Trying to Survive (The Kiser #1) (7 page)

Someone’s
Hurt, What do I Do?

    
After watching a comedy show while eating dinner, I decided to walk for
a while.
 
About thirty minutes later, I
was thinking of just hailing a cab.
 
I
didn’t really know how safe it was here and didn’t want to take any chances.
 
About the time I started to throw my arm up to
hail a cab, I heard a painful moan come from behind me.
 
Slowly turning around, I heard it again.
 
The alley was dim enough that I couldn’t see
anything and no street lights reached the far corners.
 
Again, I heard it again.
 
I didn’t want to go down there, but my moral
compass wouldn’t let me leave either.
 
What if someone was really hurt?
 
Easing my way down the alley, every horror movie I had ever seen popped
in to my mind.
  
It was like watching
myself on TV and screaming,
Are you
stupid?
 
Don’t go down there!
 
But here I was slowly walking down the alley
just waiting for someone to jump out at me.

    
Hearing the moan a little louder this time, I picked up my speed.
 
Someone was definitely hurt.
 
A little farther down, I saw him lying in his
own blood.
 
His short dark hair was matted
with blood, his face so swollen he could barely get his eyes open, his lip was
split, and that was just the obvious injuries.
 
His khaki pants had dirt and blood splatters along with his dark button
up shirt.
 
“Oh God!”
 
I rushed over to him.
 
“Can you hear me?
 
Please God hear me!”
 
I said as I stroked his forehead, uncaring
about getting his blood on me.

    
“Help me.”
 
Did I hear him say
something?
 
He mumbled but I think he was
trying to talk to
me.
 
“Help me.”
 
Yep, I definitely
heard that.
 
I needed to get him out of
here.
 
What if whoever did this came
back?”
 
That thought gave me strength
that I didn’t have.

    
“I know you’re hurt, but you have to help me.
 
You’re a big man.”
  
He certainly was.
 
He would stand at about six-feet-two and I
hadn’t missed all those muscles as I tried to help him.
 
He obviously worked out... a lot.
 
Leaning down to help him sit up, I put his
arm over my shoulder while mine went under his arm.
 
“You have to help me. I can’t lift you by
myself.”
 
Somehow, he made it to his
feet.
 
I was breathing as hard as he
was.
 
Slowly shuffling forward, we made
our way out of the alley, and I hailed a cab.
 
The cab driver was hesitant to let us in, but after some begging, he
nodded.
 

    
“Where to?”
 
He asked suspiciously.

    
“Can you take us to the nearest clinic?”
 
I didn’t know anything about healthcare here, but I knew hospitals were
expensive and he may not be able to afford an ER bill.

    
“Sure thing lady.”
 
As he drove
us, I kept rubbing his forehead as he slumped in the back seat, telling him he
would be okay.
 
I didn’t know him, didn’t
even know his name, but I felt drawn to him, compelled to help him.
 
Strange.
 
Ten minutes later, the cabbie pulled up in front of a door that read ‘24
hour clinic.’
 
Perfect.

    
After paying the cabbie, I opened the door and helped my mystery man out
of the car.
 
Walking through the entrance,
someone came rushing toward me.
 
She
grabbed a wheelchair, and he fell in to it.
 
“What happened?”
 
The nurse asked
as she hurriedly rolled him down the hall.

    
“I don’t know, I found him like this.”
 
She nodded as she rushed him in to a room.
 
Helping him on to a stretcher, I stroked his
forehead as she left to get the doctor.
 
“Please be okay.”
 
I whispered as
I stroked his bruised and battered face.

    
The doctor came busting in with an urgency I hadn’t seen in a long
time.
 
I stood back but still kept
contact with him.
 
I knew firsthand what
it felt like to need comfort but not have anyone around to give it.
 
Austin would have been there for me, but I
actually tried to hide things from him.
 
“His heart and lungs sound good, but we need an x-ray to check for
broken bones” The nurse unlocked the brake on the stretcher and started
wheeling him out with me by his side.

    
“Excuse me miss, but I need you to fill out some paperwork.”
 
A receptionist led me down another hallway to
her desk.

    
“I don’t know how much I can help you.”
 
I said as she pulled out some papers and handed me a pen.

    
Smiling, she said, “Well, we need someone to be responsible, and he
doesn’t even have a wallet on him.”
 
Not
knowing what to do, I gave him a fake name and then
 
filled out my name and address, telephone
number and gave her a credit card.
 

    
She showed me back down the hall to the room where I left him.
 
He was there and looked as though he was
resting, but I still went back to the head of the stretcher and started rubbing
his forehead again.
 
About an hour later,
the doctor came in and told me that nothing was broken; he was just really
bruised and swollen and he might have a concussion.
 
He instructed me to keep ice on his face and
gave me a prescription for pain pills.
 
Standing there dumbfounded and holding a prescription, I felt confused
and conflicted.
 
I didn’t know this man,
I found him in an alley.

    
They wheeled him out in a wheelchair, and I hailed another cab.
 
With nowhere else to go, I gave the cabbie my
hotel address. We certainly got many stares as I tried to get him
upstairs.
 
It wasn’t easy.
 
When I finally got him in to bed, I started
removing his clothes.
 
They were covered
in blood, and I couldn’t let him lay in that.
 

    
Unbuttoning his shirt, I moved the ends apart and tried not to notice
how hard and muscular his chest felt as my hands accidently graced his
body.
 
I didn’t notice the fine layer of
dark hair that you had to look hard to see, nor did I notice how tan and smooth
his skin looked.
 
As I removed one arm
from his sleeve and then the other, I also tried not to notice how big his
biceps were.

 
   
Moving down, I unbuttoned, then unzipped
his pants and tried not to notice how my heart beat against my chest like it
wanted to be free.
 
As I slid them down,
I really tried hard not to notice the bulge in his black boxer underwear, nor
the perfect muscular thighs that lay right below that bulge.
 
With shaking hands, I carried his bloody
clothes to the bathroom so I could wash them out later.

    
Breathing hard, I berated myself.
 
Get ahold of yourself!
 
He’s injured and you’re staring at him like
you’ve never seen a good looking man before.
 
Okay, more like an Adonis.
 
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I found
the empty ice bucket and made my way to the bathroom.
 
Filling it with warm soapy water, I grabbed a
washcloth and towel before heading back to the bed.
 
Pulling up a chair, I gently wiped some of
the blood from his face.
 
Talking
quietly, hoping to let him know he wasn’t alone.
 
“What happened to you?”
 
Although I felt sure that I knew.
 
The clinic couldn’t find a wallet or anything
personal and thought someone had robbed him.
 
I wondered briefly, why they hadn’t called the police.
 
Probably
by accident because as soon as the doctor came
in
to talk to me, several
other badly hurt victims came in
.

    
After washing the blood from his face, chest, and hands, I emptied my
dirty water and ran some more clean.
 
Trying to figure how to wash his hair, I grabbed several more towels and
an empty trash bag from the wastebasket.
 
Standing there looking at him and the bed, I came up with an idea to
wash his hair.
 
Sliding the trash bag
under his head, and then laying some towels on top of that, I used a cup to
pour as little water as possible over his hair.
 
It seemed to be working well, so I lathered his hair and then
rinsed.
 
I almost squealed in delight
when I removed the towels and trash bag and found the bed dry.

    
He hadn’t even moved, I guess the pain medicine the clinic gave him
finally starting working.
 
I went to the
bathroom and changed in to a pair of sweats and a tee.
 
No way would I put on my gown with a strange
man here.
 
Returning to the main room, I
decided to use only my inhaler.
 
I knew I
would pay for it later, but I felt too exhausted to do anything else.
 
Lying on the little sofa, I fell fast asleep.

    
After not near enough sleep, I woke to the sun shining through the
window, and soft moaning.
 
Alarmed, I sat
straight up.
 
Who was here?
 
I had a moment
of panic before it all came rushing back to me.
 
The battered man, taking him to the clinic, the… my head whipped around
only to find him lying there… moaning.
 
Oh God, he must be in so much pain!
 
Walking over to the bed, I was glad I decided
to wear the tee and sweat pants.
 
His
eyes remained closed, but his swollen face twisted in pain.
 
I sat down beside him and began to rub his
forehead and hoping that I wasn’t hurting him more.
 
“It’s okay.
 
You’re going to be alright.”
 

  
  
As I tried to soothe him, my
eyes darted to the nightstand that held his prescription for pain medicine.
 
I needed to figure out a way to get it
filled.
 
Calling the front desk, I
ordered room service and then asked if they had a service that could get it
filled for me.
 
To my relief they did and
I wouldn’t have to leave him.

    
An hour later, not only had breakfast arrived, but so had his
medicine.
 
I had to pay for it but luckily,
it was affordable.
 
I never would have thought
I would be spending the last three days of my vacation taking care of a man and
paying his medical bill.
 
I almost
laughed aloud at the thought.

    
Walking over to the bed, “You need to try and eat.”
 
I said as I tried to gently wake him.
 
He moaned again, and when he opened his eyes,
I stared in to the endless sea of deep blue.
 
Of course, he couldn’t open them all the way due to the swelling.
 
I brought over a bowl of oatmeal and held the
spoon in front of his mouth.
 
This way,
he didn’t have to worry about sitting up.
 
His head was slightly elevated from pillows and that would be high
enough.

    
“Come on handsome, open up.”
 
I
bumped the spoon to his lips just as I did with Austin when he was little.
 
It worked, he opened and I quickly put the
spoon in his mouth.
 
We repeated this
until he had eaten the whole bowl.
 
Taking
two pills from his Percocet bottle, I grabbed the glass of water from the
tray.
 
“Open up.”
 
I said, and when he opened his mouth, I
placed the tablets on his tongue and stuck the straw in his mouth.
 
After he swallowed them, I went to the ice
machine and filled the bucket.
 
I put
some ice in a washcloth and held it to his eye until he fell fast asleep.

    
Moving over to the table, I started to eat my breakfast even though it
was already cold.
 
As I used my
nebulizer, I knew today would be bad. I needed to rest all day or risk the
chance of getting sick.
 
 
After taking a shower, I fell back asleep on
the little brown sofa.