Page 55 of The Other Side of Apart

“Okay, then…” She types again. “Looks like he was just brought in about thirty minutes ago, so let me look up his status.” Her fingers fly across the keyboard, the sound like gunfire against my skull. “Looks like he’s in ER room three. Let me make some phone calls. Have a seat over there, and I’ll let you know when you can go back.”

“Is he okay?”

“I don’t have any other information, I’m sorry. But I promise I’ll let you know what I find out. Just take a seat. Won’t be long.”

I hesitate, then find the chair closest to the desk and perch on the edge of it, watching everything around me. I cling to my coat and bag, hanging onto something to get rid of this feeling that I’m dangling over the edge of something horrible. Police talk to each other, filling out forms. Are they here because of what happened to Marcus? A doctor and two nurses walk through the emergency room doors together, and I want to follow them, find Marcus.

If I don’t get a grip on this moment, I’ll plummet into the darkness below me. So I stand and pace the waiting room, my eyes jumping around every corner, trying to collect information, but the woman behind the desk calls my name, derailing my thought.

“You’re free to go back. Room number three. I’ll buzz you in.” She clicks a button, and I toss a breathless “Thank you” to her as I hurry through the opening doors and locate the flimsy curtain of Room 3. It waves with movement from the other side.

“Marcus?” I dash around the curtain, stopping short when I almost run into two nurses working on an IV drip attached to his arm and two officers standing by his bed. The male officer turns, but I rush to Marcus, my frantic eyes on his bloody, swollen face. “Are you okay?”

He starts to say something, but the officer speaks over him. “Thank you for your statement, Mr. Bromley. We’ll do our best and keep you informed.”

“Thanks,” Marcus says, his voice crackly and hoarse.

When the officers leave, I turn to Marcus, my breath catching in a hard ball in my chest. “What happened?”

Before he can respond, a doctor breezes through the curtain into the room. “Looks like we’re cleared for surgery, Mr. Bromley.”

My heart jolts, and I grip the bed railing as the doctor steps toward me, hand extended. “I’m Doctor Faulk.”

“Peggy,” I say, shaking his hand.

“My wife,” Marcus adds, and the doctor nods.

“Nice to meet you, Peggy. I’ll give you two the overview.” He studies a computer screen. “Your shoulder is fine. It was dislocated, but we put it back where it belongs, and there’s no lasting damage there. As for your leg, looks like the bullet exited but fractured the tibia. I’ve called in an orthopedic surgeon, and he’ll fix the bone and remove any fragments. Seems pretty straightforward, so the good news is, surgery shouldn’t take too long. Maybe two hours at most. The surgeon’s on his way now, so they’ll get you prepped.” He motions to the two nurses working in the corner, pulling out drawers and packages. “You’re welcome to stay until they take him to the O.R.,” he says to me. After giving a few instructions to the nurses, Dr. Faulk leaves the room. My fingers lace through Marcus’s, and I run my other hand over the bruises on his knuckles while a nurse on the other side of his bed adjusts his IV.

When the nurses leave, I turn to him. “What happened?”

“Nick.” Marcus’s eyes dart to the curtain, away from mine. “He showed up at the apartment. Told him to leave, he shot me. Now I’m here.” He closes his eyes.

“Are you in pain?” I whisper, my voice still catching up to the moment.

“They gave me something, and I feel okay right now. Pretty good, actually.”

“What did he want?” I press my lips together and wait to hear what I’ve wondered for months.

Marcus’s eyes move to the curtain again. The wall. The blanket covering his legs. “Diamonds.”

My throat tightens, but I squeeze out the words, my fingers on my neck. “He said that?”

“He said he wants what you stole from him. So yeah…basically. Right before he shot me.”

Dr. Faulk comes back in with two different nurses. “You ready? They’ll take you to the O.R., and you’ll be back in no time with your leg as good as new.” One of the nurses smiles and steps past me to wheel the bed from the room. I squeeze Marcus’s hand before he slides through the curtains and away from me.

I follow a nurse to the waiting room where I stare out the window at the fake potted plants lining the sidewalk. If they can’t keep real plants alive, why are they a hospital? Plants should be easy compared to people.

I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose while my mind twists around Marcus’s words until it’s all too tangled and heavy, and I drop into a chair. I get lost in the swirls in the carpet, and my mind does the same, collecting questions and fears. How did Nick find us? We were careful. And why the diamonds? Is that all he’s wanted this whole time? It doesn’t make any sense. He has cases of diamonds—a warehouse of expensive things Why couldn’t he leave us alone? Why couldn’t he move on, let me live my life that I so obviously didn’t want with him?

Anger stretches against my chest, tightening my throat, and tears spill, hot as they streak down my cheeks. This has gone toofar. It went too far long ago, but I didn’t stop it and look what happened. If I’d known all he wants is the diamonds, I would have given them back forever ago. I’ll do it now, if he’ll just leave us alone. But he won’t. He’ll find ways to punish me, even if he gets what he wants. He’ll never be satisfied. It’s only a matter of time before he’s back, and what will he do then? I thought the diamonds were my escape route. But Marcus is in surgery right now because of them. And me. He’s far from home because of me. He lost everything because of me. He could have died because of me.

My mind is hazy and sluggish when a doctor strides toward me almost two and a half hours later to tell me the surgery went very well, and that Marcus will be in a brace for a few months. He won’t be running on it anytime soon, but it will heal, and he’ll be as good as before. The doctor tells me he was lucky. The doctor doesn’t know anything.

He leads me down another echoey, white hallway to Marcus’s recovery room, telling me that he’ll have to spend one night here for observation, and I’m welcome to stay in the room with him.

Marcus is unconscious when I step through the door behind the doctor, who checks a chart, then turns to me. “Pull up a chair and get comfortable. He’ll be groggy for a while. And you never know what he might say as he comes out of anesthesia.” He smiles, pats me on the shoulder, and disappears through the door.

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