Page 46 of Falling for Carla

I made an effort, for the nurse’s benefit, to try and appear concerned in an ordinary way, as if I didn’t feel like I was being tortured and killed slowly, filled with icy terror because Carla lay motionless and quiet in a too-big, ugly blue hospital gown on the bed, still as a rag doll. Nothing I saw on the force had ever scared me the way it frightened me to see her this way. I cleared my throat and made myself sound normal, professional even.

“Shouldn’t she be waking up soon?”

“She woke up and was responsive in recovery or they wouldn’t have stepped her down to a regular room. The pain medicine is probably making her sleepy. Her vitals are good. You should get something to eat or take a walk. She may be out for a while. I’ll check back in an hour, and we’ll sit her up, listen to her lungs, see if she’s ready to stand up.”

“She just had surgery. Surely, she can wait to get up in the morning. It’s---two in the morning,” I said.

“This is just protocol after surgery. We want to keep her lungs clear. If she doesn’t move around, pneumonia can take hold,” she said.

It hit me that this nurse was being patient with me. That I was questioning her procedures when she had sick and injured people to take care of.

“Of course. Thank you,” I said, and didn’t question her further.

The hospital staff knew how to take care of her. If I was acting like a guard dog, that didn’t make their job easier, but it wasn’t something I could stifle completely. Not when it felt like I was dying, because she had taken a bullet. I hadn’t been able to stop it. I had sworn to keep her safe. The shame I felt, the absolute self-loathing—it was beyond anything I could have imagined. You managed to save fucking Lou, but you let the love of your life get shot—that was what the voice in my head kept telling me.

Logically, I couldn’t have gotten between her and that gunman, not while I was staggering to my feet after being knocked unconscious in a car crash. It didn’t matter. My entire body canted toward her, wanted to shield her even now. In my blood and bone, it was encoded that she was mine to protect. That I had failed her. That I would be damned if I ever failed her again.

I’d been so shocked when the doctor told me about the pregnancy. In the intervening hours, I had time to think about it. How it felt like hope and redemption, like a fresh start. The fact of her pregnancy was like an ember of light, of something lovely and unexpected, a joy I didn’t know if I deserved. This courageous, beautiful young woman who had survived so much, had been willing to accept refuge from me, accept love from me after everything life had taken away from her.

I was in awe of her strength and resilience, her humor and talent and appreciation for life. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became at the prospect of being the father of her child. The caveman in me loved it—she was mine, elementally now. My body had laid claim to hers. Out of the flawed and jaded man I was, there had been something worthy, some glory in the way I made love to her like I was drowning, some spark of life that created his unbelievable miracle.

I was speechless in the face of it, of the glorious future that could lay before me. All I had to do was convince Carla Russo that a life with me was worth her time. Since she had always been too forgiving of my arbitrary rules, my furor over locks and ethics and burner phones—the mix of paranoia and perfectionism—I knew the odds were in my favor.

For the first time in my life, my future seemed like a safe bet. Carla Russo had ordered me the fancy nuts out of a jar of mixed nuts at a winery twelve hours ago and had danced with me out in a gazebo overlooking a vineyard. Everything I loved and wanted was lying on a narrow bed with plastic rails, a sharp beep announcing her every heartbeat as the cluster of gray wires tracked her vital signs.

When she woke up, I would have to tell her something, several things. I didn’t know how to do it. What words could ever be adequate to contain the glory and anguish of loving her, of nearly losing her, of fully expressing my need for her.

Take a walk? Go eat something? As if the nurse could know who lay there on her side, as if that nurse could be aware of who I had nearly lost. How precious she was, how much I should have cherished her all along. Grief washed over me, for the days I didn’t spend in conversation with her, comforting her, being as close to her as possible because of my stupid resolve to leave her alone. I had let her be lonely and she was, of course, too strong, too stubborn to complain about it.

“You are going to get so sick of me being with you all the time,” I said in a low voice, “you’re going to beg for a minute to yourself.”

She stirred, her fingers flexing weakly in my hand. Her eyes fluttered open, those big dark eyes, so deep and vulnerable that her gaze hit me like a blow to the solar plexus. Breathless, I was so relieved to see her eyes open, to see her, awake and alive when I had wrestled for hours with the fear and pain.

“No way,” she said, her voice raspy and hoarse.

I was up out of my chair, bending over her. One hand smoothing back her tangled curls as I pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“You gave me a hell of a scare,” I said.

“I’m the one that ate concrete. Did I knock out my teeth when I tripped?”

“Baby, you didn’t trip. You were shot,” I said gently.

“Oh. That’s why my back hurts? I’m a little out of it.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll fill you in on anything you want to know. You had to have surgery and it’s two in the morning and you’ve had anesthesia and pain meds. It’s not like I’m gonna make you take the final exam right now.”

“Ha ha,” she said with a trace of that smart mouth I loved, “so how bad was the gunshot wound?”

“It missed your spine, thank God. The bullet nicked your liver, but the doctor said everything’s good. You’ll do physical therapy and not lift anything bigger than a glass of water, not even your laptop bag.”

“Drake. I have to finish the semester.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. You’ve been doing remote learning, and you can finish out that way. From my apartment. I’m going to prop you up on the bed like you’re a queen with pillows all around you.”

“Will you fan me and feed me grapes? Give me sips of that merlot?” she asked, a weak smile on her face. She held my hand, laced our fingers together.

“Maybe no wine for a while,” I said tenderly, a warmth welling up in my chest.

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