Page 15 of A Forgotten Heart
He pried his eyes open, feeling like someone was taking a pickax to the inside of his skull.
The room contained a table next to where he lay, a large cabinet with glass doors adjacent to it. The cabinet contained various surgical instruments and medical beakers. Doctor’s office?
Next to him sat a simple wooden chair, but it was empty.
As much as his stiff neck allowed, he scanned the room, but the action triggered his head to spasm.
He cringed. Had he only imagined Elsie earlier?
The low light flickered, making everything blurry.
Then he saw her, standing by the window.
The lantern cast an amber glow over her hair falling in blond tendrils around her fair face. In the window pane, he saw herreflection looking into the darkness beyond. She nibbled her bottom lip, like she always did when worried.
Something weighed heavily upon her to make her shoulders droop so.
He tried to sift through his recollections, but it was like holding water in his hands. His memories slipped right through.
What was wrong? And why couldn’t he remember?
Fatigue pressed down on him, and the ringing in his head lured him to close his eyes again, but he forced them back open.
He shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position, but nothing helped.
Elsie’s skirts swished as she turned around. She swiped her hand beneath her eye. Was she crying?
“You’re awake.”
She didn’t seem to look directly at him. Her lips tipped with a ghost of a smile but flattened.
As she lowered into the chair next to him, her hands fisted in her skirts. She appeared tired. Worried.
He tried to reach for her, but a surge of pain locked his arm in place. The movement shifted the blanket around him, and a cool draft swept over his bare chest.
Doctor’s office. He must be injured.
Elsie reached over and situated the blanket once more.
“What happened?” he whispered.
Her hands went still, but she didn’t look at him. “You don’t know?”
Words pressed against his mouth, but pain swelled again in his shoulder, or his head—he didn’t know which.
A moan escaped from his scratchy throat.
Her palm covered his forearm. “Shhh. Stay still.”
Her presence eased the spasm until he could take in a full breath.
So many questions burned in his gut, but all he could force past his swollen tongue was “Elsie.”
He moved his hand to cover hers, but her hand stiffened. With a clearing of her throat, she pulled away to pick up a glass of water on the table next to him.
She held the glass to his bottom lip just before the sweetest water he had ever drunk met his mouth.
“Don’t drink too fast,” she said. “I don’t want you to get waterlogged.”
