Fallen (3 page)

She opened her mouth to speak but found that her mouth was too dry. All that came out was a hoarse squeak. He reached over to the rolling table-tray beside the bed and grabbed the little plastic pitcher and cup he found there. After he’d filled the cup he handed it to her and pressed the button on her bed to raise her into a seated position. She took the cup and drank gratefully, sighing with pleasure as the cool liquid eased down her sore throat.

“
Are you the doctor?” she asked when she’d finally found her voice.

He shook his head. “No,” he answered. That would explain his casual state of dress. He wasn’t even wearing a lab coat. Shayla’s eyes lowered and remained on the open V at the top of his shirt that revealed the smooth expanse of tan chest.

“
Well
,
who are you then?” she asked when she was finally able to look back up at his face.

“
My name is Amir,” he said simply, lowering himself into the chair beside her bed.

“
Interesting name,” she said. “How long have I been like this, Amir?”

“
Two weeks.”

“
How bad is it?” she asked grimly, looking down at her legs which were both in casts. “Will I be able to walk again?”

He nodded. “In time, with physical therapy.”

Shayla sighed and covered her face with her hands. She was going to miss out on the Alvin Ailey world tour. Even now they were probably auditioning dancers to find her replacement. She felt tears stinging her eyes but fought them back, remembering what her grandmother had always said about tears. ‘
Generations of black women before you have shed enough tears over the injustices we’ve been dealt in this world. No need for you to be crying when you’ve got the world on a silver platter right in front of you. Chin up girl
,
’
she would say
,
with her hands on her wide hips and a ‘don’t-you-dare-talk-back-to-me’ look on her face.

Shayla fought for composure just as she would have if her grandmother were actually there. She turned back to Amir and pretended as if her dreams had not just come crashing down around her like falling stars. He had turned away and was rubbing at his eyes. Was he tired? How long had he been here with her? Who was he anyway?

“
Do you work for the hospital Amir?” she asked.

“
No,” he said, turning back toward her. “But I am in the business of healing.”

Shayla considered this for a moment. “Like one of those alternative medicine type things?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I guess you could call it that.”

“
Good,” she said with a satisfied nod, “because I’ll need all the help I can to get walking again.”

“
I’ve done what I could for you. Now that you’re awake you have a long road to recovery but I have no doubt you’ll be fine. I’ve been watching you fight and you seem like the kind of person that doesn’t back down easily.”

She nodded. “That’s me all right.”

They fell into silence for a few minutes. Shayla focused on the coarse bedspread and tried not to stare. When she looked up he was staring at her.

“
I should tell the nurse you’ve woken up.”

Shayla nodded and watched as he turned to leave. “Will you be back?”

That devastating smile spread over his face again before he pulled the door closed behind him. “You can count on it.”

Amir pulled his jacket closed and yanked the zipper up to his throat quickly as he exited the hospital. Now that Shayla was awake, he could no longer sit beside her bed twenty-four hours a day without arousing her suspicion. Part of him was disappointed. Even though she was asleep the entire time, he had really gotten to know her by probing her mind. It was almost as if they’d had a long conversation. A very one-sided conversation
,
where she’d learned absolutely nothing about him, but a conversation nonetheless. He was going to miss being able to watch her face, serene in sleep.

But once he remembered the animation in her face as she’d talked, his disappoint
ment
disappeared. He quickened his pace, turning toward the one-bedroom loft he used whenever he was in New York. It was small but adequate. He would rest for a while and then return to Shayla. He knew it wasn’t necessary, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away. Besides, he rationalized, someone had to be there with her. Her own parents had not even come to check on her. Amir frowned as he slipped his key in the lock and closed the door behind him. He switched on the coffee pot and removed his coat.

As he plopped down onto the stiff, white leather couch in the living room, he turned his head to gaze about the room. After leaving the depressing environment of the hospital, he should have been happy to be at one of his earthly homes. Simply furnished and decorated in cool shades of white and gray, the loft was meant to be peaceful and serene. Instead it felt stark and lonely and he found himself longing for the hospital room again.

Chapter 5: Healing

Shayla smiled when the door to her hospital room opened and Amir entered. She had grown bored hours ago with the magazines the nurse had given her and the few channels available on the small television hanging on the wall across from her bed. She was starting to consider trying to call her parents again, when he arrived looking impeccably handsome and wearing his radiant smile. She couldn’t help wishing that she was wearing a bit of makeup and something more flattering than a hospital gown, or that her face wasn’t covered in nasty black and purple bruises. If his smile was any indication, though, he didn’t mind the way she looked in the least.

“
Good morning,” he said, plopping down in the chair beside her. “I’ve got something for you.”

For the first time Shayla noticed the white box in his hand. A delicious aroma was coming from it and the two Styrofoam coffee cups he carried in a cardboard drink carrier. “Whatever it is it smells delicious,” she said, reaching out to accept the warm cup. She sipped and sighed with appreciation. “White chocolate mocha,” she commented before taking another long sip. “My favorite.”

Amir opened the white bakery box and extended it to her. She grabbed an éclair from the top of the small pile of pastries and bit into it with relish. “Also my favorite,” she said, thoroughly enjoying the chocolate covered pastry filled with cream. “How did you know?”

His only response was to smile and take a bit of his own éclair. Shayla wondered if the man had any idea how magnetizing that smile was. It transformed his entire face and seemed to light him up from the inside. It made Shayla feel as though butterflies were beating their wings in her stomach.

“
I thought you might be tired of hospital food,” he said.

She nodded emphatically and reached for another éclair. After the mundane offerings of the hospital cafeteria, the éclairs and coffee tasted like pure heaven. “I was hoping to be able to go home soon. Unfortunately the doctor says I’ll be in a wheelchair for a while and will need someone to take care of me.”

“
And you don’t have anyone.” It wasn’t a question, Shayla realized. It was a statement. He knew she was all alone in the world. “The nurse told me no one had come to visit you since your accident,” he explained.

She sipped her coffee and mulled over calling her parents again. She’d tried several times to call both the house and their cell phones. She couldn’t bring herself to leave them any messages. Just when she heard the beep she’d hang up. She wasn’t even sure what she would say to them. She hadn’t spoken to them in two years.

“
So it seems I’m stuck here,” she said. “With nothing but the machinery to keep me company.”

“
Well you have me,” he said, leaning forward to take her hand. “I’ll sit with you as long as you like.”

“
I would appreciate that,” she responded, curling her fingers around his warm hand.

Keeping true to his word, Amir was beside Shayla’s bed every day. He brought her pastries and coffee, read to her from the newspaper
and
left fresh flowers on the little table beside the bed. Shayla found herself looking forward to his visits every day. Each morning before he arrived, she would ask the nurse to help her run a brush through her hair and at least apply a little mascara. She was sure that her efforts were not completely wasted. Despite the ugly bruising that was now a sickly shade of green, Amir’s eyes always lit
up
with appreciation when
he
looked at her.

She wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, but had decided not to question it for now. She was developing feelings for Amir, even though she hadn’t known him very long. Come to think of it, she didn’t really know anything about him at all. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She knew that his warm brown eyes twinkled genuinely when he laughed. She knew that he had a dimple in his left cheek when he smiled. She knew that he loved coffee and classical music. She knew the feel of his hand in hers.

Everything else was unknown to her, but Shayla found that she liked the mystery. She was perfectly content with the way things were, especially since she still had not been able to contact her parents and Amir was the only person who came to visit her. He claimed that his work where she was concerned was finished, completed while she still lay unconscious in her bed. When she’d asked him why he still continued to visit, he told her that he wanted to be there for her since nobody else was. Just thinking of it made tears come to her eyes all over again. In a world full of people who cared only about themselves, who walked past beggars in the street and turned the other way when they saw suffering, what were the odds of a man like Amir existing? He was definitely unlike anyone she’d ever known.

Amir’s work was finished. Shayla was definitely out of the woods
,
so to speak, and her legs were mending nicely. The doctor had come to remove the casts and had told her to begin physical therapy immediately. As soon as she could get around without assistance on a cane or walker she’d be able to go home. And then what?

Father hadn’t sent for him yet, so he knew he had no new assignments. He was free to spend his time as he pleased for the moment, and every morning when his feet hit the floor the only place he wanted to be was at the hospital with Shayla. There was something soothing in the predictability of their days together; coffee and pastries, laughing over bad soap operas, reading the paper, walking up and down the hall so that she could regain her strength. He never grew bored of it, happy at every moment he got to spend in her company.

Each day, though, visiting hours would end and Amir would have to leave. Shayla’s eyes would reflect the same disappointment as his. At least, until the day the doctor had informed her she could go home.

“
Your recovery has been quite miraculous,” he told her. “Someone up there must really be looking out for you. Since you’re able to get around by yourself on the walker, I see no reason to keep you here. You can go home tomorrow.”

She turned to him with excitement, her smile so radiant that Amir could not help smiling in return. “I can’t wait to get out of this place!” she’d said, squeezing his arm affectionately. Amir couldn’t help but feel her joy, as he did every other emotion she experienced, but he also felt a twinge of his own sadness. Now that she was leaving the hospital, surely Father would want him to move on to his next assignment. He would probably never see Shayla again.

Chapter 6: Family Ties

Shayla took one last look around the room, making sure she had remembered everything. She didn’t have much; the cloth
es
she had on were the same as she’d been wearing the night of her accident. The toothbrush, hairbrush, books, cell phone, laptop, and ballet shoes in the bag on the bed were the only things in the hospital room that were hers. She’d finally been discharged, and could hardly wait to get back to her apartment.

Amir, who had been unusually quiet since he’d arrived that morning to find her signing discharge papers, lifted her duffel bag over his shoulder. “I’ll help you get a cab,” he said before swinging the door open for her. Shayla watched him go, wondering at his strange mood. She’d never seen him anything but cheerful and easygoing. This reserved silence of his was new to her.

Deciding not to let it ruin her excitement over going home, Shayla leaned on her walker and pushed it slowly, following Amir to the elevator at the end of the hall. He politely allowed her to enter the elevator before entering behind her. Shayla managed to stand beside him in silence between floors 20 and 10. By the time they crept past nine, she could take no more.

“
Is everything all right?” she asked, staring at the side of his face. He was staring straight ahead, silent and still. He finally looked her in the eye, but didn’t smile like he usually did. “You’re so quiet,” she continued, shifting her weight uncomfortably. Even though her legs were healed, she was still very weak and standing for too long caused her pain. She couldn’t wait to exit the elevator and get into a cab.