Page 14 of The Heart We Guard
“Sure I’ll be fine, sweet cheeks.”
“One, you won’t be, but whatever. And two, don’t call me ‘sweet cheeks.’ I’d preferDoc, I’ll acceptGreer. But don’t patronize me.”
“Won’t happen again.”
Greer moves to the side of the table where my injuries are and places her hands just below my shoulder blades. “On the count of three, we’re going to roll. One, two, three.”
Something funky must have happened to the universal laws of physics, because the instruction was clear: Roll onto my side.
But the execution?
My body screams its resistance. My legs seem to have forgotten how to move. If it weren’t for Greer with her hands placed on my spine, beneath my shoulders, I wouldn’t have budged an inch.
I’m not a small man.
At six four and two-hundred-and twenty pounds, there’s a lot of muscle and limb to move.
But somehow, Greer manages to fill in where physics is letting me down, and I end up on my side, clutching the pillow and gasping for breath.
“Fuck. Me,” I grunt.
“Wow,” Greer says. “Yeah, I see how you had no reason to worry. You sound so fine, I can barely handle it.”
The sarcasm in her tone is layered thicker than the grease on my vintage Harley’s wheel bearings.
She moves to stand in front of me. “You want to try this bit on your own, seeing how fine you are, or would you like my help?”
“You have a terrible bedside manner, Doc.”
She smiles at that. “Ah, thank you. If there were a ranking table for bedside manner of doctors, I’d try a little harder. But for now, it’s about how I’m simply helping a stranger in my home, and you don’t need a bedside manner for that.”
“Impudent.”
“Maybe. I’m going to move your legs off now.”
“Slowly,” I say. After the last move, I’m not keen to try it again.
She does as I ask, sliding my feet to the edge of the table, then taking the weight of them as my upper body begins to lift. Greer hurries around the back of the table and places her hands beneath my elbows to help me sit.
I’m not sure what it feels like to be struck by lightning, but I’m pretty certain this is damn close. It takes my breath away,and I gasp as I try to bring the spinning in my head under control.
Stars flutter, and the world tilts and whirls. My stomach lurches as red-hot pokers fire through my shoulder and abdomen. And I cling to the goddamn pillow like it’s a flotation device and I’m in the middle of the ocean.
“Jesus,” I say, dipping my head.
Greer’s bare feet appear in my vision, and she places her hands on my biceps. “Take a few deep breaths. We’re in no rush to move.”
I don’t even have it in me to sass or respond or speak at all. My vision wavers in and out of focus like a badly tuned television.
“When we move you, I’ll give you another bag of saline, get some more fluids in you,” Greer says.
She smells so good, and I focus on that. Beneath the scent of antiseptic and the rank odor of my own body, there’s the light fragrance of flowers. I hold on to it. Follow that damn scent right back to here and now.
I take a deep breath. Then another. Greer’s palm is warm on my bicep, rubbing up and down slowly. The wash of pain dissipates, but I know there are going to be three more moments just like it; as I stand, as I walk, and as I sit back down wherever she takes me.
“Kinda wish I’d stayed lying down,” I admit.
“Me too. But we’re doing this now, so let’s get it done. If you’re a good boy, I’ll give you some more morphine with that drip.”
