All the Things I Didn't See (2 page)

But when those beeps suddenly became high-pitched squeals indicating Sam’s heart had stopped, Josh prayed harder than he had in his whole life to hear that safe, beeping refrain again.

“VTAC!” shouted one of the paramedics, reaching over Sam to grab the defibrillator. “Charge to two hundred. Clear.” He pressed the paddles to Sam’s body, sending the electrical current surging through him. His arms and legs jerked violently, then were suddenly still. The monitor’s steady beeps echoed through the ambulance. “Normal rhythm.”

A glassy-eyed Josh slumped in his seat, trying desperately to understand what had happened and why.
Less than ninety seconds later, the ambulance was backing up to the entrance of the hospital’s level-one trauma center and into a sort of controlled chaos.
The back doors flew open, and doctors and nurses whisked Sam through the center’s double doors, leaving Josh to slide out and run to catch up to the stretcher carrying his friend.
Josh had nearly succeeded in grabbing Sam’s hand when someone from behind pulled him back. The stretcher carrying Sam slipped behind a set of trauma bay doors and out of view, while Josh turned desperately to confront the person who had stopped him.
It was a nurse who had a strong hold on his arm. She was understanding but determined to keep Josh from going any further. She had a security guard there for backup, but she was really hoping she wouldn’t need his assistance.
Josh tried to pull free and grew angry when she wouldn’t let go.
“I need to get to him. You don’t understand.” Josh had no idea of the desperation that colored his voice. “He’s my best friend.”
“You can’t go back there, Mr. Kelly. This is as far as you’re allowed to go while the trauma team works on him.” She kept talking to him in a slow, steady voice, trying to calm him. The hardest part of her job as a trauma-unit family liaison was keeping desperate loved ones out of the way while doctors and nurses worked on critically injured patients.
“He’s getting the very best care from our best trauma team. As soon as it’s possible, they’ll let you in to see him. But for now, just let them do their work, okay?”
Josh was starting to shiver, symptomatic of the shock caused by the devastating events of less than fifteen minutes earlier on that street corner.
“Please, he needs me. Sam hates to be alone more than anything.” His voice was raw with emotion as tears again began to run down his cheeks.

The nurse steered Josh toward an empty waiting area reserved for family members across from the trauma bay as more technicians rushed in through those forbidding double doors. She led him to a couch, gently pushing him down onto the middle cushion before settling beside him.

“Mr. Kelly, listen to me, okay? The doctors and nurses working on Mr. Peterson are some of the very best in emergency medicine. If anyone can help your friend right now, it’s them.”

A still-shivering Josh’s eyes remained glued to the flurry of activity going on across the hall. The nurse grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over his shoulders.

“Mr. Kelly, I need you to listen to me.” He was drifting into panic mode again. “Josh!” she shouted, turning him by the shoulders toward her. His head snapped around, his eyes meeting hers.

“You know my name,
his
name. How do you know his name?” A look of latent terror on his face, he started pulling away from her.

She sighed, obviously trying to decide something before speaking.
“I’ve watched
After Sunset
since I was twelve years old.” She looked at him, waiting for him to decide whether to be afraid. “My brother’s gay, Mr. Kelly. He’s eighteen and he came out to my family last year. My watching everything that Connor and Philip had gone through helped me to help him. I made it better for him, and the show made it better for me.”
Josh looked at her for a second before nodding and relaxing a little.
“Now, I need you to tell me who to call.”
He looked up sharply at her. “His folks… they need to know, and Evan, his boyfriend.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll call his parents, but if you could call Evan….”
Josh and Evan didn’t get along that well, mostly due to Evan being jealous of Josh and Sam’s friendship. There was also the fact that Josh thought Evan was kind of a dick to Sam.
In any case, he was a drama queen, and Josh wasn’t up to dealing with that. Not now.
The nurse chuckled a little, and Josh smiled at her. “Is there anyone else?”

“Yeah, I have a few more calls to make.” He’d stood up, ready to leave the room, when she stopped him again. “Um, maybe you should make those calls from in here, okay?”

 

“Why?”

She let out a deep sigh with a nod toward the hallway. “There’s a bunch of reporters out there down by the information desk. They know that Sam was brought in here.” She shook her head in frustration. “They aren’t allowed back here, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to sneak by. I don’t think you really need a bunch of cameras in your face and people asking stupid questions right now.”

Josh nodded in agreement. As he turned to sit back down, he started to wobble, and she jumped up to help him.

“Now, my name’s Nicole Samuels, and I’m gonna make you a deal. I’m going to promise not to go all fan girl on you, and you’re going to promise to let me help you, okay?” Nicole handed him her card with her cell phone number on it and headed for the door before turning back. “Oh, and remember Frank, the security guard who looks like a New York Giants linebacker?”

Josh nodded.

“He’s right outside this door, and he’ll make sure that no one comes in without my approval.” Nicole pulled on the door handle. “I’m going to go and grab you something to eat and some juice to help stop that shivering. If you give me Evan’s number, I’ll take care of that too.”

Josh quickly thumbed through his phone directory and read off the number to Nicole. She jotted it down on a small pad and slipped it into her uniform pocket.

“I don’t think I could eat anything, but can I have a coffee?”

She smiled at him and shook her head. “You eat what I give you and drink the juice first, and then we’ll see about a shot of caffeine.”

“Will you… if there’s any…?” Looking across the hall at the door to the room where Sam lay, he couldn’t make himself say it.

Nicole smiled. “If there’s any news, I’ll let you know, I promise. In the meantime, if you need to reach me, just call the number printed on that card.”

He nodded, and she walked out the door.

Josh turned and flipped open his phone, scrolling down to a number with the 413 area code for Springfield, Massachusetts. Sam’s parents were going to be devastated.

T
EN
minutes later, he closed his phone after promising to call Sam’s parents if there was any change before they got there. They were catching the next shuttle to LaGuardia and would grab a cab to the hospital from there.

He kept glancing toward the door and was wondering how far he’d get if he made a break for the trauma room when a familiar voice at the door stopped him.

“Don’t even think about it, Josh. The big guy out here will take you down inside of four feet.”
Josh looked up and was startled to see Jared Hart walking in the door. Jared and his wife, May, had become really good friends with Josh since he started on the show, and he knew that they were like a second set of parents to Sam.
“Jared! How did you find out?” Josh was up and off the couch and wrapped in a fatherly hug before he knew it.
“It’s all over the news, Josh.” He let the younger man go and steered him back to the couch. “What in the hell happened?”
The guilt started to settle into Josh’s bones as he relived the horror.
“The guy was nuts, Jared, calling me Philip, convinced that
Connor
was bad for me. He thought he was saving me or something stupid like that.”
He rubbed his hands over his face, looking up at a knock on the door. It was Nicole.
“Hey, Josh, brought you some peanut butter crackers along with some juice, like I promised, and a set of scrubs if you want to change.”
Josh looked down at his clothes and for the first time noticed they were stiff and crusted with blood. Sam’s blood.

He paled and started choking. Jared quickly grabbed the garbage can from under the table and pushed it in front of him just as he started throwing up.

Falling to his knees, he emptied his stomach and sobbed, stopping only when his body was incapable of keeping up the dry heaves.

Jared just crouched beside Josh, rubbing his back, trying to help him calm down. When Josh was breathing a little better, the nurse helped him up off his knees.

“Come on, Josh. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”

He turned his tear-stained face to her and managed to croak out Sam’s name. It made Jared’s throat hurt just to hear it.

“They know to page me if… something changes, Josh. Besides, we’re only going just down the hall to the bathroom, okay?”

He shook his head like a stubborn five-year-old.

“Come on, Josh,” Jared added. “You’re gonna see Sam as soon as they let you. Do you want him to see you like this?” He gestured to Josh’s bloody clothes.

Josh looked at him and shook his head. “No, it might freak him out.”

“Okay, then. You go with Nicole, get cleaned up, and I’m gonna make a few calls, okay?”
“Who are you calling?”
“I’m calling Jessy first, or she’ll never forgive me, and

then… Barker.” There was a definite sneer on his face at the name of the show’s executive producer. “Then I’m gonna call May and let her know I’m going to be a while. She said she’d start making calls.” The show’s stars were a close-knit family, and this was sure to devastate all of them. “I’ll leave Jack and Elizabeth to Jessy because, well, she knows how to handle them, and damn it, Elizabeth scares me, even if she only plays my mother-in-law on TV.”

That brought a small smile to Josh’s face. Elizabeth Carey was very much like her soap character, strong, determined, and opinionated. She also loved Sam with all her heart.

“Josh, have you called Steph yet?”

Josh looked at him, feeling too weary to even think. He shook his head. “I’ll do it when I’m cleaned up, okay?”
Jared worriedly looked at the blue-eyed man in front of him, knowing that Josh and his girlfriend of two years had been having some troubles lately.
“Want me to do it?”
Josh sighed, and Jared knew he wanted to say yes, but wouldn’t let himself.
“Nah, I’ll do it. Just… let me get cleaned up first.” He walked out the door, following Nicole.
Jared sat on the couch and opened his phone. He offered up a silent prayer for Sam and hit number two on his speed dial to call one of his dearest friends with such awful news.
“Hey, Jessy, how’re you doing, sweetheart?”
P
ART
of the doctors’ lounge, the spacious bathroom was blissfully empty. Josh closed the door to the hallway while Nicole remained outside. She stood guard not only to keep nosy reporters and curious staff members away but also to be close by should Josh need anything.

Josh peeled off his bloody clothes, resisting the urge to vomit again. He threw them in the hazardous waste container after rescuing his wallet, keys, and phone from the pockets.

There was a shower in the corner, and Nicole had given him a small bar of sweet-smelling soap and some shampoo. He grabbed a large white bath towel from a nearby shelf and hung it on the bar closest to the shower stall.

He turned the water on as hot as he could stand it and stepped under the spray. He had tried to avoid looking at himself because he knew there was blood on his chest and legs. He was pretty sure there was also some on his face, where Sam had touched him.

He picked up the soap and started to scrub. When he saw the water running off his body turn red, he broke down again.

He cried angry tears that burned hotter on his skin than the water pouring down over him. They soon softened to tears full of pain and fear… for himself, but mostly for Sam.

Josh leaned against the tiles and suddenly found that his legs weren’t strong enough to hold him up. He slid down the wall, sobbing like his heart was broken.

He just couldn’t understand how this all could have happened. He was an actor playing a role on a soap opera… a goddamn soap opera! No one was supposed to care that much about a character.

And Sam? He was the kindest person Josh had ever known. Everyone liked Sam. He was everyone’s brother, everyone’s best friend. Sam was mostly quiet, reserved. But if he thought he could help someone, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Josh never understood how someone as awesome as Sam ended up with a douchebag of a boyfriend like Evan. Of course, the kindest of hearts were often the easiest to take advantage of.

When Josh finally regained control, he pushed back up, quickly washed his hair, and stepped out of the shower. He toweled off and found that along with the clean scrubs, there was a new pair of boxer briefs.

He decided that when this nightmare was over and Sam was better, he was going to buy Nicole the biggest gift basket he could find.

When he was dressed, he opened the door to find the nurse was still standing there, ordering people around.
She turned to smile at him as he came out. They walked back to the private waiting room where Jared was waiting, finishing up his calls.
When they got there, Nicole sat Josh down before starting to speak. “So… I just got word that they’ve managed to stabilize Sam and are now preparing to take him up to surgery. The bullet nicked an artery and is lodged in his chest. They need to stop the internal bleeding and remove the bullet before it can do any more damage.”
Josh was glad he was sitting down because Nicole’s words were making him feel dizzy. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself before looking up into her patient gaze.

“I want to see him.”

“You can, but you have to be calm. He’s unconscious, and it can only be for a minute. The sooner he has surgery, the better it will be for him, okay?”

Josh could only nod.
She wasn’t done, though.
“Josh, I need you to sign a consent form for me. On

Sam’s medical paperwork the studio faxed over, you’re listed as the emergency contact person. You’re also one of the persons listed on his power of attorney. We need your permission to do the surgery, seeing as his parents aren’t here.”