Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
“Thank you,” she whispers in a voice that’s so soft I almost miss it.
“Anytime, Katy,” I tell her. “Now, let’s focus on getting you to the emergency room, okay?”
She nods, and her bottom lip trembles. “Okay.”
I don’t know what it is about having Katy in my arms or the fragile look on her face, but it does something to me. Grabs ahold of something inside me.
All I see is her.
Katy
With beeping machines, sterile walls, and the smell of bleach in the air, Destin Regional Medical Center is really taking some of the mystique out of Destin.
Nothing against this lovely facility and its staff, but I really, really do not want to be here and, as such, have spent the majority of the thirty minutes I’ve been here trying to think of a way to Mission: Impossible my way out.
Surely Tom Cruise would have procured a motorcycle and an AK-47 by now.
“Okay, Katy, I have something that will help take the edge off for you,” my nurse Donna announces as she walks back into my room for the fourth time since we arrived. Donna is nice and all, but we don’t really have the same priorities at the moment. She wants to hold me and my bleeding foot hostage, and I want to leave.
She holds up a syringe as she closes the distance between us. “Morphine will dull any kind of sharp pain you’re having.”
I grip the edge of the bed as I note just how big the syringe in Donna’s hand is. I mean, it’s huge. “I know you said morphine, but I also know you don’t mean that torpedo needle in your hand. That would be ludicrous.”
Donna smirks, all the time she spends on the job deadening her to my hysteria. “It’s going in your IV, hun. You won’t feel a thing.”
“Are you sure I really need morphine? I mean, this hurts, but I—”
“I’m positive,” Donna responds without a second thought or waiting for the end of my sentence. “Trust me, you need it.”
Instantly, panic starts to set in. I’ve never had morphine—I barely even drink alcohol. Strong narcotics are the very last thing I want to dabble in. What if I get hooked like one of those people on that old True Life show and it ruins my whole life and I spend the rest of my days just trying to get a fast fix? I’d lose my job! I’d lose everything!
“I-I-I’ll be better this time,” I stutter as Donna approaches the tube in the crook of my arm they had to wrestle me to insert. “Tell Dr. Johnson he can come back in, and I’ll sit still and let him look at my foot and do all the medical stuff he needs to do without getting violent. I’ll be good this time, I promise.”
Donna pauses with the syringe in the air right above my IV and looks to my right, where Mack sits in a chair beside me.
“Katy,” Mack chimes in. “You need the morphine, babe.”
“But I—”
“Take the morphine,” he continues and reaches out to squeeze my hand. I think the gesture is nice until his grip strengthens, pinning that arm to the bed. I jerk and jolt as Donna attacks the other arm with the needle, but Mack keeps talking as if I’m not acting like something straight out of The Shining. “There’s no reason for you to sit there in pain. Let Donna give you some morphine so you can relax. Hell, you might even be able to sleep through it.”
“Almost got it,” Donna mutters through gritted teeth, her voice clearly winded, but Mack talks right over her.
“Just take the morphine, Katy. It’s no big deal. If I were the one in the bed, I’d definitely take it.”
I search his face, trying to decide if he’s being serious or just saying whatever he thinks he needs to say to get me to give in to the Pain Med Pusher standing next to me with a giant syringe in her hand. “You would?”
“Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re, like, the OG adrenaline junkie,” I snap back with narrowed eyes. “For your thirtieth birthday, you jumped out of a flipping plane…for fun. Not to mention, your daily workouts include going to a boxing gym. Also for fun, even though it leaves you bruised and limping half the time.”
He searches my eyes for a long moment, and the hint of a smile starts to crest one corner of his mouth.
“What?” I question. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s nothing. And yes, if I were in your shoes, I would take the morphine. So, how about you let Donna give you the pain juice so we can get this show on the road?”
“Done,” Donna says, just as my shoulders leave my ears with the resignation of giving in.