Valor by Nicole Blanchard

Author:Nicole Blanchard [Blanchard, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Seven

Olivia

What am I going to do?

Hell if I know.

The paint in the living room is the least of my worries, that’s for sure. I have to get back home and tell Ben. Explain. He’ll understand.

I’m reaching for my phone, trying to come up with the perfect words to describe what an idiot I am, when it vibrates in my hand. Automatically, I smile at it when I see Ben’s name. Then the smile drains away.

Ben: Don’t worry, but I’ve been in a car accident. The dumbass paramedics wouldn’t let me drive home because of my history of brain injury. I’ll be at Bay Medical being tortured to death. Don’t freak out. I’m okay. Luv you.

I’d been in hospitals many times over the past five years, so much so that the nurses at the children’s hospital know me by sight and call me by name. But when I pull up to Bay Medical, it’s as though I’ve never seen one before. My brain processes the sights and sounds around me at a five-second delay.

I pull into the emergency room parking lot and pause at a roundabout, not understanding the arrows painted in the middle of the road. Pedestrians hurry by and I go five-miles-an-hour as I ease down the road and blindly follow signage to a parking lot.

It’s not until I’ve parked, triple-checked my face to make sure it’s not too obvious I’ve been crying, and walked halfway to the building that the meaning behind the arrows sinks in. I’m paused in the middle of the road, staring at one when the meaning of the word “EMERGENCY” sinks in. I’m in the wrong parking lot. The emergency room is, according to those damn arrows, around the corner a ways.

Idiot.

I should have been paying more attention. Ben is inside injured and alone. I need to be there with him.

Cursing myself, I hurry back to my car and diligently follow the signs around the corner and to a parking lot clearly labeled, “Emergency Patient Parking.” There’s a ticket gate on the other entrance, but at this point, I don’t care if I get fined for not getting a ticket for parking. All I want is to be by Ben’s side, to see with my own eyes he’s okay.

God, please let him be okay.

A man gets out of his car a few spots down from mine. Like a lost little duckling, I follow him as he strides across the parking lot toward the emergency room. I skirt around a section of the driveway they must be redoing and stumble my way through the automatic doors.

As soon as I step through, I’m hit by a wave of chaos. I don’t know why, but I’m not expecting the ER to be as packed as it is. There have to be two dozen people in the waiting room alone, and they’re all talking and moving and there.

A wizened male nurse catches my eye, perhaps sensing my oncoming panic. “Can I help you?” he asks, wrapping a stethoscope around his neck and moving behind what must be an admissions desk.

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