Page 10 of Revived

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I told her.

She chuckled slightly. “Even if you don’t believe me,” she teased lightheartedly as she added on her last remark.

“What can I say? This is my boy and he just wanted to know if his momma was coming.”

That really made her chuckle. “Kids will always want their moms first when they’re hurt. It’s a thing. Don’t take it personally.” She turned to leave after adding my son’s vitals to her tablet. “And that isn’t just lip service. It’s the truth. I’m Melanie, by the way. I’ll be the nurse checking on your son this shift.”

“Any idea how long he’ll be locked up in here?”

“You act as though this is a jail sentence,” she teased.

“For a kid like him, with a hand damaged that way, and the ability to walk taken away for a little bit, it will seem like it. Especially if Opal…” I couldn’t bring myself to talk about her being dead.

“Opal?” The nurse questioned. She took a quick look around and then made to close the door to my son’s room a little tighter. “Your boy is the one who saved the girl that was hit?”

“She’s his girlfriend,” I acknowledged.

“Opal is not gone. She’s in for a long road to recovery, and unlike your son, I don’t think her prognosis includes walking ever again, but she’s here now. They originally took her somewhere else, but trauma was full there, so she was rerouted.”

“Seems she should have been first priority to come here,” I told her.

“Actually, the better place for the both of them would have been if they had gone across town, they have the best orthopedic surgeon money can buy over there.”

“Can you get me his information? Do you know if he’s allowed to practice here as well?”

“I’ll get you all the information you need, but I believe he is allowed to consult here for special circumstances.”

“Good. Can you get him here, tell him money isn’t an object and that I am footing the bill for both my son and his girlfriend?”

“I’ll get the information for you, and you can make the calls. That is out of the realm of things I can do, and if you don’t mind, maybe don’t mention that I told you about Opal. Just guess that she’ll need help too.” She winked at me, left a card she had been writing on in the palm of my hand, and then left the room.

I don’t know how long I sat there by my son’s side before the door to his room opened again. That time, it was not the beautiful nurse coming to check on him.

“Oh my God! Chevy!” Kendra whispered as her hands flew to cover the sharp gasp she made. I was fairly certain that my son had woken up a little while ago, but that he had been feigning sleep ever since. I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t want to see or speak to me, or if he just couldn’t handle talking to anyone.

Hearing his mother’s voice didn’t change anything, so we carried on as if the meds still had him knocked out. “Is he? What happened? Jesus, my heart has been in my chest the whole way here. What is going on with him?”

“Calm down for a minute and I’ll fill you in.” I waited for the rest of their family to trickle in and pulled them a little to the side. I didn’t want Chevy to miss out though, since I knew he was listening in. The kid really was a shit actor.

I filled them in on his prognosis and when I told them that I hired the best orthopedic surgeon to care for both Chevy and Opal, that was when my son finally found his voice again and opened his eyes. “Opal’s not gone?” It was a question. He didn’t think he’d heard me correctly.

I moved back to his bedside and smiled down at him. “She’s not gone, man. Opal’s in bad shape, but she’s still here with us. I need you to fight like hell to get better though, because she’ll need you once everything is said and done.”

“She’s really not dead?” He asked again.

“I promise you, she’s alive and fighting.”

A weight seemed to lift from my son’s shoulders. I realized it was the oppressive weight of grief that had been pinning him down into that dark abyss that he didn’t want to wake from.

“Don’t worry, Chevy, we’re going to get you home and taken care of,” Kendra informed our son while sliding over to the other side of his bed.

“No. Dad has a doctor on the way here to take care of me.”

I felt like I was stabbed in the chest with a fucking machete. It was the first time my son had called me dad. Until that moment, he’d been calling me Gabe, like everyone else in my life. I dared a glance at Hex, who had moved in to stand by his woman, and he actually offered up a small smile and nod. He understood what that had meant. I wasn’t sure how he understood since he had been there for his girl since birth, but I took the sentiment all the same.

“Babe, I think Gabe’s probably got that stuff handled pretty well, yeah?” He asked her.

“He’s in New York!” She hissed back at him. “I can’t be here the whole time.”

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