Page 16 of Hollywood King
Six
Cathy
Planninga wake to rival a red-carpet event while working double shifts turned out to be harder than I estimated. Between white coats and white tablecloths, everything began to run together. My brother hadn’t answered my calls, so I begged the guest list from my father’s distraught former secretary and set off on my own. I could cut open someone’s chest cavity without a problem. Sending invitations to Hollywood’s elite? No thank you.
I yanked my last chart of the night from the wall and checked my watch. Three a.m. I ignored the pulsing pain in my eyes, rubbed them, and scanned the pages. Nothing unusual. I could escape the hospital before dawn if no one else came flying through the door, bleeding out.
A nurse rushed past, and I spun and stumbled into the open doorway, catching my hands on the frame to keep myself upright. The pen and chart hit the floor with a clatter.
The room shifted, darkness behind me, and bright florescent swimming in my vision. I clutched the door frame tighter, one hand on either side, but they didn’t seem to be helping. My feet shifted out from under me, and I hit the chilled linoleum on my butt.
“Dr. Earnshaw,” I heard someone call. A woman, I thought. Her voice sounded hushed, coming from far away. Hands clamped on my forearms and then nothing. The world went a little hazy, and then everything went blank.
I woke feeling fuzzy. Like someone wrapped a wool blanket around my entire body, even my senses. I blinked against the bright light and opened my mouth to ask someone to turn them down. Nothing came out. I squinted, lifting my arm to block the light, but my hand hit my face instead.
Warm fingers took hold of mine and pressed them back to the bed. Patricia the night nurse’s face swam over me. Seeing her comforted me.
For the briefest seconds, I had been back there, sixteen years old, shivering in the cold room with only Heath’s snores to keep me company.
It was strange I didn’t remember the pain, but I did the cold, always the cold.
“It’s okay, Doc. Your brother will be here soon.”
My mouth tasted like cotton, but I fought through it to speak. “My brother?”
She fussed over some wires, and I noticed the hospital gown and IV in my arm. “How long have I been out?”
“Not long, we had to stick you to deliver the meds you needed.”
I wasn’t ready to consider so many of my work colleagues had now seen me naked. Or least the nurses.
I tried to sit up. Some of the haziness faded, but I still felt off balance. “Which meds?”
“Don’t fuss, Doc. Dr. Rogers will be back in soon, and I’ll send your brother in when he arrives.”
She said it again.
“My brother?” Ley and I hadn’t spoken since he texted me about our father’s death. I couldn’t even get him on the phone to talk about the state of the company or the wake. I doubted he’d drag himself out of bed before dawn to come to his sister’s hospital bed.
I heard his voice before I saw him, and somehow, it was worse. Unyielding, commanding, and suddenly, I stood, twenty again, trapped in the cage of his arms. I begged for things I knew nothing about. Needed him in ways I’d yet to understand.
Ten years since he left me.
Ten years since he promised to come back.
Ten years of relentless silence while he gave himself to the rest of the world.
The hospital curtain near the door flew open, and Heath towered over the end of my bed. My mouth dried out even more, my fingers and toes tingled in the exact same way they had when we were kids. And all my brain supplied was, “You’re late.”
He scanned me from head to toe and back again, saying nothing.
“Stop staring at me and get out.”
A snipped smile curled up the edge of his lips. The lips I’d been trying to forget for years. “It seems someone put my name down as your emergency contact.”
Shit.The forms I’d filled out years ago, when I still believed he’d come back to me. How could I have forgotten to change them?
My pulse pounded in my ears, in my arms, in my fingers, and my nose. Like my entire body beat in time with my erratic heart. I swallowed again, trying to wet my mouth and throat. Stalling to figure out how to deal with this. How do normal people deal with seeing the ex they still love a decade later? I wanted to punch him and kiss him at the same time.
