Unfortunate Son (24 page)

Feeling better. Oh shit
. Evan’s eyes popped open. “Mom,” he rasped out. “Where am I?”

Cory laughed softly. “Not your mom, honey, but you’re at Piedmont.”

With extreme effort, Evan waved his good hand toward the curtain. “Mom’s here,” he forced through the fire in his throat. “Got hurt yesterday. Need to… find her….”

He started to move, but a big hand came down in the middle of his chest. “You’re not going anywhere, honey.” Cory’s voice managed to be both soothing and firm. “If your mom’s still here, then I’ll find out what’s going on for you, okay?”

Evan relaxed and nodded before he thought about it. Pain exploded through his head, and he cried out despite his best efforts.

“Shhh, honey, it’s okay.” Cory cupped his cheek. “You took a pretty nasty spill, from what I hear, and you hit your head. Just lie still and let the doctors and nurses take care of you, and I’ll take care of everything else.”

Evan couldn’t respond. It took all of his focus to concentrate on breathing and
not moving
, dammit.

“All right, Mr. Day.” A new voice entered the room, but Evan had squeezed his eyes shut and couldn’t pry them open. “We’re gonna take you down to radiology and get everything checked out.”

“I’m going to check on another patient while he’s gone, okay?” Warm breath brushed his ear, and a soft kiss landed just in front of it. “I’ll be back just as soon as I can, okay?”

Evan stopped himself just in time from nodding again. Instead, he forced out an “okay.” A minute later, his bed lurched into motion, and his stomach went with it. He bit back the nausea, everything in him recoiling at the thought of how much it would hurt to throw up. Things seemed to settle once the bed was rolling down the hall, and a few minutes later, they came to a stop in another hallway.

“Just a little backed up here, Mr. Day. They’ll get you taken care of soon.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Evan added, though he kept his eyes closed. He could see through his eyelids how bright the lights were here, and he didn’t think that would be much help with his headache.

The sounds and smells of the hospital surrounded him. Someone in another bed nearby moaned, clearly in pain, and the scent of stale urine seeped in around the astringent in the air. He hadn’t been a patient in a hospital in years—four years, he figured, when he’d been checked out at the public hospital, Grady, after he was rear-ended and the airbag in his car smacked him in the face. The ER there had been much busier and noisier than this one.

He drifted, maybe even dozed, for who knew how long before another voice spoke up from beside him. “Okay, Mr. Day, we’ve got you ready now.”

“Evan,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Call me Evan?”

“All right, then, Mr. Evan. Here we go.”

Evan had to smile at the woman’s phrasing. Her slow drawl gave away her Southern roots anyway, but the “Mr.” before his name sealed it.

The bed clanked as she unlocked the wheels and got him moving again. His stomach stayed quiet this time, and soon he was in another room with what looked like a gigantic camera overhead. X-ray, apparently.

“All right, Mr. Evan. We’re going to get some shots of your wrist, and then we’re gonna help you turn over so we can get some shots of your head too. Then we’ll take you over for the CT scan.”

Evan took a deep breath and braced himself for the pain he knew would follow. It wasn’t as bad as he feared, even as they removed the temporary brace from his wrist and moved his arm into several different positions, the giant camera rumbling and clicking to take each shot. Turning over was an adventure in nausea, but he made it, and he lay there and breathed as more shots were taken.

Once that was done, they let him stay on his stomach while they rolled him a few doors down to another room with another huge machine in it. It took three people to help him transfer to the narrow bed, and getting his arms positioned was a challenge because of the wrist injury. By the time the tube had finished scanning over his head and abdomen, Evan ached all over and felt like he could sleep for a week.

They kept waking him up, though. He dozed again on the way back to his spot in the ER, but the nurse roused him to ask questions and finally, thank God, to give him a few sips of water. She injected something into his IV for pain too, and he lost track of time after that, not that he had any way to keep up with it. No phone or watch, and no clocks that he could see. Distantly, he thought that the fact he could see, no double vision, probably was a good thing, at least.

Finally, the curtain slid back and a new person stepped up to his bed. “Mr. Day, I’m Dr. Patel,” she said. “How are we feeling?”

“Evan,” he replied. “And I dunno about you, but I feel like crap.”

She laughed softly and turned to the computer. “We should have results from your tests, so let me pull those up and we’ll see what we can do.” She fell silent, and Evan went back to not thinking and not moving.

“Okay.” Dr. Patel moved back to his bedside. “So, here’s what we have. Your ulna is broken just below the wrist, but it’s clean and looks pretty well aligned, so you shouldn’t need surgery. We’ll have an orthopedist confirm that before we apply a permanent cast, though. You do not have a skull fracture, but there is some fairly severe bruising, and you’ve got a concussion to go along with that. So you’re going to have a pretty bad headache for a few days, and we’ll need to admit you to be sure you don’t develop any more serious bleeding. That will also put some limits on your medications and food. You’ll probably be on liquid nutrition for the first twenty-four hours, mainly because you’ll probably have more bouts of nausea, and vomiting would make things worse.”

She paused then. “I know this is a lot to digest, especially when you’ve taken a good knock on the head. You still with me?”

“Yeah.” Evan fought the instinct to nod. “Anything else?”

Dr. Patel grimaced. “The CT showed some insult to your right kidney. We’ll need a urine sample, and if that’s not a problem, then we won’t need to place a catheter. Either way, though, we’ll need to catch and test your urine for blood, make sure the kidney gets better and not worse.”

Evan winced, hoping the catheter wouldn’t be necessary. “How long will I be in?”

“That depends on you.” Dr. Patel lifted her eyebrow. “If you’re a good patient and follow all the rules we give you, probably two to three days. That’s if nothing gets worse and you don’t need surgery. The good news is that we have some open beds, so it shouldn’t take us long to find you a spot and get you settled in. Is someone here with you?”

“Yeah,” Evan answered. “He went to check on my… on another patient we know.”

Dr. Patel nodded. “Okay. Let me get my notes written up and put in the admission order so they can get you assigned to a room, and a nurse will be over to get the urine sample. You probably won’t see the orthopedist until you’re up on the floor, and we’re limited on what we can give you for pain because of the head injury, but we’re doing the best we can on that front.”

“Okay.” Evan was relieved when the doctor moved back to the computer and started clacking away again. His head throbbed, and he hoped he’d remember everything she told him. Two to three days in the hospital sucked, but it could be worse. He could be heading in for emergency brain surgery, for example.

Soon Dr. Patel stopped typing. “All right, Mr. Day. We should have someone moving you to a room before too much longer.”

“Thanks,” Evan said.

“You’re welcome. Take care.” The doctor left, and Evan stared up at the ceiling for a while. At some point, a nurse came in and checked his monitors and IV, and he had to pee into a container shaped like a deformed milk bottle, but at least that wasn’t a problem, so it looked like a catheter would be off the table. He didn’t know how long “before too much longer” turned out to be, but eventually, Nurse Carla came back in, followed by a tall black man wearing scrubs and a bright white smile.

“We’ve got your room ready,” Carla said as she started unplugging wires. “Otis here will take you up, and the nurses on four will take over from there.” She reached up to unhook the bag of saline from the stand and then laid it on the bed next to Evan’s hip. “If you’ll keep an eye on that, then we should be good to go. You take care, Mr. Day.”

Evan didn’t correct her this time. “Thanks, Carla,” he said, closing his eyes as the bed started to move. He hoped Cory would find him soon. He wanted to know about his mom.

“E
VAN
?”

Cory’s voice roused Evan from a light doze. He was so fucking sleepy, but he forced his eyes open and held out his good hand. “How is she?”

Cory dropped the bag of Evan’s things next to the bed and dropped himself into the chair. “She’s doing all right. Lord, I had no idea it would be like talking to a brick wall to get your daddy to tell me anything. I mean, I’ve dealt with him before, but man, he’s a tough nut to crack.”

A sound something like a laugh escaped Evan. “He always was.” He swallowed, his throat dry. “Need some water.”

“Oh, sure, honey.” Cory grabbed the big plastic mug with the straw from the side table and maneuvered it to a spot where Evan could get the straw to his mouth without moving his head. A little water spilled, but Evan didn’t care. The cool liquid felt
so
damn good going down.

Evan’s stomach twisted, and he stopped himself from drinking too much. With the headache he had and the way his back hurt, he didn’t need to make himself sick. He lay back against the pillows and concentrating on breathing until the nausea faded.

“I didn’t even think about it until I got to her room,” Cory said, “but he asked why I was there. Well, to be specific, he said, ‘What the hell are
you
doing here?’ I think the only reason he didn’t bellow it was that it’s a freaking hospital.”

Oh, man.
Evan hadn’t even thought about Cory having to explain his showing up like that. “What did you tell him?”

Cory shrugged. “That you were here with a friend and asked me to check on her. I figure it’s enough truth for now.”

Evan started to nod, then realized that was a bad idea. Slowly, he turned his head toward Cory and opened his eyes just a slit. “Did they say when she’d get to go home?”

Cory shook his head. “No, all I got out of him was that she’ll be fine. I don’t even know what happened to her.”

That was a story Evan had no desire to tell. “She hit her head,” he murmured. “It… it was bad. I shouldn’t’ve gone.”

Cory frowned. “To dinner? Honey, what happened?”

“They lied.” Evan lay back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling, unwilling to close his eyes because he’d just see the blood on his mother’s head. “They had…
I
had money. A trust fund or something, I dunno. I should’ve gotten it when I turned twenty-one. They never told me.”

“Fuck.” Cory fell silent. “How much?”

“Over a quarter million.”

“Fucking fuck!” Cory jumped to his feet, and pain forgotten for a moment, Evan turned his head to stare. “You mean to tell me you could’ve had
$250,000
coming to you? And your parents didn’t tell you?” Cory’s face turned nearly as red as Evan’s father’s had during their argument. “How dare they? Bad enough they turned you out like a stray dog. But
fuck
!”

Evan seriously thought Cory was going to punch something. He’d never seen his friend this angry, not even during the confrontation with his parents after Evan came home. “Cory—”

“No!” Cory cut him off. “I’ll kill him. I’ll strangle him. I’ll wrap my fingers around his scrawny little neck….” His hands curled in the air in front of him, recreating the movements he described, and Evan did the only thing he could do.

He laughed.

It hurt, but hell, what
hadn’t
hurt the past few days? He wrapped his good arm around his stomach, and he laughed until he coughed.

And then he cried.

It was like a switch flipped inside him, and the absurdity that had become his life morphed into tragedy. All the pain and sorrow he’d been carrying for so long welled up and spilled out of him. He cried for his brother, the boy he’d idolized and the man he missed desperately. He cried for Lucas, his first love, the man who’d taught him who he really was. He cried for his mother, who’d loved him but wouldn’t stand by him. He cried for his father, both the man he was and the man Evan wanted him to be.

And he cried for himself. The child who’d wanted to be loved. The teenager who’d lost his beloved brother. The man who’d lost his lover, his career, and his family, all in one swift blow. The shell who’d been walking through his life for five years, hiding everything inside so deeply that nothing reached below the surface.

By the time the tears ran dry, he ached all over. His head and back throbbed, and his mouth was a desert. He came back to himself to realize that Cory sat on the side of the bed, holding his good hand in both of his and making wordless, soothing sounds. Evan’s breath shuddered in and out, but he managed to make his mouth work.

“Water?” he rasped.

Cory reached for the mug again. He didn’t say anything, but after he’d helped Evan take a few sips, he put the mug back and grabbed the box of tissues, pulled a few out, and handed them to Evan. Evan used them to dry off his face and wipe his nose, and Cory didn’t even flinch as he took the wet paper from Evan’s hand and tossed it toward the trash.

He tilted his head and gave Evan a soft smile. “Feel better now?”

Evan almost laughed. “Kinda.” He breathed in as deeply as he could before the pain kicked in and then blew it out. “Sleepy.”

“I bet.” Cory leaned forward to press a kiss against Evan’s damp temple. “You rest. You’ve earned a nap.”

Evan nodded once and closed his eyes. Sleep claimed him quickly.

W
HEN
E
VAN
opened his eyes again, the light from the window told him it was daytime, but it took him a few moments to realize that, no, his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.