My Mistake (Stories of Serendipity #7) (14 page)

“It’s not his first rodeo. He’ll be okay, Casey.”

“Well, I just wanted to let you know. He was unconscious when they brought him in, but I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Let me know something when he comes to. He’s gonna want to get out of there in a hurry. If you need help, call. Okay?”

She hung up the phone with Summer, and paced for what seemed like hours, anxiety fluttering through her veins. It had all happened so fast, and she couldn’t stop re-playing the incident in her mind.

“Are you here with Mr. Baum?” A polite voice broke through her haze.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Baum sustained chest trauma and a head injury with loss of consciousness.” At Casey’s blank look, she clarified, “broken ribs and a concussion. We had to do emergency CT scans of his head, neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis. They are complete, and show that he escaped spinal injury.” She paused to flash Casey a reassuring smile. “He’s conscious, and you can come back and see him now.”

When Casey peeked around the curtain, her relief at seeing Brent awake was stalled by his obvious anxiety. Wide eyes and a down-turned mouth, as well as the cords standing out on his neck radiated his feelings.

“Don’t give me anything in that IV!”

A tense female voice responded. “Mr. Baum, I have a dose of dilaudid for your pain. It will make you more comfortable.”

“I don’t want to be comfortable! Don’t put that in there!” Brent slapped at her hand, and shocked, the nurse dropped the syringe, letting it clatter to the floor.

Tension radiated off him in waves, even though his normally graceful movements were stilted with pain.

“Mr. Baum. You have four broken ribs and a concussion. You need pain medication. The dose I gave you while you were unconscious is going to wear off soon.”

“You’ve already given me a shot? Sheee-it!”

Brent sat on the edge of the bed, his face a pasty gray color that alarmed Casey. He’d pulled the blanket off of him, and she saw he was wearing nothing but his briefs. He started to pull on the IV line when another, older nurse with a look of authority in her eyes stopped him with her hand over his. “That’s a large vein, there. You pull out that IV it’s gonna bleed quite a bit, so stop and listen for a moment, please.”

“I’m getting the fuck out of here. You people do nothing but produce addicts. I’m leaving.” He made to stand, but didn’t get half-way up before falling.

“Mr. Baum I promise you we will not give you any more pain medication through that IV unless you ask for it. For now I need you to sit back and relax until we get the necessary paperwork in order. You may leave against medical advice, but you need to sign some things.”

He gripped Casey’s hand and pulled it to his chest. He was surprisingly strong. “Will you take me home, Case? Please? I need to be home when this shot wears off.” He ground out the last words as if they hurt him to say.

“You have broken ribs and a concussion. Shouldn’t you stay?”

He looked at the nurse, who stood in front of them, looking exhausted. Casey felt a little guilty for being with the man giving her such a hard time. “No.”

She sighed, willing to abide his wishes, but wishing he would stay and get professional care. After listening to the doctor’s cautionary speech, Casey wasn’t sure about her own nursing abilities. She received detailed instructions from the nurse about spending the night with him, and watching for signs of internal bleeding and his head injury worsening. She gulped and nodded reluctantly, wishing again that Brent would stay and let the hospital do their job.

Brent and Casey got more than a few antagonistic glares, as well as some appreciative glances, as they hobbled out of the emergency room, she in her outfit of seduction, and he in his briefs and nothing else, having refused the hospital’s offer to wear a gown for the trip home.

He was heavy, and injured, and Casey had a lot of trouble getting him into her car. But she managed, buckling him in, because it hurt for him to twist his body to reach for the seatbelt.

He refused to answer her questions on the way to his house, answering her with grunts instead of words. Casey wanted to know his aversion to pain killers, and why he’d gotten so uncharacteristically mad at the nurse who was only doing her job. It was a side of Brent she’d never seen.

When she got to his house, driving carefully around the ruts in his dirt road driveway to minimize bumping, she struggled to get him inside and in bed. He was delirious with pain, and Casey encouraged him to sleep. Apparently, he didn’t need much encouragement, because by the time she’d gotten him some ibuprofen and water, he was snoring softly. She used the laptop he’d left in the kitchen to look up how to take care of a concussion and broken ribs on the internet, fortifying the information she’d received from the doctor and nurses. After setting the alarm on her phone for two hours, so she could wake him up and check for signs of disorientation, look at his pupils, check for reflexive motions and other things, she decided to investigate the reaction from the paramedics to the drug Brent took. She hoped it would shed light on his reaction at the hospital.

As she read, Casey felt the blood drain from her face. Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Buprenorphine was a synthetic opioid used to treat opioid addiction. Opioids were pain killers. Brent was addicted to pain killers. Brent was an addict. He’d lied to her.

Casey had no idea how long she sat there while her mind connected the dots. It took a circuitous route, going over things her father had said, words from Alanon meetings she’d attended, conversations with Brent.

From her father, during a rare moment of lucidity…
My booze is more important to me than anything. Anything.

From the Alanon meetings she’d religiously attended in high school…
Once an addict, always an addict.

From Brent, whose words suddenly made so much sense…
I’m not good enough for you, Case. You deserve better than me.

Why hadn’t he just told her the truth? As Casey continued reading, it became clear that Brent’s pain-killer addiction was a piece of his past that he’d tried to hide from her. A piece that he was trying to fix, with the Buprenorphine. It was a prescribed treatment, so he was under a doctor’s care, which meant he was trying to get better. But it’s used to treat higher dosage dependencies, not just the random partiers who pop a bunch of pills to get a temporary fix. He must have been high constantly for a long time to warrant such treatment.

The more she read, the more questions she had. How long had he been dependent on the pills? Which pills had he taken? Why had he started taking them in the first place? Most pain-killer addicts started with an accident that pain killers were prescribed for. What had happened to Brent?

The alarm on her phone went off, signaling time to go check on him. She shut down the computer found an ice pack in the freezer, and walked back to his room with her treatment notes. Mostly bed rest, with wake-ups every two hours for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours to check for signs of brain swelling.

She stopped in the doorway of his bedroom when she saw that he was awake, lying there, wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling vacantly.

When he noticed her, a slow smile crept over his lips. “You stayed.”

She walked to his bed. “Yes, I stayed. I’ve been using your laptop, looking up how to treat you.” She stroked his hair, and noticed for the first time, the lines around his eyes and the pain behind them. “How long have you been awake?”

“Since you left. I heard the door close. I thought you’d gone home.”

Casey shook her head. “No, but I’m going to after Max gets here. After I check you over, I’m going to call him. Did you take the ibuprofen?”

“Yes. I’m sorry about what happened at the hospital.”

Casey continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “Do you feel dizzy? Nauseated?”

“No. I need to tell you something.”

She sighed. “It’s too late, Brent. I already looked it up.” She laid her head against his chest as gently as she could, and listened to his breathing and his heartbeat, concentrating on finding any irregularities. She had to focus on the sounds emanating from his chest, and not the sweet muskiness of Brent. Thankfully, he was quiet.

“I would ask if you are in any pain, but I can tell that you are. Shallow breathing, lack of movement. Does anything not hurt?” She raised her head and looked at him.

“My toes feel alright.”

Casey struggled to stand there and hold a conversation with his broken body when all she wanted to do was beat him senseless. His betrayal stung her. A deep sense of remorse filled her. She couldn’t choose her parents, so she’d been stuck with a dead-beat father.

But she could choose her boyfriends.

She wanted to scream and shout at him, but instead she clenched her fists at her sides and took two steps away from him.

His eyes focused on her hands, and a haze of sadness fell as they filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Case. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Yeah, well you didn’t have to, did you?” She turned to leave the room before her emotions took over. He needed to heal right now. “I’m going to go call Max.” Casey walked out the door.

B
rent watched her leave, his heart in his throat, but he didn’t try to stop her. There wasn’t anything to say. She knew.

Fractured ribs hurt. Concussions hurt. They hurt like a bitch, but not nearly as much as the idea of life without Casey. As he heard the front door close, he thought of the last couple of weeks with her.

They’d been the best weeks of his life.

He closed his eyes and listened to her murmurs as she called Max and paced his front porch. She was passing the torch. Max would come and take care of him until he could get out of bed. He’d done it before.

One thing about not having any of the pain killers at the hospital, was that the pain was real now. He wasn’t dulled at all. His senses were alert and raging. His nerve endings burned with pain. Every breath ached. Each movement of his head sent a shock of pain down his spine. He could feel. Everything. And the physical pain wasn’t the worst.

The worst pain was seeing Casey’s face in his mind. Her face as she looked at him from his doorway watching him in bed.

As soon as he’d seen her, he’d known she knew. He didn’t have to know who told her. It didn’t matter. He saw the familiar grief behind her eyes, the betrayal, and it had been directed at him. It remained the entire time she’d been in his room, checking over him. It never left, and he suspected it would always be there.

“He’s gone again, Brent.” They were standing on the fence rungs around the paddock at the school’s FFA enclosure, watching Dash as he munched on hay.

“Sometimes, I just wish he’d never come home. Then we wouldn’t always have to be second.” She turned to him, and the unshed tears in her eyes broke his heart. “I don’t want to ever be in a relationship with someone like that. I will never live with someone who chooses a bottle over me. NEVER.” She wiped her tears, and Brent climbed off the fence and hugged her, promising her she’d never have to settle like that.

Brent listened as a deep growly engine pulled up his drive, and a truck door shut. He heard Max’s murmur, then Casey’s, before her heard her car door slam and she drove away. Mooch let out a grateful yap when somebody let him in, and he scampered back to Brent’s bedroom to lick his hand. Max’s footsteps echoed through the house as he walked back to Brent’s bedroom.

“How’s it going buddy?”

“She knows.” He absently scratched Mooch’s head while his thoughts were elsewhere.

Max’s eyes softened. “I figured. She didn’t take it well?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t tell her, so she’s got a right to be pissed at me. I just wish I could do something about it.”

“You hurting? Is there anything I can get you?”

“I need ibuprofen, and Tylenol. I can rotate them out every two hours and stack the medications so the pain will be dulled a little.”

“They didn’t give you anything at the emergency room?”

Brent narrowed his eyes at his friend. “Hey, I was just asking. You don’t think you could even take them if you’re in pain?”

“That’s how I got into this mess. I’m not going down that road again, man.”

“Did you tell the doctor? He might have had something else to give you.”

“Fuck, man! They push that shit like they get paid for every pill they dispense, and then they act like I’m a criminal for getting addicted.” It hurt to talk, so he stopped, his anger screaming in his lungs that couldn’t completely open because of his ribs. “I’ll be okay.” He whispered. “I’ve done this before.”

“Yeah, and I don’t see how.” Max muttered. “I’m going to check your medicine cabinet, then I may run in to the drug store. You need anything else?”

Casey.

“No man. Thanks.” Mooch plopped his body on the floor by Brent’s bed, and he managed a grimace that was supposed to be a smile, before closing his eyes and trying to sleep.

C
asey threw herself on her bed, belatedly realizing it wasn’t made up anymore. She sat up and looked at the rumpled mess of sheets before laying back down, not really caring about anything right now. Her mind was consumed, and her forgetfulness regarding her bed was the least of her worries.