Page 171 of Love Undiscovered
What am I?
“She’s his wife,” Kat says.
I stand up straight and try to look wifely. The nurse looks at us, eyes narrowed. But anyone can see how distraught I am. That has to count for something.
Deciding to believe us, she says, “They are taking him in to surgery. If you want to wait down the hall, the doctor will be in to give you an update as soon as he can.”
Kat grabs my hand and holds it tightly as we head down the hall toward the waiting area.
“Maybe we can get someone to look at your cuts while we’re here,” Kat suggests. I give her a look in return that I hope convinces her of how little I care about her idea.
“Remi, what good are you to Chance if your cuts get infected or you get sick?”
She has a point. We flag a nurse down, who has me fill out some paperwork, then takes me into an exam room to check everything out.
“My God, what happened to you,” she asks once I’ve stripped out of my clothes.
“My uh, boy… husband’s ex held me hostage and cut me up with a scalpel.”
She laughs. Then looks up, realizing I’m serious. “Oh my God.”
“He’s the one in surgery right now with a gunshot to the leg. She shot him.”
“Jeez,” she says. “You’re definitely winning first prize for whacked out emergency room story of the day.”
I grunt in reply.
“Sorry,” the nurse continues. “That was incredibly insensitive.”
“It’s okay. Really. The story is seriously fucked up. And the worst part is, I don’t know where she went after she shot him.”
“Have you told the police?” she asks.
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “We told them everything that happened and stuff, but I wanted to get to the hospital to check on him more than I wanted to stick around and file the report.”
She nods her head. “I understand.”
She finishes checking the bandaged cuts and tells me that Kat and Lexie did an excellent job of cleaning and bandaging everything. And that the ointment she put on will prevent infection and minimize scarring. She leaves the room, and I re-dress, grateful she didn’t try to continue a conversation.
I head back out to the waiting room and let Kat know that I’m okay. After which, barely any time passes before Chance’s parents rush into the room. Or at least, that’s how it seems.
“Oh, Remi, dear girl, how are you? Have they told you anything? Is he okay? Of course he is, he’s a strong boy. What happened?” Annalise and Brian both speak at the same time. Annalise has been crying.
We sit down, and I tell the two everything that I know, with Kat interjecting every so often to clarify. Lexie and Trevor arrive soon after, with Eliza and Audrey right behind them and Charlie bringing up the rear. We fill them all in on what we know, and then we settle in to wait. I think I doze off because I wake to someone saying the words I’ve been waiting to hear for hours. “Mrs. Bauer?”
I jump up at the same time as Chance’s mom. “Yes?” we both say. She looks at me, eyebrows raised. My face reddens with embarrassment.
Kat jumps to my defense. “This is hiswifeand his mother, doctor. Both have the same title.” She looks around at the Bauer family. No one says a word to the contrary.
Annalise, Brian, and I approach the doctor. He tells us that the bullet had lodged in Chance’s thigh and he’d lost a lot of blood. But that Trevor tying off the wound when he did, probably saved his life. They were able to remove the bullet in surgery, but it did hit his femur at just the right angle to shatter it.
Once he recovers from the gunshot wound, he’ll still require physical therapy for the femur injury. They will try to get him up and walking as soon as possible, but he will probably still require someone to help him with everyday activities for the first week or so. In addition to a wheelchair and then crutches.
“Oh my, he’s going to just hate that, isn’t he Remi, dear?” Annalise says.
I nod dumbly.
“When can we see him?” Brian asks.
