helene onstage reassuring everyone that we are doing just fine.
I’ve saved Bexley’s financial forecast for the afternoon, when everyone will be dozing off. Joshua isn’t even on the schedule. Wouldn’t want an automaton to bring down my event.
My slides are almost done, but I need to finish Helene’s speech and then go over everything in order, a virtual walkthrough in my mind, to prepare for all contingencies. Her speech needs to sparkle, and she’s asked me to put in some references to our publications. I have a stack of all the year’s books behind me, marked and annotated, ready for review.
And oh - my favorite part. Selene Morrison, our keynote speaker.
Her breakout book wasn’t my doing, but ever since I read the early drafts I was in love. It’s only been out a month, and while it’s not yet a blockbuster, we heard the New York Times is sniffing around for a review. We have groundswell, we have word-of-mouth. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed - romance mixed into a literary masterpiece crossing genres and three different timelines, something blended together so lusciously it defies categorization. The reviewers don’t always know what to do with it, but the Goodreads reviews keep coming, as do the sales. I want nothing but success for her, and by extension, B&G.
We’ve been emailing since her galley proof came out and I worked up the courage to put my admiration into words. I can’t wait to meet her, and she already asked me to recommend a good place for drinks in the city after the work-mandated after party.
She could be my new best friend.
As long as Joshua doesn’t get in the way.
“I do need those budget forecasts, Lucinda. Sooner rather than later. The final draft goes for review at 9pm. That gives you,” he makes a dramatic show of pulling his jacket back to look at his expensively large watch, even though he’s sitting right at his computer. “Less than two hours and seventeen minutes.”
“I am aware of the time, Joshua.”
Actually I’ve had the numbers done since lunch. I’m going to drag this out as long as possible, to make him stay. I think I can finish in an hour, and Joshua will be stuck here, still waiting until the very last minute, while I breeze out with a smile. I am a mastermind.
My stomach grumbles. It’s been weird since this morning, a combination of stress and too much coffee. Bravely, I have been ignoring it. Now I frown, shifting in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position to save myself from the ache starting in my side. I don’t want Joshua to even hear my pangs. Everything is a weakness with him, something for him to exploit.
I’m adjusting the layout of the final slide when I notice he’s started the Staring Game.
He can wait. Every minute I get ahead is another he’s working late.
“All right, Shortcake. Dinner. What will it be?”
He sounds so strangely normal. Chummy. I never see him eat. The thought of sharing a meal with him makes me vaguely uncomfortable. It’s Friday night and I realize the whole office is gone, and right now it’s just the two of us, typing furiously away at each other, alone together.
The last slide is done, perfect and professional. I hit save again just to be safe and finally turn to look at him. I shift around, searching under his desk, the sides, at the ceiling.
“Do you eat? I thought by now you would be hooked up to your feeding tube. Or are you out of soylent green? I was wondering where the new intern went.”
“Ha ha. I’m more concerned about you. Your stomach has been making noises for the last hour and if your blood sugar drops any more, I’m afraid you’ll start hunting for other sources.”
“Too bad there’s only robots here.”
He’s frowning, but not in the usual way. “What are you in the mood for, Lucinda? Thai, pizza?”
I am not going to order dinner with Joshua Templeman. Even if my stomach is turning in knots now. It seems too…something.
I wave him off. “Too much to do, terminator. I’ll enjoy a nice dinner at home soon, in some lacey pajamas. But you feel free to order, I think you might be here all night.”
Okay - Helene’s speech. I can do this. I stand up to grab the first stack of books and wince, grabbing my stomach. Something drops heavy in it from behind my bellybutton, the pain settling around my hips in an odd way. I should not have taken a chance on that questionable creamer in the break room earlier. Massaging the spot, I keep my eyes from Joshua and toss the pile of books on my desk. I can do this.
Selene’s book is on top. The design team did such a good job with the cover. I run my hands over it for just a minute. The memory of my first read is still strong, how I stayed up until 2am to finish, crying and wrecked afterward in the best way. She told me she’s already working on a sequel. I have a nice, unmarked copy on my shelf behind me, saved just for her to sign. I hope I can be at least a little normal when we meet. Sighing wistfully, I crack the cover reverently, looking for some quotes to pull into Helene’s speech.
“You and that book.”
I frown. Joshua figured out my affinity for the novel quickly - not that I’d be hiding it. But it feels wrong for him to know about something I love unabashedly. Another vulnerability. If he spied on my calendar like I did his, he knows I have happy hour outlined late Monday with little hearts and a smiley face.
I don’t even know if Joshua reads our publications. He probably feeds financial textbooks straight into his brain, like the matrix.
Instead of scowling, I put on my best customer service smile and look up. He’s worked all day and yet not a hair is out of place, his tie still immaculate, not a wrinkle on his paycheck-black shirt that fits him so well. “Yes, Joshua - as the employee of a publishing house, I do tend to like books.”
“Is romance your genre, then? Nothing like a nice hard book to keep you company on those long, lonely nights?”
I frown. I’m not going to get into an argument with him about the merits of romance, the misunderstood traditions, the history of sexism in dismissing the genre…and besides, this one is genre-busting.
This year, I’ve kept my office bookshelves filled with B&G publications. When we first met and he was so cold, it made me nervous. Along with my Smurfs I took my specialty edition Jane Austens and L.M. Montgomerys home with me, to keep them safe from men with MBAs and no whimsy in their hearts.
“I must admit, I do love the fantasy of it all,” I respond. “Men with manners, men who are kind, men who are more appealing than cave trolls…”
“Men who have heartbeats, men who actually exist…when’s the last time you went on a date, Shortcake?”
I stand up fast, intending to stalk over to him - and get some stretches in, my butt is killing me.
Too fast, though. Oof. The room spins. Shit. My blood sugar must really be low. That weird pain tweaks in my lower belly again and for a minute, I think I might pass out.
“Are you all right?”
I want to fight him, to tell him to fuck off, to make with some witty repartee. It’s been a long day and I can feel myself slipping. Slipping fast. Annoyingly, he gets up from his desk, stupidly tall, walking over to me while I try to blink the room back into order.
“Lucy, seriously - you’re pale as a sheet. Take a breath. What’s going on?”
Joshua stands in front of me, an uncharacteristically open and concerned look on his face. I’ve never seen this face on him before. It’s…kind of nice.
And then I vomit all over his shoes.
⋮
The downtown ER on a Friday night is, indeed, the next level of hell.
Joshua drove me there in his car, something sporty and black I didn’t quite pay attention to as he shuffled me in. The clean leather and cedar smell helped with my nausea, and somewhere along the way he cracked the window which kept me from throwing up in the coffee cup he gave me.
His knuckles were white on the steering wheel the whole way there. After grilling me, angry and his voice low about all my symptoms, he didn’t say a single word until we got to the emergency room.
It’s chaotic, loud and smelly here. The plastic padded chairs are icing-pink, the walls were once a soothing grey but now are covered with a suspicious film of dirt. A baby is wailing right into Joshua’s ear. Someone is moaning in pain. An old woman in pajamas is napping on the bench next to me.
“Joshua, this is ridiculous.”
It is absolutely not ridiculous. The pain in my side is only getting worse. I almost blacked out when I stood up to get out of the car. Josh had to haul me in, his steel arms around my ribs.
I’m trying to breathe low and deep but the smells in the room keep kicking up my nausea. Green plastic vomit bags hang on the wall like concessions and I’ve timed how long I think it will take to lunge and grab one, should the need arise.
When I checked in, fumbling blearily through my purse for my ID and insurance card, I felt more foolish than ever. It’s probably a stomach bug, maybe that bad creamer. I should have eaten better, and I wouldn’t be in this terrible mess. Waiting at the hospital with my nemesis who wants to wring my neck.
When my voice wavered and I told the bored check-in nurse my pain was at a two, maybe a three, he had bustled in and pushed me back from the counter.
“She’s presenting with symptoms of appendicitis. Persistent pain low in her abdomen on the right side, nausea, dizziness. She needs to be seen immediately - it could rupture.”
I had no idea where he was getting all of this. My mind was racing to catch up. The nurse glared at him and when he started yelling, I had to go sit down. He followed me at least, the security guard in the corner eyeing us with annoyance.
How much he must hate me. Friday night spent at the hospital. He’s barely spoken two words since we got here. I can feel the anger roiling off of him like steam. His dentist is going to need to speak with him about clenching his jaw. I can refer him to my own - although he hasn’t been successful in helping me either.
His knee is jiggling up and down, shaking my chair next to his. Somehow, it makes me feel a tiny bit better. Although maybe he’s just shorting out.
I wonder if he’ll blame me - tell Bexley it’s my fault the annual meeting-slash-report is a giant flop?
“Josh - shit. The print deadline.”
The report needs to go to print by 7am on Saturday to be ready by Monday’s meeting. It needs to be finished, proof read…three dozen board members, authors and agents are waiting on this document of success and reassuring numbers and I’m fucking it all up.
He will never, ever forgive me this one. If it wasn’t so important, I’d revel in his failure. But this is all of us - about the future of B&G.
“Lucy, stop worrying.”
“Stop worrying? Josh - the meeting, I just have a little stomach ache but we need the publication -”
“I’ve already texted Johnson and Brooks to finish it. I sent my draft to them after we arrived. They’ll take care of it.”
The heads of the finance and marketing teams are not going to be happy. Even more people pissed at me. When they let me go in five hours for indigestion I am never, ever living this down.
Especially not with Josh.
“You’re thinking too loud, Lucinda. Just focus on not passing out. What’s your pain level now?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. This is all just…”
“Ridiculous?” He’s so angry.
I try to roll my eyes but the motion makes me feel sick again. I eye those vomit bags across the room.
He sighs, watching me. Gets up and grabs one, then wanders to the vending machines. When he gets back he has a pack of cheese crackers open for me.
“Try to eat these. Slowly. If it’s your appendix they’ll want you in for surgery, but you need to keep your strength up too.”
“Where are you getting all this?” I nibble at a cracker, dry and crumbling, but it does make me feel a little better. He cracks open a bottle of water I didn’t see and I sip at it, the water cooling against my ragged throat.
He’s quiet for a little while. I think he might be ignoring me. When he finally speaks up, I can barely hear him against the noisiness of the room.
“Um, I did a year of pre-med. And, my family, all doctors. Surgeons. A family tradition I guess.”
I don’t know anything at all about him. It’s weird thinking of his…his family.
All doctors, and one hardass assistant.
Pain radiates from my side again and I can’t help but whimper, folding over a bit. Josh looks at me like my pain is a personal affront to him.
“Is there someone I can call for you?”
He’s so ready to get rid of me. But there’s no one here. I’m all alone.
Oh my god - my parents. Thinking about my mom and dad almost starts the tears I’ve been working so hard to hold back.
But what would I tell them? Hi, I’m in a lot of pain and the ER is crowded and I’m being taken care of by my mortal enemy. No, mom, I don’t know if I’ll get checked in before I pass out. Don’t worry too much from five hundred miles away!
“Um, no, no one. Sorry.” All I can do is apologize tonight. Someone starts kicking the vending machine. “I guess if I die you should call Helene? Her number’s in my cell under ‘CEO of my heart’.”
“Lucy, you’re not going to die.” He says it so matter-of-factly I believe him for a minute. He is rather commanding, I’ll give him that.
I don’t have the energy to fight him. If Joshua Templeman says I’m not going to die, I guess for now I will listen.
⋮
Over the last two hours, my pain has only increased. My side is on fire, a big tender painful mass where some organ should be. And either they’ve turned up the heat in here or I have a fever. Everything has been getting progressively hazier, the room taking on a nightmare-like quality.
I’m on my third vomit bag of the evening. A second fussing baby has joined the wait, a man is fighting with the security guard, and Fox news is blaring on the television.
Maybe I did die - passed out on the shiny floor of B&G - and this is actually hell.
It really might be, because Josh is beside me, stony-faced, holding the disgusting vomit bag in his hand. When I gag and my muscles heave the pain in my side blooms into something unbearable. My throat is burning and I’m covered in a sheen of sweat. I feel awful all over and there’s nowhere to curl up and hide from this misery, especially under the watchful eye of my mortal enemy.
When he comes back from tossing the bag he hands me a wet wipe, then, like a magician, produces the tin of mints from his pocket.
I’m already shaking with tears in my eyes, and seeing that little box of mints pushes me entirely over. I whimper, something hard catching in my throat.
Worried, he sits down. His hands are hovering, not quite touching me. For once, he’s discomposed - it’s rare I see Josh not knowing exactly what to do.
“You don’t have to stay,” I manage to croak out. My throat is burning from the bile. If he actually leaves me I think I might die here. But why is he here? This place is miserable and I am gross, he should have dumped me here and run off ages ago to finish the annual report. It’s the perfect opportunity to one-up me and I’m confused why he hasn’t taken it yet. He’s obviously furious - his jaw locked tight as a trap and a permanent scowl on his face.
Suddenly his hand is on my chin, surprisingly soft. He lifts my head to look at him, and the vision of his stupidly perfect face blurs under my tears.
“Lucy, listen to me.” I’ve never heard him so soft and patient before. It’s like a doppleganger has taken his place. “You’ve been right all along. I don’t have a social life or anything to do. All I do is work and go to the gym and go home. You’re not keeping me from anything. In fact, there is absolutely nothing I would rather be doing right now than sitting here, making sure you’re okay.”
I realize I haven't been touched in a very long time. A man is touching me and telling me he wants to take care of me. In my pain, all I want is to be held.
That does it.
My chin wobbles. I see his eyes go wide.
Josh cares about me, a little voice in my fever brain whispers. Josh wants to be my friend.
“Shit, Lucy…don't cry.”
I don't listen. I burst into tears.
I crumple, leaning against him. I hurt all over and I’m sobbing into the fabric of Josh’s suit coat.
He’s stiff for a minute, just like I expect, a cold, unmovable mountain covered in ice.
Then his arm is around me, warm and firm. My head finds the perfect spot between his shoulder and neck and he pulls me close. I take a big greedy sniff - the cedar of his soap, clean mint, and a light sheen of sweat, masculine and comforting.
Joshua Templeman is holding me.
Impossible.
I really must be dead.
⋮
I’m rocking back and forth in the plastic chair. I know it’s squeaking but I just can’t help it.
Hurts hurts hurts hurts.
I have never wanted my mom more in my life.
“Josh,” I whisper. I’m afraid he won’t hear me over the noises of the ER but his head turns to me whip-fast. “It really hurts.”
I know he can’t do anything about it - this place is packed and he’s already pissed off the front desk lady. If I survive this he’s going to get an earful about working with service people. But right now I don’t know what else to do.
He looks as pale as I feel. His eyes are dark scary new moons. I feel a little bit like he might transform into a hulk and rip down a door.
“Shortcake, on a scale of 1 to 10, what is your pain level if you are being honest and not trying to be a hardass?”
I have to lean a certain way to keep pressure off of my stomach. “Eight?”
His jaw clenches. If he tosses me over his shoulder I might throw up again.
“Okay. Give me ten minutes. I’ll be right back.”
And he’s gone.
⋮
Josh has a clone.
Is he part of an experiment, some terrible government supersoldier program, sent to infiltrate the publishing industry?
He’s striding back towards me like a superhero, or maybe a villain, in any case he’s scary looking and impressive. Behind him is another Josh, just as tall and broad with the same build, that familiar head of hair and the hard chin. They’re both coming towards me and I wonder if maybe they’re going to take me off to some government lab where I’ll be punished for wearing colors to work.
Josh glowers as his clone steps in front of me.
“Lucy? Hi. I’m Dr. Templeman. I understand you’re having abdominal pain and nausea?"
Dr….Templeman…
“You’re his brother.”
He smiles, small and tight, like a professional. Josh is still glowering. “Yup. I want to get you checked out. Can you tell me when this all started?”
He’s professional but friendly…a strange performance in that oh-so-familiar face. I worry about what the other people around me are going to think, getting nepotism help in the hospital, but then something twinges in my stomach and I have to bend over and make some pathetic noises.
“Patrick.” Josh is above me, his warm hands on my back, and he sounds angry.
“Okay, okay, let’s bring her back. I’ll talk to the ER resident.”
⋮
Through a series of events that are not quite clear to my feverish, addled mind, Josh’s tall brother whisks us through the forbidden doors and into a quieter part of the emergency room. I’m poked and prodded, my vitals taken and an IV started with anti-nausea meds that instantly perk me up a little.
“They can put whatever they want in there,” I murmur to Josh, as I look lovingly at the little IV bag bringing me relief. “Just throw all the medicines in there, I’ll slurp it up. Yum yum.” The bag is moving fast, drip drip drip into my arm and I can already feel its healing powers.
“Okay, Lucy.” Josh seems confused, but he’s still here. He’s taken to rubbing his hand up and down my back. Like he’s calming a frantic chihuahua.
It feels nice.
There’s still the looming specter of why I am here, though. At first I was more nervous there was nothing wrong with me, that Josh and I were wasting our time and taking up space for nothing but a stomachache. But now that they have all manner of vials of my blood and fluids and are charting my heart rate, I’m beginning to wonder if Josh is right and something could really be wrong.
Josh’s brother Patrick had seen that we were checked in and got a room with a bed, and then had to run back to his actual patients. Instead of saying goodbye or maybe shaking my hand, he checked my pulse one last time, gave me an awkward doctor smile, and disappeared. I wonder if it is as painful for him to be kind and friendly as it is for Josh, who doesn’t even really try. Maybe that’s why he wanted to work for a publisher and not with people, as a doctor who has to at least pretend to care.
My theories are proven wrong when the next doctor breezes in. I don’t catch his name because he brushes past Josh folded awkwardly in a waiting room chair and has taken hold of my neck to feel for swelling before introducing himself at all.
“Um,” I say, my throat tender from throwing up a million times and also whatever inflammation is happening with my unhappy body.
My eyes flicker over to Josh, who is now standing, an angry storm cloud ready to burst.
“Time of symptoms?” the doctor mutters, as if talking to himself.
“Sorry?” I blink, fever-sick. Everything is moving slowly in my brain.
“I was told you were a rush case. Some Dr. Templeman messing with my rosters. So what are your symptoms and when did they begin?”
Unfortunately for all of us, my brain decides that this is the last straw, and shuts down completely.
I’m a gaping fish, blinking and making weird noises as my brain tries to reboot.
You would think after so many months of facing off with Josh I could function perfectly in the face of any condescending man, but the day has proven too much for me. The doctor looks up at me, one eyebrow raised, disappointed and scary.
“She’s had overall abdominal pain that localized in the front right side of her stomach around 6:30pm. Vomiting and nausea at the same time, a low-grade fever since 8:00.” Josh’s voice is cold and clinical and I’m not sure if this guy senses the frozen anger crackling underneath. Face-off of the assholes. There’s only one I’m rooting for. “She had bloodwork and urine taken over two hours ago, if you check your reports I bet there’s some results waiting.”
The doctor isn’t looking at either of us, and his hands are traveling down my stomach, pushing harshly all over like he’s playing with play-doh. I’m sweating and frozen. If he pushes on that one spot that’s hurting I might scream.
“Nothing sounds too abnormal. Are you sure it’s not just your menses?”
His mean fingers are getting near my sore spot and I tense, eyes wide.
“Doctor - can I speak with you outside?” Josh says in a voice that doesn’t accept argument.
This doctor doesn’t know that tone of voice. I almost feel bad for him. His hands relent on my abdomen and he finally looks at Josh and deigns to walk outside.
A curtain isn’t a door and I hear everything, despite the angry way Josh shuts it behind him. He has a vicious rant seemingly pre-loaded about the treatment of patients and beside manner and sexism contributing to incorrect diagnoses that seems to go on for a while. I don’t hear much of a response and soon they’re both gone, no more shadows outside the door.
It’s nice, for once, to have that laser-focused energy directed elsewhere. For me. Defending me. Maybe I should reconsider everything, and take Josh with me to all my appointments. If we can only call a truce.
Josh is gone for a while and I’m alone in the room with the beeping, blinking machines. I let myself have a little cry as a treat. I try not to look at the IV line stuck in my arm. My thoughts wander to my appendix - is it really broken? Will I miss it? Did I not appreciate it enough all these years, care for it? I avoid googling anything about it in case I find cute appendix facts and get sad.
When Josh finally returns, it’s with a whole team of people. A young doctor smiles at me and introduces herself, and a nurse asks permission before checking my blood pressure. I’m poked and prodded some more, but the doctor’s gentle fingers don’t cause too much pain.
Behind them, Josh settles back into the too-small plastic chair. His limbs are all askew, hard angles and knees in everyone’s way. I see his shoulders drop. He must be so tired, I think.
When the team leaves with orders for a CT scan sometime soon and promises that my bloodwork results are coming, it’s suddenly quiet all at once.
I look at him. He looks at me. The staring game is different now.
I want to say something but it’s hard to get out. I can’t even think the words properly at first. Thank you, some little voice in the back of my brain suggests. The nurse just gave me some opioids. Everything goes a little warm.
Can I say it - to him? What will happen if the words leave my mouth? I’m feeling like all the rules have changed. I don’t know which version of Josh is in front of me now.
But I think, maybe, possibly, I like him.
⋮
Wait and rush, wait and rush.
Tonight is all about balance, I am learning. Live with the pain but get the good drugs. Wait forever but when someone finally arrives, the testing is quick. Be desperate for a friend but all you have is your own personal nemesis. Maybe you’re so desperate he’s morphing into something different.
I had gotten a CT scan thirty minutes ago, the weird contrast chemicals hitting me like a shot of whiskey while the giant white tube lit up and screamed at me in robot. When I came back, the nicest, kindest nurse in the land pushed some morphine through my IV.
It may be 2am at the city hospital but suddenly, this room is beautiful.
My roommate too. Finally, after nineteen hours awake, Joshua is discomposed. The tie and jacket are off, the buttons of the black shirt undone, the sleeves pushed up. He has bags under his eyes and his hair is askew, pulled a thousand times by frustrated hands.
As the medicine races through my veins in a warm, tingly glow, I feel a wave of something tingly myself as I stare at him. The tendons in his forearms, the way the shoulders of his shirt pull taut over rounded muscle. He looks like he’s pulled an all-nighter or has just been wrecked by a long makeout session. It’s a tempting thought. I almost giggle. I think I’m smiling at him because he looks up at me and furrows his brows like I’m confusing again.
Sitting in the chair by the curtain he’s like a comforting, looming shadow. Everytime someone walks in he stands up, and up - nurses and orderlies craning their heads to talk with him. He’s my 6’4” guard dog and he’s using all of that vicious, detail-oriented MBA brainpower to make sure I’m being taken care of.
He’s being so…nice. For Josh. He’s here. Unless he’s the world’s greatest liar and an absolute glutton for punishment, which I won’t entirely rule out, there’s no reason for him to still be here now that I’m in the hands of the medical system. I haven’t had time or space from the pain to consider it much, but now that I’m floating on happy waves of opioids with nothing to do but wait my mind starts to wonder.
“Lucy?”
“Josh.”
Something in his eyes spark as I use his name.
I’m about to open my mouth and say something drug-induced and ill-advised when a bright cheerful ringtone breaks the muffled quiet of the room.
I pull up my phone and - shit.
It’s only 9pm on my parent’s farm. I completely forgot our scheduled Friday call.
Skyping with my parents in front of Josh would have caused me an anxiety attack twelve hours ago but I’m so desperate to talk to them, I don’t even think before I’m accepting it. I get a brief glimpse of myself - haggard, pale, glassy-eyed in the camera - but it’s too late now.
“Lucy?” My mom’s worried voice rings out, tinny from the speakers, and I’m gone.
Crying and blubbering in the half-dark of the hospital room, I try to tell them everything. The drugs make my tongue heavy. I’m sure I’m skipping over relevant details. The love and worry in their faces makes everything better and worse at the same time. I want them here holding me so bad it is a physical pain in my chest.
“Surgery! Tonight?” My dad is flabbergasted, exploding with nonsensical statements every few seconds.
“But, sweetheart -” my mom is gentle and calm, even though I know inside she’s freaking out. “Are you all alone? How did you even get to the hospital? Is Helene there?”
I remember I’m not alone. My blurry, puffy eyes shoot to Josh who’s sitting wide-eyed and at attention.
I am way too stoned to figure out how to switch off of speakerphone. Here goes.
“Um, no, actually, Josh is here. He drove me from work.”
My dad explodes, like a fire hydrant under pressure. “Josiah is there? Mr. Hoity-toity himself? Lucy-bear, is he -”
Josh looks panicked and confused and I wish I knew I would remember all these new expressions of his. He’s locked eyes with me over the phone like I can save him.
My dad keeps sputtering for a moment. He has had enough. “Lucy, hand over the phone.” He rarely uses his big dad voice with me but I am so under the influence he doesn’t even have to. Navigating my tubes and IV, I flip the phone over to my harried coworker.
Josh looks at my phone like it might bite him. He could be right. Reluctantly, he turns the phone towards his face.
“There he is, old Jeremy himself.” I hear my dad begin.
“Nigel, please -” my mom tries to cut in.
“No no, Annie, Jameson and I have a few things to get straight between us. Now look you, my little girl -”
Another orderly peeks in, one with the worst timing ever. My cheeks are burning. “We need some more bloodwork for the surgical team, will just be a sec!”
When I look up, Josh is gone, my phone with him.
My morphine high is sadly all gone.
Two vials of blood later and all six foot-something of Josh tries his best to slink back into the room. He looks hard, chastened. I am terrified to know what happened out there. He slips my phone back into my hand and my parents seem calmer. Why do I feel like I’m now being coddled?
My mom has decided to take over. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry all this has happened. You’re going to do what the doctors say, and your dad and I are coming on the first flight in the morning to come take care of you, okay?”
Tears are stinging my eyes, the back of my throat. “But mom, what about the farm -”
Dad speaks up, all bottled up protectiveness. “The farm won’t fall apart if we’re gone for a few days. But it will if something happens to you, sweetie-pie. Now this Josh character has agreed to shape up and behave until we get there. But Lucy-bear, don’t take any shit from him. Not a single iota. You hear me?”
I sniffle, gross and wet. “Yeah, dad. I won’t. I love you.”
“We love you too, so much. You’re going to get through this Lucy, okay? You’re going to be just fine. You’re the strongest person I know.”
I feel like a worn out, pain-filled mess who’s sweaty and snotty to boot, but I soak in their words like sunshine. “Yeah, dad. Love you mom. I can’t wait to see you.”
The room is quiet. I hear the squeak of shoes in the hallway outside, the beep of machines echoing everywhere. Josh is shell shocked and contained, a ball of restless energy somehow stilled.
“You told your parents about me?” he finally says.
It’s not accusatory, or mocking. If anything it’s…regretful.
“You might have been a topic of conversation once or twice.”
I’m absolutely dying, in a curious and/or horrified way, to know what Josh talked about with my parents.
His eyes are tired now, the frown lines on his face and brow becoming permanent. I feel badly that I’ve put him through so much. I don’t know when I started feeling bad for Josh.
“Lucy,” he starts quietly. His tone is odd. He’s not looking at me. In this light his eyes look almost red-rimmed. He looks…devastated. “I am so, so -”
A rap on the wall and the curtain is pulled back with a flourish, and a new doctor breezes through the door.
“Lucy? I’m Dr. Madison, I’ll be your surgeon for today. Now let’s talk about getting you prepped.”