Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
The nurse that’d gotten the IV started earlier smiled at me.
“I’ll take you to the waiting room,” she instructed me to follow.
I did and sat down in a waiting room that was half full of people, as I thought about how I’d ended up here tonight.
Had I not come, would she still be in pain on the bathroom floor?
Would she have died?
I closed my mind down on that thought and stared at the red phone on the corner of a desk that an older volunteer was manning.
Patiently, I waited.
Nobody sat next to me, and I was thankful.
By the time the red phone rang hours later, and the man behind the desk called out ‘Tasha Gonzales’ I was about ready to flip the fuck out.
It’d been over four hours.
“Yeah,” I jumped up and headed to the desk.
He handed me the red phone, and I placed it to my ear.
“Yeah?” I repeated roughly.
“Hello,” a cheery voice chattered into the phone. “Ms. Gonzales made it through surgery with flying colors and is now resting in room twenty-two-oh-three.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, slamming the phone down. “You know how I can get to twenty-two-oh-three?” I asked the old man.
He nodded. “Follow that hallway until it dead ends, then take a right. You’ll see the entrance to the second floor patient room wing that way and follow the room number signs.”
“Thanks,” I half smiled, speed walking out of there like my heels were on fire.
The scared looks of some of the other waiting room occupants didn’t slip my notice, but I couldn’t help who I was.
I walked down the corridor, following the directions perfectly, and found Tasha’s room in less than five minutes.
They were just transferring her over to the bed.
“Thank you,” I nodded to the two huge orderlies, who nodded back at me on the way out.
Tasha laid on the bed, eyes closed, looking like she was dead.
The monitor that was connected to her, though, said otherwise.
Her normally bronzed skin looked pale and pallid. Her eyes looked sunken. They’d scrubbed her nails clean of the red polish, making her look for all the world like she really was dead.
And something clicked.
Something deep inside of me, that’d never been touched before, slid into place, and I knew.
Tasha was mine.
And I’d almost lost her by being a dumbass.
“Hey,” Tasha’s normally sweet voice, croaked.
She sounded like her voice box had been put through a disposal.
“Hey,” I replied softly, moving forward until I was standing directly beside the bed.
She lifted her hand up slightly, and I grabbed onto it like it was my lifeline.
“You look spooked,” she whispered.
“You look dead,” I countered.
She smiled, and a little bit of her usual self came back into her face.
“I feel dead,” she confirmed.
I frowned.
“You’re in pain?” I prodded.
She nodded, eyes squeezing shut tightly.
“Yeah, it hurts pretty damn bad,” she groaned, keeping her voice low so as not to overexert herself by speaking.
I looked around for a nurse but hadn’t seen hide nor hair of one since I’d gotten in here five minutes before.
Hadn’t she just gotten out of surgery for Christ’s sake?
“I’ll be right back to see if a nurse can get you something,” I disentangled our hands and walked out before she could protest.
I moved swiftly to the first official person I saw, which was a woman sitting on her ass in the corner of the nurse’s station, laughing and carrying on with another woman, who was holding a plastic bag that looked like drugs in her hand.
“’Scuse me,” I snapped, interrupting the two.
The conversation they were having halted as I received the attention of both.
“Can I help you?” the woman sitting down in the corner spoke.
I turned my glare on her.
“My woman’s in pain, and I haven’t seen a nurse come in there yet,” I told her, looking down at her badge before saying, “Nurse Tina.”
Nurse Tina glared at me.
“What room is your woman in?” she snapped rudely.
I raised a brow at her.
“My woman, is in that room right there,” I pointed at the room across from where we were standing.
The other woman, Nurse Andrea this time, winced, and I could tell she should’ve been the one to be in there.
“She says she’s in pain,” I emphasized the last word, hoping it’d spur them into action.
It didn’t.
“We’ll be right in,” Nurse Tina smiled, hoping to disarm my anger by being sweet.
I smiled.
“You will.”
Nurse Tina frowned, waiting for me to leave, but I didn’t.
And I knew the second she realized that I wasn’t going to leave until she followed.
“Isn’t that patient on a morphine pump?” Andrea asked.
Shouldn’t Nurse Andrea already know what her patient had?
Anytime I’d ever come out of surgery, or had friends come out of surgery, there was someone already in the room when they’d arrived.
That hadn’t been the case for Tasha.
With a glare at her, I got her moving toward Tasha’s room, and immediately wished for a new nurse.