Where We Left Off (32 page)

With a twisted laugh, I cupped my hand to my mouth. Had anyone heard me, they would’ve thought it insensitive, but if there was any chance that Heath could hear—could understand what I was saying—it would be worth it. It was the sort of thing he would say to me, I knew it.

“I love you.” I dropped my head to the empty side of his bed, the space between his body and the rail. I closed my
tear-stung
eyes. “With all the heart that I have left, I love you, Heath.”

Exhaustion must’ve set
in
because the next thing I remembered was feeling Hattie’s delicate hand on my shoulder, her palm rubbing slow circles to wake me. I
startled
and rushed to my feet. The room spun, black circling in at the edges of my vision.

“Shhhh,” she shushed, her finger brought to her lips. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go. Sit for a few minutes. Stay.”

I rubbed at my neck. “No, no. I should go home to Corbin. Is everyone else here?”

“Mom and Dad are getting briefed by the staff.” Hattie tilted her head toward the hallway. Through the
window,
I could see Heath’s parents deep in discussion with one of the doctors. His mother had both hands to her mouth; his father had both hands on his wife’s shoulders. They were doing an excessive amount nodding, but that’s what you did when hearing news like this. Like bobbing your head would somehow rattle the words into your brain in a way that made them easier to understand.

“The nurses said he had a good night. That they expected him to be much more restless. Having you here calmed him, Mallory.” Hattie gave my wrists a squeeze. “Thank you for being here when we couldn’t. We can’t thank you enough.”

I didn’t have words that would be able to come out alone. Any I tried to utter would have tears attached, so I just bobbed my head and hugged her back before I reached for my purse.

“Lucas is in the waiting room and said he’s ready to drive you home whenever you like.”

“He’s still here?” My stomach tightened with guilt. “He didn’t have to stay.”

“He loves Heath, too, Mallory.”

Of course
he did. Heath was an incredibly easy guy to love.

“Will you call me if anything changes?” I asked before turning to go. “Or even if things don’t change? Just … just keep me updated?”

Hattie smiled as she took a seat in the empty chair next to her younger brother. “Of course. But for now, go home and love on that baby of yours. Take a nap. Get a shower and some food. We’ll be here and you’re welcome to come back at any time.”

“Is it bad that I don’t ever want to leave?”

Hattie’s eyes crinkled with another grin and she gave me the sweetest of looks when she said, “I know for a fact that my brother feels exactly the same way about you.”

Heath

Someone had crammed a hundred cotton balls into my mouth, beaten me within an inch of my life with a sledgehammer, and then vomited flowers all over the room.

I was about 99 percent sure that’s what happened, at least.

My tongue scraped my throat with a gritty swallow. My dry lips tightened. My eyelids had weights attached to them, which made opening them a herculean effort. I groaned.

“Heath!” Hattie shuffled to my side. Her hand found my arm, right where a needle jabbed into my flesh like I was a human pincushion. I groaned once more. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Then she whipped her head away from me and shouted, “Mom! Dad! Anthony!”

Her voice grew fingers that wrapped around my brain and squeezed it like a vise. I groaned again.

“Sorry,” she whispered this time. “Sorry.”

“Why does this room look like a wedding aisle?” I turned my head as best I could to observe the table to my left, overflowing with petals and greenery.

“Because your girlfriend is a florist. That, and all of the Whitney kids get a discount there.”

“Got it.” I was incapable of doing anything but groan; even my words were pained. “What happened?”

“I think I should wait for a doctor—” Hattie started to say, but it was too late.

I wiggled my toes. On the right side of the bed, underneath the starchy blue drape, my foot twitched. On the left, nothing. Bile crept into my throat, burning my nose and eyes.

“Hattie …” The volume
of
my voice rose at the end. Panic lifted it an octave higher when I said it again. “Hattie!”

“Shhhh, Heath.” Her hand flew to my forehead and raked through my greasy hair. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“Oh, God.”

There, in a hospital room with only my older sister to witness, I lost it. Sobbed like a baby. At one point a doctor halted in the doorway, but I think Hattie shook him off because he nodded and turned away. My lips were slick and drool pooled in the corner of my mouth. Hattie held my face to her chest and dragged her hands against my scalp, rocking me against the thin mattress. Each movement of my jumping shoulders stabbed me with agony.

And then, as quickly as I fell apart, I pulled myself together. “Can you get the doctor?” I sniffed against my hand as I wiped my face. “I have a few questions.”

“Of course.” Hattie raced out the door like she was sprinting at a track meet. When she returned, she had the sleeve of someone who I assumed was on the medical staff in her hand.

“You didn’t have to physically drag him in here.” I laughed, but it hurt my ribs and my brain to do so.

“Heath.” The doctor lowered a hand to the bedrail. “I’m Dr. Callahan.”

“Good to meet you.” I winced when I tried to stretch out my palm for a shake.

He denied my offer and trapped my hand to lower it to the bed. “Just rest, Heath.
You’ve sustained
some pretty significant injuries last night. Do you remember what happened at all?”

I remembered being pulled over, then finding an old student of mine stranded on the side of the road. I recalled hauling the old tire to the trunk, skirting around the side of the car with the spare in hand, and then crouching down to fit it on the wheel hub. But that was it.

“I don’t remember a lot. Just changing a tire and then nothing. Just blank.”

“You were struck by a passing vehicle that swerved out of its lane going about forty miles an hour.
We’re guessing
the driver was distracted by something. Their vehicle dragged you forward five feet and wedged you under the car you were attempting to fix.” The doctor’s light blue eyes squinted behind his thin, round spectacles. “Heath, you lost part of your left leg in the incident. Just below the knee. The bone was so badly crushed and muscle mangled that all efforts to reattach it
were
lost. I’m so sorry.”

My head wobbled unsteadily. “Okay.” I hissed the painful words. “Okay.”

“You are lucky to be alive.”

It seemed trite for him to say, but I understood his intentions. “Don’t I know it.” And I honestly did. I was lucky. Maybe a little unlucky, too, but I could see the good and how it possibly outweighed the bad in this scenario. “How long before I can walk again?”

“First things first, Heath. Your body has a significant amount of healing to do.”

“I understand that, but timeline-wise, what are we talking?”

Dr. Callahan grimaced. “I hate to give any projected amount of time for this kind of recovery.”

That did not satisfy me. “If everything goes smoothly, what the best-case scenario?”

The doctor rubbed at his jaw. “You’re not going to let me out of this room without an answer, are you?”

“Not a chance.” I smiled, but my lip cracked at the side, opening up some cut I must’ve had. I brought my thumb to my mouth to swipe at the blood but the doctor retrieved some gauze from a nearby cupboard and handed it to me. “Six months? A year? Two years?”

“Definitely not two years. Best case—and I mean
best
case—is that you can leave the hospital in a week or so. And that’s just leaving the hospital. The real work begins after that.”

I nodded to keep him talking.

“If the site of the amputation heals without
problem
, you could be fitted for a prosthetic as soon as two to three weeks. But the average fitting time is usually two to six months post-surgery.”

“Well, I’m not really satisfied with being just an average guy, so I’m shooting for weeks rather than months.”

“All of that will depend on how things mend, Heath. Attitude is often more than half of the battle, but your body physically needs time to recover.”

“Understood.” I did, at least mentally. My heart had more hope in it than my brain, though. “So walking. When will that happen?”

“With hours and hours of physical therapy and the help of a rehabilitation team—and if all things happen as quickly as you hope—I would say anywhere from four months to a year.”

“So by November.”

“
Possibly
.” Dr. Callahan leaned forward. “I don’t want to set any false expectations here, Heath. This is going to be a long road to recovery. Prosthetics are expensive. Rehab takes time. There are more variables than I can even list at the moment.”

“But there’s a chance that by Thanksgiving, I’ll be walking again.”

The doctor relinquished a sigh. “There’s always a chance.”

Life had a strange way of giving me second chances. This was one I was banking on getting.

Mallory

I tightened my black jacket around my waist as I walked through the hospital parking lot. Though only August, the sharp chill in the air required the extra layer, and I was thankful for it. Plus, hospital rooms always seemed to be several degrees cooler than other establishments. Maybe germs didn’t survive well when the temperature dropped. Whatever the reason, the lightweight overcoat was a necessary addition tonight, and I adjusted the fabric while I traipsed through the automatic entrance doors that spread open wide.

Heath had been in the hospital for a week and a half, which was a week and a half longer than he’d hoped. If it were up to him, he’d be at home, recuperating while he prepared lesson plans. But not at his home. There was no way he’d be able to navigate those stairs to his second story apartment.

His roommate, Paul, had been surprisingly incredible this week, helping Boone and me move the majority of Heath’s belongings into my spare bedroom at the other end of the house. Maybe we weren’t at that stage in our relationship yet—the one where our lives intertwined right down to waking and sleeping—but this was the only reasonable solution I could come up with. He would need someone to take care of him, and I was more than willing to be that person.

I passed familiar faces in the hall as I rounded the corner to the elevators. Spending any prolonged amount of time in a hospital made you realize that this was, in fact, home for many people. While it was looking fairly good that Heath might be discharged in a few days, there were others who would be here for months at a time. There were also some who would never leave.

Blessings were constantly showing up for us, just waiting to be counted.

I rode the elevator to his fifth floor and my favorite nurse at the front buzzed me in through the locked double doors.

“Hey, Mallory. Here to see the hottie in 23?”

Even under all the injury, Heath was still one incredibly good looking man and the nursing staff didn’t hesitate to appreciate that.