Page 31 of Scandalously Yours

I had just finished looking at it when the emergency room doctor came over to me and snatched the file out of my hands. “I’ll take that.”

I extended my hand to him. “I’m Dr. Kristopher Simon, and Kaylee is my daughter.” When he realized my name, a sliver of recognition flared in his eyes, and his entire mood softened.

“It’s nice to meet you, doctor. I just wish it would’ve been under different circumstances.”

“Have you figured out what is wrong with her yet?” I asked. All I cared about was making sure she was okay. Hayley had talked about Kaylee being sick, and the longer we went without a diagnosis, the more concerned I became. She’d just been in the hospital a few nights before, although with different symptoms.

“She appears to be dehydrated, so we’re giving her an IV. We’ll reevaluate from there,” he explained.

“Thanks for that.” As the doctor left with her file, I returned to the room. Hayley was still off in the corner doing whatever, so I slid my chair beside my daughter. “Can you tell Daddy what happened?”

“I’ve already told you what happened. She—”

“I want to hear it from her,” I replied, cutting Hayley off.

“My tummy started to hurt really bad, and my head, too. I told Mommy, and she—”

“I took you to the hospital.” Hayley got up from her seat at this point, and moved over to the bed. She looked at Kaylee, who quickly turned away. “Isn’t that, right?”

“Y-yes. She brought me here.” Kaylee grew quiet after that, and it didn’t go unnoticed by me.

Something was going on, but I didn’t know what. Hayley wanted me to know the bare minimum, and Kaylee seemed afraid to talk about being sick. It wouldn’t surprise me if my ex hadn’t let our daughter know how put out this trip to the hospital made her. After all, until I started questioning our child, she hadn’t even seemed to care.

“She’s diabetic. We have to take anything with her more seriously because—”

“I know, Kris. She said she wasn’t feeling well enough to go to school. I asked her what was wrong, and when she told me, I called her pediatrician. He couldn’t see her today, so he suggested I bring her here. Not all of us have fancy medical degrees.”

She’d always hated the amount of time I’d spent in school during the earlier parts of our marriage, and it’d been a spot of contention between us for years. Hayley would whine about me not spending enough time with her. It had affected our marriage so badly that I had considered filing for divorce even back then. I still wish I would’ve just done it, but I hadn’t, and now she had grown even more accustomed to a life she could sense slipping away.

She would no longer be able to take spa vacations to Europe, running up five figures on my credit cards while doing so. Nor would she be able to run off to Vegas for weekend glam trips with the other Queen Bees. Those dreadful women seemed to be the ones she hung out with the most because others like Paisley, Rhyann, and Kenzie didn’t like her. Elsa was a bit more congenial, but only because they came from similar backgrounds, and they’d known each other all of their lives.

“I’m not faulting you for this,” I pointed out. Never once did I tell her that I thought Kaylee’s illness was because of her. I might have accepted the diagnosis so far, and believed she had been somewhat negligent, but I never made her feel that way. Or at least I hadn’t intended to. “I’m just worried about our daughter, and I want to make sure she’ll be all right.”

“That’s what I want, too,” Hayley told me as she placed one of her hands over mine.

I hated the feel of her touch, but I schooled my reactions so our daughter wouldn’t suspect a thing. The only reason I had ever agreed to this separation was to give Kaylee and Karter a chance to get used to our being apart before we made it official. That was the reason I had mentioned my wife earlier instead of ex. She would soon be relegated to that category, but with me being a Titan, the last thing we wanted was for the news to get out, and the children be affected by it in any negative way.

Both had seemingly gotten used to the idea that their parents were no longer together. It’d been harder in the beginning, but over time we had found a way to make it work. I got the children a few days a week for hours at a time, and she would keep them the remainder. I wanted to believe she was actually watching over them the way that she should, but I just didn’t know anymore.

“Georgie was sick at school,” Kaylee finally said, and I turned to her.

“Sick, how?” I asked.

“Mrs. Hale said Georgie had a bug in her tummy so she wouldn’t be at school yesterday.”

Georgie was one of Kaylee’s best friends, and when she mentioned a bug, I knew it was the norovirus. Since the two were nearly inseparable at school, it would explain why Kaylee was feeling sick to her own stomach. On the chart, I had read something about vomiting, and now I knew why. Those types of illnesses were common, especially among school age kids. There wasn’t a whole lot that could be done to cure them, so it unfortunately had to run its course. The IV would help, as would some rest.

It seemed as if the doctor came to the same conclusion because he reentered the room with the nurse. “It looks like someone’s about to go home,” he told Kaylee. “Nurse Sharon is going to help you get ready to go. Would you like that?”

My daughter smiled, then nodded her head excitedly. I watched Hayley return to her phone, and while I wondered what was so important that she couldn’t have waited a few more minutes, I realized who I was talking about, and it was no longer surprising. I pulled the doctor into the corner.

“She told me a classmate had a stomach bug. I’m assuming that’s what caused the dehydration?”

“I think so. She seems to be doing much better, but definitely follow up with her family doctor in a few days, or bring her back here if things get worse.”

“I will. Thanks.” As he left the room, I returned to my daughter who was proudly holding up her hand to show me the Care Bears bandage on it. “What do we have here?”

“Share Bear,” she enthusiastically told me. “She’s purple, and that’s my favorite color.”

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