Love Will (50 page)

Only one eye opens the next time I try–the right one–and the room is insanely bright. It makes me wish I hadn’t opened my eye in the first place. I can feel the stiffness in my side and the intense pain behind my eye and cheek. Lifting my left hand yields no soreness, so I touch my face.
Fuck
. There’s a bandage over my eye. When I pull my hand away, there’s dried blood caked between the creases of my skin.

“I’m here to clean that up,” a nurse says, coming into the room with me.

“How’s my eye?” I say with gritted teeth, my mouth’s movement restricted. My face must be swollen.

“The doctor will be back in just a second to talk to you.” My stomach sinks.

“No hints? Do I still
have
my left eye?” She puts on a pair of gloves and opens a sterile packet. “At least tell me how long I was unconscious. That should help me out a little.”

“Just a couple hours.”

“Medically induced, or because of the blow to my head?”

The nurse smiles, wiping my hands with the cool cloth. “Shhh… The doctor will be back in a moment.” She’s gentle when she takes my right arm in hers. I glance down carefully to see my bare torso.

“Broken ribs?” She grins again. “Doctor, right. I got it.”

“You’re going to be fine, sir,” she states, cleaning up the mess and throwing away the bloodied cloths as she leaves.

“Well, that’s a start.”

I carefully feel around for my phone, but it’s not in my front pockets. I just want to know that Shea made it somewhere–
anywhere
–safely. I’m sure she’s mad at me. I wish she’d waited around to hear my explanation. I hope she’ll give me a chance to tell it to her eventually, but right now, I want to know that she’s safe.

And Ben… what a fucked up situation. I’m not sure if I should have handled it differently. In hindsight, I still don’t think I would have told him about me and Lola. I just wish I’d never let her put her number in my phone.

I try to lean up to take a peek through the tiny opening of the curtain to see if I recognize anyone milling about, but it hurts too much to move my body.

Another nurse enters the room and pops a medium-sized plastic bag next to me. After he shakes it a few times, he drapes a gown over my ribs and lays the bag on top of it. I wince at the coldness of it. “Your x-rays look good. Just some bruising. Lots of bruising, actually, but this should help with the swelling.” He folds the gown on top of the icepack and sets my right arm next to it to hold it in place. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit?”

“We’re working on getting some pain killers,” he says with a chuckle, looking down at me sympathetically. “Have you had anything to drink tonight?”

“No.”

“Any drugs?”

“No.”

“Any known allergies to prescription drugs?”

“None.”

“Morphine it is. We’ll set up a drip for you.”

“How long do I have to be in here?”

“We’ll let the doctor discuss that with you,” he says as he starts to walk out.

Attempting to roll my eyes was a
really
stupid idea. “Hey, don’t knock me out before I can see him. Or her,” I tell him.

“He’s coming this way.”

My right ear begins to throb, forcing me to squeeze my right eye closed, which causes yet more excruciating pain to my left one. I stomp my left foot on the stretcher in frustration. The hospital must be two miles long, because the doctor doesn’t stop in until twenty minutes later. “Will Scott?”

“That’s me.”

“Got into a little scuffle tonight, huh?”

“I’d just say I got cold-cocked. There was no
scuffle
about it.”

“Mr. Scott, do you have insurance? Your friends weren’t sure.”

“Wallet,” I say. “Should be in my back right pocket, but there’s no way I can get to it right now.”

The doctor steps into the hallway. “MJ, I need some assistance.” The first nurse comes back into the room. “Mr. Scott’s wallet is in his back pocket. Can you very carefully remove it for him and help him find his insurance card?”

“Of course,” she says, her cheeks turning pink.

“I can’t lift up,” I tell her. “I tried a minute ago. If you find my phone…”

“I’ll make it quick.” She puts her hand under my ass, feeling around momentarily until she finds the pocket of my jeans and produces my wallet.

“It’s behind my license.”

“Should I check your other pocket for your phone?” she asks very spiritedly.

“Just take that to the front desk, MJ. Mr. Scott doesn’t need his phone at the moment.”

“I’ll bring this back in a jiffy…
Will
.”

“Thanks. So, doctor, these nurses are friendly and all, but I need to know what the damage is. My eyesight’s kind of important to me.”

“Your eyesight’s going to be fine. There’s a cut to your eyelid that’s toward your brow, and it’s far enough away from your eye, but we called in our resident ophthalmologist and had him examine it just in case. No scratches… and the cut on your lid shouldn’t affect tear production or muscle movement, so whoever hit you was either very strategic or very lucky.”

“Lucky,” I say. “I’m sure he’d prefer blindness right about now.”

“You had to get eight stitches on your eyelid and along the brow, which is why we’ve got it bandaged. We need to limit the movement for a bit, that’s all.”

“Great. And what about this pounding in my right ear… and the fun ringing sound I’m getting now?” I ask him. “Because my hearing’s kind of important, too.”

“We took
all
of your senses into consideration upon admittance, Mr. Scott. Your friends described what they saw, and said you were kicked in the head. We did a CT scan and everything looks fine. I don’t believe you have a concussion. And your ear looks good. We’re looking at some bruising, and you’re probably going to have a bit of a headache for a few days. We’ll get you something for the pain.”

“Soon, I hope.”

“Ron’s coming back momentarily, and then we’ll keep you until morning for observation. Also, your friends didn’t think we needed to get the cops involved… for assault cases, we like to ask.”

“No, he’s my bandmate. I guess we just keep it in the family. Hey, can we see about my phone?”

“Why don’t I send your friends in for a minute to help? Before we knock you out…”

“Cool. Thanks, doc. Oh, but if there’s a guy named Ben out there, I don’t want to see him.”

“Okay.”

The ringing subsides as I wait for the guys. In the back of my mind, I hope Shea’s with them, too. When Peron and Damon walk in, my heart sinks, but I try to smile at them anyway. I’m not only hindered by my disappointment, but by my swollen face, too.

“Fuck.” Damon puts his hands over his mouth.

“Oh, shit,” Peron says.

“Probably looks worse than it is.”

“Why’s your eye bandaged?”

“Cut on my eyelid. I have stitches, so they’re limiting the movement.”

“For how long?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“And what’s that?” Peron asks, pointing at my right side.

“Bruised ribs. Nothing’s broken. And no concussion, either. No vision damage. No hearing damage. Just a lot of superficial stuff, apparently. Like I said, it looks worse than it is.”

“You feel okay?”

“No, I feel like hell. I’m waiting for the morphine.”

“Yeah, yeah. Good,” Damon says. “Man, what happened?”

“Have you heard from Shea?” I interrupt him. He shakes his head. “Can you check my pockets for my phone?

“Dude, your phone’s toast,” Peron says. “He chunked it at you.”

Now that he mentioned it, I can see it all happening in slow motion. “Fuck. Like, you’re sure it’s gone?”

Damon pulls the mangled device out of his jacket pocket. “Pretty sure.” It looks as if Ben took his aggression out on it after he was finished with me.

“You have Shea’s number?” I ask him. He shakes his head. I realize the irony of that after I ask. “Well, she split. She met us at the bus. We sat down to eat and we all started talking. Ben asked me, like, how Shea was programmed into my phone or some bullshit, and took it from me, just messing around. But, uh… Lola’s number was in there.”

When I don’t say anything, Peron finally asks me why.

“Remember when I disappeared after the Chicago show to go call my brother? And I was gone for about a half hour? Well, the security guard took me to this massage place… and Lola was there. It was a set-up sort of thing. Something that they apparently do with bands, according to the bouncer-guy. Nothing I asked for; it was nothing I turned down, either.”

Damon raises his brows, waiting to hear more–waiting to hear how much of a hypocrite I’d been. “It was just head,” I say, closing my right eye. “And it was before Ben had even met her. Before any of you had, if you’ll remember.”

I look up to see Peron listening intently. “I came up to the club with you guys, and she was introduced to you all shortly after. Ben took off with her, and that was that. I got drunk, and the next time I saw him was after he’d slept with her. They were together from that moment on. What would you have done, you know?”

“Why’d you have her number?” Damon asks.

“She put it in there after we’d hooked up... It was a momentary afterthought that I
literally
never gave another thought.”

“So Shea knows you two hooked up?”

“I... I don’t remember when Shea left exactly, but I don’t think she heard the details. I’d never told her before, so who the fuck knows what’s going on in her head right now? I’m more worried about where she is. She was apparently running on empty when she left. I just want to know that she made it
somewhere
.”

“Man, I don’t even know where to start looking...”

“You know what? Email my brother. It’s Jon dot Scott at hscd arch dot com. I think he has her number. Just do me a favor and don’t tell him anything.”

“Mr. Scott, I’ve got your morphine for you,” the nurse says.

“I’ll find Shea,” Damon says. “The doctor says you need rest more than anything else, so don’t worry about her. I’ll find her and try to make things right. If nothing else, I’ll get her here.”

“Thanks, man.”

“You look sexy,” Peron tells me on his way out, running his hand down his chest. I’m fully capable of flipping him off with both hands, so I do.

“He’s waking up.” I know Damon’s voice when he’s been up all night, and it’s obvious he has been. He sounds as beat-up as I feel.

“Need more morphine,” I plead. “Hurts like hell.”

“We’ll get the nurse for you.”

“Mother
fucker
…” Everything hurts five times as badly as it did last night. “Damon?” I blink open my eye and search for him in the new, unfamiliar room. Finally, he steps into my field of vision and smiles, putting his hand on my right arm.

“Yeah, man?”

“Not sure how I’m gonna be able to be civil to that guy anymore.”

“I take it we’re not talking about the nurse.”

“Mm-mmm,” I answer in the negative. “Ben.”

“I don’t give a shit. He’s stranded at the airport right now, waiting for a flight back to New York, for all I know. I fired him, Will. On sight. No way was I keeping him around.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” I clarify.

“Oh, I know. I’m afraid of what you could do to him, and I don’t need you following in your daddy’s footsteps. It’s better for us all this way.”

“Thanks.”

“Will?” Peron says from the doorway. “You have a visitor.”

I think of my girlfriend immediately. “Shea?”

“She’s safe,” Damon responds.

“What does that mean?”

“You were worried she was stranded somewhere, but she’s safe. She wanted you to know.”

“She’s not here?”

“No.” He takes a few steps back as I keep my eye trained on him. I know someone else is in the room with us, but I have no peripheral vision with the bandage on, and I don’t really care to see who’s here if it’s not Shea. So what if Tavo came to see me? He’s the only one left in town.

“What’d she say?”

“She wouldn’t answer my call. After I left her a voicemail, she just texted me to say she was safe. That’s all.”

“Hey, kid.” Jon stands in front of me, looking at me as if I’ve grown a third arm out of my chest.

“Oh, fuck, Damon, I asked you not to tell him anything.”

“And I knew better than that.”

“You’d keep this from me? Shit, Will, clearly you’re not thinking straight. Are you feeling okay? You look awful,” my brother says.

“I’ve been better, Jon. I’m pretty banged up.”