Rise & Fall by AJ Nicole

Author:AJ Nicole [Nicole, AJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

I sit up a little straighter as the piercing white lights break through my heavy eyelids. Everything is sore, and my head is throbbing in pain.

I feel a cramp in my back as I try to adjust my posture not really knowing what happened or where I am.

“Mr. Steele, can you hear me?” I open my eyes a little more to see where the petite voice is coming from. I see it’s from an elderly woman, curly gray hair, and she’s wearing a pair of olive green scrubs.

A nurse. I’m in the fucking hospital.

“I need you to acknowledge that you can hear me,” she says.

“Yeah, I can hear you fine,” I respond, giving her a wobbly thumbs up for verification.

“Good. Now, I need you to take your movements very slowly please as I ask you a few more questions.” I listen to her talk carefully, and I answer every question she asks.

She confirms that I do have a concussion and that my left wrist is sprained and I definitely have a minor break in my ankle. On top of that, I have a fractured rib and bruising on my back.

“That was a tough fall you took there, Mr. Steele. You’re lucky to be alive.” She turns around, updates my inpatient board, and then leaves.

What a way to leave a man.

Lucky to be alive.

And I am. How stupid could I have been? I let my fear add to the danger of what I was doing up on that scaffold. I briefly remember seeing the piece of metal being ripped by the wind off its last standing place holder and flying at my head.

Deja vu hits me like a freight train, but I refuse to let myself drown in that memory. It was a long time ago, and I know there’s nothing I can do about it now.

But it doesn’t help that I’m forced to sit here in silence, listening to my jumbled thoughts.

Alone.

Suddenly, I think of Dakota. Is this something I should tell her? I mean, I’ve never really been in this kind of trouble before and I don’t have many people who would need to know if I’m okay or not.

I know the guys probably filled Mitch and Josh in, seeing as they were the ones who witnessed the whole thing and called it in.

And this is not something I would ever catch myself calling Jessica about. I’m alive and it’s none of her business. But I will fill her in on whatever the doctor comes back with as far as discharge instructions and what that might look like where Aria is concerned, if anything gets in the way of parenting.

But Dakota…I feel like she’s someone I should call.

Looking around the room, I can see that my utility belt and wallet are laying across the room on a chair.

I see that I’m not tied down to any machine or wires currently, so I decide to get up slowly and make my way over to see if my phone is laying around.

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