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After a soft knock, I heard his deep voice bidding me to enter.
He was lying in a typical hospital bed, the head raised about two-thirds of the way. He turned and saw me standing in the doorway and sat up a bit straighter. His smile was slow to come but was smart and sexy when it did. Fighting the urge to bound across the room and fling myself onto him, I approached cautiously.
“Hi,” I said through a smile. It was so good to see him after worrying so much. “How are you?”
“Maye—” he said, but the last part caught in his throat. Tears filled both our eyes, as I waited for him to say more.
“It’s so good to see you. Please— Come to me.” He held his hand out toward me, and I grasped it without a second thought.
I stepped close to his bedside while clinging to his palm. His skin felt dryer than it normally did, and the fluorescent lighting above did nothing for the dark circles under his eyes. Bruising marred his handsome face in several spots, and there was a clean bandage, about three inches long, off-center on his forehead.
Seeing him hurt my heart in ways I hadn’t expected. I choked back a whimper when he squeezed my hand, bringing my attention back to the present. Tubing from an IV was taped on top where the needle entered his skin.
I bent lower to embrace him, but the position was terribly awkward. “I’m tempted to ask you to shove over so I can climb in beside you,” I said on a strangled chuckle. “I want to feel your arms around me more than anything.”
“I want that too,” Andrew whispered into my hair. “You smell divine, baby. I’ve missed you more than you know.”
“I don’t like this,” I admitted and felt selfish for doing so at once. There were so many things I wanted to say, and that’s what came out? “I meant, I didn’t like going all those days without seeing you. I’m becoming attached so quickly.” I couldn’t read the expression on his face after saying that, and I feared I might have sounded clingy.
He looked like he was in pain. Not necessarily physical pain but tormented. Maybe last night, after he’d tried to come up with every excuse so I wouldn’t visit, he came to a different conclusion from our time apart.
Cautiously, I asked, “Does that freak you out? The look on your face right now…”
“No, it doesn’t freak me out. I’ve been going mad without having you near. I’m not sure how this happened so fast either, but I feel the exact same. My own feelings are what scare me.”
“You’re scared to care about me? Why?” As I gently asked the questions, I made myself comfortable on the edge of the mattress.
He thumbed over his shoulder and offered, “There’s a blue chair in the corner behind me. Would you rather sit there?”
I shook my head. “No, I want to sit right here if it’s okay with you. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. If I sit back there, I won’t be able to see your face while we chat.” I cradled his cheek in my palm and gazed down at him.
He leaned into my touch for the briefest second, then pulled back. Maybe all the talk about feelings the moment I walked in the door was too much.
So I straightened and added, “I brought my laptop in case you were up for a little grant work.”
Excited, I sprang back to my feet and grabbed the bag I brought in. I was so taken aback when I saw him lying there when I first walked in, I completely forgot I brought lunch.
I plopped the bag on the table that rested over his legs. “I brought us lunch. It’s just sandwiches, but my guess is it’s better than hospital food. How long did you say you’ll have to be in here?” I took a good look around the room for the first time and was hit by a wave of sadness.
The room was small, as most hospital rooms were. When he said he was in a rehabilitation facility, I pictured something a bit more accommodating. More like home.
“I thought these places were a transition between hospital and home?” I asked. “This looks a lot more like a hospital room than a bedroom.”
Maybe I was rambling out of nervousness. Andrew hadn’t interjected once, and when I turned back to face him, I expected the warm smile he usually had for me. Especially after my nerves had gotten the better of me, and I blathered on about nonsense. Instead, I was met by the serious, almost stern, expression that sucked me back in time to when I was his student.
“What?” I squeaked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, but he couldn’t hold eye contact for even that one word.
Abandoning the food for now, I went back to perch on the side of his bed. “Do you want to eat at the table? Might feel good to get up and move around a little bit. I’m sure you’re stiff from the accident.” Having way too much nervous energy pinging around in my body, I shot up again and crossed the room to grab the plastic wand that opened the vertical blinds. Behind them, I found a sliding-glass door that led out to a small balcony.
“Ooooh, this is quaint,” I nearly squealed. “We could sit out here? Feel the sunshine?”
“Maye,” he said in a tone filled with desperation. Definitely a sound I’d never heard from him before. It had the desired effect, though, because I immediately stopped shuffling around the room, showing off its features like a real estate agent.
“I can’t sit at the table!” Andrew announced at a volume more appropriate for a lecture hall. Then, even louder, he shouted, “I can’t go outside!” The man emphasized that one negative word in both comments with bitterness and disgust. Lastly, with a pained grimace, he added, “I can’t even use the goddamned bathroom on my own!”
He grew eerily calm then, and with the back-to-back comparison of everything else he just shouted, his next words were more profound at a whisper. “I can’t feel my legs from my hips down to my toes.”
