Page 61 of After We Fall

There’s a knock at the door, and my doctor walks into the room.

“When can I be discharged?” I ask.

He peers at me over his bifocals, his dark, bushy eyebrows lifting, and smiles. “Well, good morning to you too.”

“Hi. Sorry. Good morning, Dr. Gallo.” I steel myself against the nausea, shove the bedpan away, and hit the button to sit straighter in bed. “When will I be released?”

He initiates introductions to everyone in the room, scans a few screens on his iPad, and glances back at me. “Would you like some privacy for this discussion, or may I speak freely in front of your guests?”

“You can speak freely,” Luke says.

The glare I shoot him bounces right off his smug face and into the great beyond. I fold the top of my sheet into a straight line across my lap. While I smooth the edges, I say, “Go ahead.”

“How’s your pain level today?”

“Better. Much better.” I’m stretching the truth. But the quicker he can evaluate me, the sooner I can get to Finley.

“I’m glad to hear the Dilaudid made a dent in your discomfort last night, but I must confess . . .” He leans in to whisper, “I’m happily married and cannot accept your proposal.”

Oh my word. Apparently proposing to my doctor wasn’t merely a weird dream.

“She proposed to you?” Luke asks, clutching a hand to his chest with feigned hurt. “She only told me I was pretty.”

Not a weird dream. A nightmare. Because I remember staring into those long-lashed green eyes and telling Luke he was pretty. And that sometimes I thought I wanted to kiss him. Unfortunately, I meant every word of that particular drug-induced confession.

The doctor points to a poster on the wall. “Give me a number. How would you rate your pain right now?”

I study the chart of numbers corresponding with varying degrees of smiley faces for the lower numbers and frowny faces for the higher numbers. Who designed this system?

For me, there are only two categories of pain. Pain that you can function with and pain that you can’t. Most of life lands under the first. Push through. Complete the task at hand. Move forward.

The faces on the poster mock me. “I don’t know,” I mumble.

The doctor leans in, holds one of my eyelids open, and inspects my eye with his penlight. “How’s your blurred vision?”

“Better.”

“But not gone.”

“No, sir.”

He inspects the second eye and returns the penlight to his white coat pocket. “Do you have any new recollections of what happened yesterday?”

“I have flashes, but not the entire picture.”

After running me through a few more post-concussion tests and asking several questions, he nods. “You’re showing signs of recovery. I’m going to check on you later and probably order a new CT to evaluate the hematoma. If you continue to improve, I might let you out of here tomorrow or the next day.”

Tomorrow or the next day. So much could happen to Finley in that amount of time.

“But I have to tell you”—Dr. Gallo levels his gaze at me—“life is going to be a little different for you in the foreseeable future.”

The tone of the conversation shifts to something significant but unidentifiable. Luke splays his hands on his hips. Harlan and Meredith exchange an indecipherable glance. The hairs on my arms stand on end.

“We take recovering from a concussion and brain bleed pretty seriously around here. Especially for a repeat customer.” He sets his iPad down next to the sink, leans against the counter, and crosses his ankles. “Your activities will be limited for a while.”

An eerie chill crawls down my limbs. “What does that mean? And for how long?”

“That depends on you.” He nods in my direction, his solemn face communicating more than his calm words.