Page 1 of Altius
One
Morgan
“Do you know today’s date?” An unfamiliar older woman with a kind smile and frizzy brown hair leaned over me. Her white coat stung my eyes. I couldn’t focus on anything further than her shoulder.
I squinted at her, dry lips trying to form words my sluggish brain had yet to supply. My mental calendar blurred together, missing weeks one moment and then cramming in too many months the next.
“T-Thursday,” I rasped. “November…twenty-something?”
“Close enough. Don’t worry, it’ll come back to you. Now, can you open your mouth for me?”
I complied, inadvertently cracking my jaw and sending a twinge of pain down my neck.
Why was I so sore?
She swept a penlight across the inside of my mouth.
“A little bite on the tongue, nothing serious.” She smiled, clicking off the penlight and tucking it into her breast pocket. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Digging through the mush inside my skull, I found a few half-formed impressions. The squeak of shoes on the basketball court. Sitting next to Dr. Flemming, cheering on the Lady Narwhals.
“I was at work. Basketball game.”
“What happened afterward?”
Nothing, as far as I could tell—just a nebulous uncertainty that grated on my nerves.
“I…don’t know.”
She turned, directing her next question to a large gold-tinged smudge in the corner. “Your friend found her on the floor?”
“Yes, she was unconscious. He didn’t witness any convulsions,” the smudge replied in a deep voice that helped relax the muscles in my aching neck. “She has a history of seizures stemming from a traumatic brain injury and takes multiple medications.”
I liked this voice, even when it rattled off complicated prescription drug names.
It reminded me of Cal Carling. My very tall, very beefy boyfriend. The one whose sandy hair had golden streaks from hours spent on football fields under the summer sun. Who was going to take me out for sushi tomorrow.
Squinting at the corner, I took stock of my surroundings—a cramped hospital room, probably in the ER—with a Cal-shaped mirage near the door.
No, thatwasCal in the flesh.
I’d recognize those broad shoulders and solid frame anywhere, even without my glasses.
Wait—whereweremy glasses?
“Did I get the day wrong?” I asked, puzzled by the hoarseness of my voice. “Not supposed to see you today…am I?”
Cal paused mid-sentence, apologized to the woman—thedoctor—and came over. Thumbs hooked in his pockets, he leaned against the hospital bed, the picture of competent nonchalance.
“There’s been a change of plans.”
With a growing sense of dreadful understanding and panic coiling low in my stomach, I scanned the various monitors attached to my body and the sterile surroundings.
“I had a seizure?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “And based on your medical history, we’ll be admitting you overnight for observation.”
Trembling fingers gripped the sleeve of Cal’s cardigan. “Don’t tell Kelsey.”
