Page 77 of Ring Rust

“Hi. I’m here to see Ryan Sullivan,” he said to the nurse sitting at the desk.

Her face lit up with a huge smile, then stood. “You’re Jasper?”

“Yes?”

“We’ve been hearing a lot about you,” she said, guiding him down a hallway. “My husband this, my husband that…”

Jasper wanted to love hearing that, but he didn’t. Instead, he was hit by a confusing mix of guilt and sadness that overtook the relief.

“This is him,” she sang, pulling back the curtain hung behind the door to Ryan’s room.

Another nurse was standing at Ryan’s bedside, pushing some sort of medication into his IV.

“Oh, is this him?” he asked, laughing as he typed something into the computer system. “I worry I’ve heard the name Jasper so many times in the last half an hour I might unconsciously decide it’s a good baby name.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Jessica would love that,” the other nurse said. “Nine months of hard work all to name her child after the husband of a patient.”

“It’s a beautiful name,” Ryan said from his bed. His eyes were glassy, softened by whatever medication the nurse just gave him. “For a beautiful person.”

He was under a few thin blankets, but Jasper could see a line of bandaging across Ryan’s shoulder and chest. It appeared to cross half the distance of his upper body, from the center of his neck all the way to his arm. His lower arm was in a cast, too, but it wasn’t even a fun color, just plain white, probably becauseRyan had been unconscious when they’d done it. Jasper’s stomach turned on itself imagining what he’d been through.

Ryan’s fingers gave a small, eager wiggle towards the door. A sad, wet laugh bubbled out of Jasper when he saw it, and he hurried to Ryan’s bedside.

“Are you okay?” he asked, stroking Ryan’s hair with a shaky hand.

“I’m great now,” Ryan said, gazing up at him with sleepy doe eyes.

“What happened?”

Ryan grunted. “Logan.”

“Logan? Like, park Logan? Or, which Logan?”

“A spider hit me in the face.”

“A spider hit you in the face?” Jasper asked, wholly unprepared for how confusing a conversation with a post-surgery patient would be.

Ryan nodded. “I fell.”

“Okay,” Jasper said, patting the visible parts of Ryan’s fingers and glancing at the remaining nurse. “Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll take you home in a little bit.”

“Mmm,” Ryan said, closing his eyes.

“He’ll be fine when he wakes up. He just got here. Give him an hour,” the nurse said before leaving the room.

Jasper pulled the chair from the corner and set it next to Ryan’s bedside. He texted the group chat he had with Stevie and Beni to avoid talking on the phone, telling himself it was so Ryan could rest. Ryan was in no state to follow a conversation, and he probably wouldn’t even notice the noise, but still, Jasper found himself eager to stay just the two of them for a few minutes longer. He’d spent months convincing himself that rationing their time together and slowing things down was the answer to future heartache. But now that Ryan was here, bruised andunconscious, every minute with him felt precious enough to make Jasper question everything he’d been so sure of.

Ryan opened his eyes,blinking to clear the fuzz, and found two worried faces hovering above him—his sister and Stevie, both of whom immediately blew out a relieved breath when he managed a small smile. There was one face missing, but he swallowed down his disappointment.

“Oh, thank God,” Beni said.

“Hi,” he said.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I fell off a ladder at the park. I think.”

“That’s what the doctor said, but he wasn’t sure of the details,” Stevie said. “You broke your clavicle and your radius.”