Page 59 of Revived

“Sorry, I just need to do a vital check on Mr. North-man,” the hesitation in her voice, when saying my name was odd. Apparently, Mel thought so too. She stood and turned, first glancing at the board on the wall and then at something on the woman who entered the room.

“Get out!” She hissed while pointing a finger toward the door.

“Excuse me? It’s my job, we have to check on…”

“It is not your assigned job tonight, now get out of this room before I insure you never work in a hospital again,” Mel threatened just as the door to the room opened once more.

“Abby, what are you doing in here?” The nurse who had been assigned to me asked.

“I was just, the machines, I was checking.”

“Mr. Northman isn’t your patient, now remove yourself from his room immediately.” Once the woman fled, my nurse, Mrs. Carter, turned back to us. “I apologize for the intrusion. I promise you, that will not happen again.”

“Thank you,” Mel managed to say before coming to sit back down beside me. That time, she didn’t keep her hands away. She reached over and took hold of my hand instead.

I waited. Then I just watched as she closed her eyes and held tightly to my hand. “I’m so very happy that you’re okay. I don’t know what I would have done if you had been hurt more seriously, or not made it.” Her eyes opened slowly, the tears that had been sitting there, trapped by her lashes, finally tracked down her cheeks. “I am so grateful that you are doing well, will make a wonderful recovery, and are going to get some help about how to handle the life you lead.”

“But?” I asked because I could feel the finality of her words thick in the air.

“I just can’t do this with you right now.” She sighed. “I’m a nurse practitioner, Gabe. Your first thought when you saw me in the room set up for emergencies, shouldn’t have been that I was sucking someone’s dick as revenge for hearing you call your son’s mom the only love you’ll ever have.”

I cringed at the thought that she’d heard me say that because those words rang false in every way. “Let’s be honest,” I tried to add some levity to the situation. “My first thought would never have been, ‘maybe that guy got his dick chomped on tonight.’” I fake shivered at the thought. Mel laughed with me, but it wasn’t enough.

“Right, but it shouldn’t have been, ‘Mel’s sucking Lonny’s dick in here.’” She did shiver at the thought. “It was bad enough I had to see it, along with the damage that girl did.”

“I know,” I told her. “There aren’t enough apologies in the world.” We sat silently for a few minutes with Mel still holding on to my hand. “You’re leaving in the morning, aren’t you?”

“I think it’s for the best,” she told me.

I tipped my head into a half-ass nod before responding. “I’m not giving up on us, Mel.”

“Okay,” was the only answer she had for me. Not very promising, but at least she hadn’t told me I’d be wasting my time.

20 – Discharge & Disaster

Once I was discharged from the hospital, my band, Chevy, and Wen’s daughter all hopped back on the bus and took off for Georgia. Kendra flew back first thing in the morning, and they were able to pay to get Chevy’s ticket transferred into Mel’s name so that she could fly home with her. She wanted a head start, no doubt to get all of her things out of the house before I returned.

Everything was fucked and I didn’t know how to unfuck it. “You doing okay?” John asked as he sat beside me.

“Not really. My leg feels like it has been through war. My woman is in the process of packing her shit and leaving, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to make up for what I did and earn her back.” I tipped a smirk up to him then. “Plus, I get you lot, crashing my pad, for however long it takes.”

“I’m thinking about buying a place not too far from you.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. Just need to convince Jade that moving won’t impact the kid negatively. She thinks the school change up will be a challenge.” He shrugged. “I think Wen’s been thinking about it too. We’re all pretty much over the poison that LA breeds.” John tapped the table repeatedly, while staring off into space for a bit.

“What’s going through your mind right now?”

“I was just thinking,” John mentioned as he pointed to my leg. “Don’t you need someone around to help change that bandage for you and get you back up and walking good and proper?”

I grinned at my friend and then asked him the biggest favor known to man. “Can you make her stay?”

“I’ll call and stall her, but you’re going to have to make the case for her staying once we get there though.”

“Fair enough.”

~*~

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