Wake for Me (Life or Death Series)

by Irons, Isobel

  Again with the unnecessary condescension. Viola shook her head.

  “Alright, well, the simple explanation is that following your accident, you were suffering from internal bleeding and were taken to surgery. Following the surgery, you were in a coma for nearly seventeen days.”

  Seventeen days? Viola flexed her fingers self-consciously. It felt more like she hadn’t moved in seventeen years.

  “The good news is,” he continued, “I have just come from reading your most recent MRI images. The neurologist said that the temporary swelling in your brain has gone down considerably, and he did not see any signs of serious brain injury. I concur. At this point, we believe your coma was most likely a side-effect of your reaction to the anesthesia.”

  “Can’t…words…put…words.” Viola turned her hands palm-up in frustration, like ‘see what I mean?’ If there was nothing wrong with her brain, then why did it feel like she had to shuffle through a mile-high stack of flash cards just to come up with a word that even vaguely matched what she wanted to say? Why did it feel like she was pulling her own teeth every time she spoke?

  “Yes, you do seem to be suffering from a form of aphasia. It affects the speech center of the brain.”

  “No…” she said, taking an extra-long time to find the right word. “Seriously?”

  Sam and one of the other doctors burst out laughing, but when the older doctor shot them a glare, Sam covered his mouth and pretended to cough. The other guy just shrugged.

  “Sorry, Dr. Chakrabarti,” he said. “She’s pretty funny. Even for someone with non-fluent aphasia.”

  Dr. Chakrabarti scowled and shuffled his weight from one foot to another. The way he moved was stiff, like a doll. That’s what she would call him, Viola decided. Dr. Chocolate Barbie. It was close enough to his actual name, and maybe with her annoying new speech impediment no one would notice.

  “At any rate,” Chocolate Barbie continued, clearing his throat, “we will need to run some more tests to ensure that there are no other lurking symptoms of your injuries. Now that you are awake, we will of course begin rehabilitative treatments, and if you would like I can consult a speech therapist to meet with you.”

  Viola nodded. “Soon…send…please.”

  As frustrating and embarrassing as it was to keep stringing together such moronic sentences, they still hadn’t responded to her most important question.

  “Parents.” She looked around the room, feeling her stress level increase as each face seemed to shut down, one by one. “Where…when…be here?”

  “I’d also like to send a trauma counselor to speak with you,” Chocolate Barbie said, marking something off on his clipboard as he very obviously pretended not to understand her question. Viola felt her anger growing in direct proportion to her confusion. The only person who would still look her in the eye was Sam.

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been through a very difficult time, and I want to make sure that you don’t try to take your recovery in a single bound. This will be a step-by-step process, Miss Bellerose.” With that, Viola realized she was supposed to understand that his word was law. Judging by the way the rest of the staff treated him, he must be their boss. Well, she’d just see about that. Viola had no problem going over his head, if that was what it took to get someone to tell her what she wanted to know.

  “For now, get some rest.” The boss doctor gestured to his white-coated lackeys, urging them to leave the room. “Lucinda here will make sure you have everything you need, until the trauma counselor arrives.”

  Well, that was just great. Viola watched as the clinical minions followed their leader out the door like an obedient little herd of ducks. Herd? No, that wasn’t right. A gaggle? Whatever it was, it seemed like she had no real problem planning on saying whatever she felt like. It was when the words tried to travel to her mouth that they seemed to get lost.

  Sam was the last one to leave, besides the nurse. He hovered in the doorway for a few seconds, looking at her like he wanted to say something, but didn’t want to bring it up in front of the nurse. It was weird, how Viola seemed to be able to read this guy she’d never met before. Except, apparently, for a few brief seconds when she’d first been wheeled into the hospital.

  “I’m uh…,” he said, with a shy smile. “I’m glad you’re awake. You had us all worried for a while there.”

  Returning his smile, Viola watched him turn and leave, still wondering why she couldn’t shake the feeling that the very tall—and, okay, kind of cute—doctor seemed a lot less happy at the moment than he should be.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.” –Sigmund Freud

  “No?” Sam stared across the desk at Dr. Chakrabarti. He knew his mouth was hanging open, and he probably looked stupid, but he couldn’t help it. “As in, just…no?”

  “I think you heard me the first time, Dr. Philips,” the attending said. “I’m not taking you off the case.”

  “But…” Sam still couldn’t fathom how his confession hadn’t merited instant dismissal, let alone something worse. “Why?”

  “First, because you haven’t technically done anything legally or morally wrong. Dr. Brady has already explained to me how he took you out drinking and left you here to sleep it off in one of the on-call rooms. If every doctor who did that got censured, we would be very short staffed indeed.”

  “But…” Sam tried again, but Chakrabarti continued as if he hadn’t even spoken.

  “As for your request to be removed from Miss Bellerose’s case, as I’m sure you’re already aware, she is far from being out of danger. The psychological and emotional risks are very high during this period of the recovery process, and for whatever reason, she seems to feel that you are someone she can trust. With all that she has been through, and all that she is soon to discover about her situation, I do not think it is asking too much for you to stay on and keep an eye on her. Do you?”

  “Uh…” There were so many possible answers to that question, but Sam didn’t even know where to start. “No, I guess not.”

  “Good.” Chakrabarti nodded, accepting Sam’s surrender. “Then, as long as there is no serious conflict of interest present—such as a physical relationship,” he paused, staring at Sam briefly over the wire rims of his tiny reading glasses, “which I assume there is not, since that would present an entirely different and far more serious issue….?”

  “No,” Sam answered automatically. “Absolutely not.”

  The kiss was before she was a patient. Besides, she didn’t remember it. It didn’t count.

  Keep telling yourself that, buddy.

  “Excellent. Until further notice, you will remain on the case, and no disciplinary action will be taken for your inebriation on hospital grounds. You can leave my office.”

  “But, Dr. Chakrabarti, are you sure it wouldn’t be better if….”

  The attending picked up a sheaf of papers on his desk and gestured to the door.

  “You can leave my office,” he said again, using the exact same inflection as he had the first time.

  “Yes sir,” Sam said, caving. Again.

  Feeling equal parts guilty and spineless, he left the office and continued to the seventh floor.

  All he could think about was how he’d felt the day before: how he’d almost throat punched Jeff the tech, trying to get to Viola’s side. The way his heart had stopped when hers had, and he’d actually felt a part of him dying along with her. None of those feelings made any sense to him, but that didn’t make them any easier to ignore. Or any less inappropriate, for someone who was acting as her physician. And yet, Dr. Chakrabarti didn’t seem to think it was a problem. At least, not enough to take him off the case.

  But that wasn’t what was really bothering him, Sam realized. He reached for Viola’s chart, fighting off another wave of guilt. The truth was, he hadn’t asked to be taken off the case so he could s
pend less time around Viola. It was so he could spend more time with her. So he wouldn’t have to pretend that his interest in her—however deep it went—was purely professional.

  Now, though, Sam was shackled by the Hippocratic Oath. Even if Viola did end up feeling the same way, there could be no hint of anything romantic between them. And that bothered him way, way more than it should.

  But not as much as the thought of her hating him, when she finally found out the truth.

  When Sam turned toward Viola’s room, he almost trampled a guy with spiked brown hair and guy-liner.

  “Excuse me,” Sam said, trying to step around him. But the guy raised a leather-bracelet banded, tattoo-covered arm to stop him in his tracks.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Are you Dr. Philips?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Oh, brilliant.” The guy had a British accent, or something like it. “They said you were one of the doctors working on Viola Bellerose’s case, and they said I should talk to you if I had any questions.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows at the mention of Viola’s name. “They?”

  “Yeah,” the guy turned toward the nurse’s station and waved. Sam looked over his shoulder, just in time to see two of the younger ICU nurses—Candace and Whitney—waving back, as they blushed and leered, respectively.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said, feeling out of the loop. “Who are you?”

  “Oh,” the guy smiled, showing off a set of surprisingly white teeth, considering how grubby the rest of him looked. He held out a hand, and Sam noticed for the first time that his fingernails were painted black. “I’m Aiden Faux. You know, ‘Hat Trick’…‘The Space Between Us?’…‘Wake for Me’?”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Sam couldn’t place it. Reluctantly, he took the offered hand and shook it. “And you have questions about my patient, because…?”

  “Oh,” Aiden laughed, breaking the handshake to run a hand through his overly-gelled hair. “Sorry, I just assumed you would have read the magazines and what. I’m her boyfriend.”

  What the—? Sam instantly felt his hackles go up. How stupid. Of course Viola already had a boyfriend. How could she not? A better question was, where the hell had her boyfriend been for the past two weeks?

  He didn’t even want to think about what that meant for the kiss, which in retrospect was quickly approaching imaginary status.

  Instead of asking what would’ve been a seriously personal—and unprofessional—question, Sam cleared his throat and put on his best ‘I’m a doctor and that means I am more important than you’ face. It was similar to his poker face, in that it probably fooled no one.

  “I apologize, Mr. ….”

  “Faux. F-A-U-X.”

  “Right.” Sam smiled, coldly. “But I can’t give out any details about a patient’s status, to anyone who isn’t a family member.”

  “Oh, that’s alright,” Viola’s so-called boyfriend said, seemingly unperturbed. “I don’t need to know any of the gruesome stuff. I just want to know if she remembers anything, you know, from when she was…TKO?”

  Was this guy for real? And why the fuck did he keep spelling things?

  Sam shook his head. “Again, I’m afraid I can’t offer any…”

  “That’s okay,” Whitney spoke up, from behind him. “You can talk to her yourself if you want. Morning visiting hours just started, so….”

  Visiting hours. Super. Now instead of talking to Viola about her parents, as he’d planned, Sam had to let this guy fawn all over her while she was still in an extremely fragile mental and emotional state. Well sorry, buddy, but Sam would be damned if he was going to let that visit happen unsupervised.

  “Right this way,” he said, switching to his polite and helpful face. “I’ll take you to see her.”

  As they walked side by side down the hall, Sam noticed that the guy had a big pack of some kind slung across his back. It took him a second to realize what it was—a guitar case. Oh, no. He had to be kidding. What kind of douche bag brought a guitar into a hospital? The part of Sam’s brain that stored random and unimportant facts nudged at him, then surreptitiously handed him the answer.

  “Wait a second,” he said, stopping in the middle of the hallway. “Aiden Faux…Unplugged.” That was the name of the album that had been playing over and over in Viola’s ears, the night her parents had died. Her mother must’ve left it playing, or someone else who knew that Viola had been seeing the musician. “You’re some kind of singer, right?”

  “That’s right,” Aiden said, gesturing proudly to the guitar with a huge smile. He had one of those man-baby faces, Sam thought, which made his age impossible to determine. Like Billie Joe Armstrong. He could’ve been seventeen or thirty-seven, it was anyone’s guess.

  Sam’s left-field synapse gave him another nudge. “What was that you said before, about wake…something?”

  “Oh, ‘Wake for Me’?” The shorter man smiled, as if impressed that Sam had remembered. “It’s the song I wrote for Viola, after her car crash. When I heard that she was in a coma, I was just about to go on tour. But instead, I sat at home alone, and didn’t answer my phone for days.” His expression grew dramatic, and somehow Sam got the feeling that he’d told this story before. More than a few times. “I was tortured, you know, with the thought of never looking into the eyes of my one true love again. So I wrote Wake for Me, and I posted it on YouTube. Within twelve hours, it had over a hundred-thousand hits, and the number just keeps on growing.”

  Wow. As it turned out, Sam’s gut-level instincts were correct. He might seem friendly, but Aiden Faux was a total dick.

  “So, this tour of yours,” Sam asked, faking polite interest to cover his growing disgust. “Is it cancelled, or…?”

  “Oh, fuck no,” Aiden laughed. “It’s actually been extended. Before, it was just across the UK and parts of Asia. Now, I’ll be touring across North America with a bunch of other bands.” He lowered his voice, elbowing Sam lightly in the ribs with a conspiratorial look. “Actually, I’m hoping that Viola gets well in time to join me. We’d been planning it for a while, you know. Before her accident. We were going to elope, too, but don’t tell the papers.”

  Sam felt like he’d been hit by a bus. Of course. That’s what she’d been doing on the night of the accident. She’d been waiting for her boyfriend to show up. He’d be willing to bet that Aiden Faux was the guy who was had been booked to play that secret show Brady’s friend told them about. If Aiden hadn’t bailed on the show, Sam never would’ve met Viola. She’d still be perfectly healthy. She’d still have parents.

  Jesus H. Christ, how could he have been so stupid? All this time, he’d been feeling like there was some magical, unspoken connection between them. But really, he was just the wrong guy. At the wrong place. At the worst possible time. It was the story of his life, really.

  Turning suddenly, Sam walked a few more steps and led the way into Viola’s room, where she immediately looked up at him and smiled. He tried not to let it get to him, that way she had of looking like she’d been waiting for him and no one else. It was all in his head, he told himself. She didn’t see him as anything but the guy she thought had saved her life. And boy, was she wrong on that score.

  “Hi Viola,” he said, with a quick, tight smile. “You have a visitor.”

  Aiden sidestepped past him into Viola’s room, bumping Sam’s knee with his stupid guitar as he did.

  “Whoops. Sorry mate.” He laughed, then rushed to Viola’s side. “Oh, love, it’s so good to see you awake. I’ve been visiting you so much, and praying for the day when you’d finally wake up and look back at me.”

  Sam nearly choked on a ‘what the fuck?’ He reigned himself in, realizing that calling Aiden out on the blatant lie would only hurt Viola and make Sam look like a weirdo nark. So instead, he fixed Aiden with a warning smile, as he addressed his patient:

  “Viola, I’ll be back in about half an hour to do some reflex tests, okay?”

  Smiling sweetly, sh
e nodded. Her gestures seemed to be getting sharper, more controlled, by the minute. “Thank…you…Sam.”

  “Wow, look at my girl go!” Aiden laughed, leaning forward to press a kiss to Viola’s temple. “Isn’t she amazing, doctor?”

  “Yes, she is,” Sam said. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

  After leaving the room, he grabbed the first unoccupied tech he could find who had no chance of giving in to any goo-goo-eyed, rock star-struck tendencies: Manny, a middle-aged father of three from Argentina.

  “Manny, could you do me a favor? Keep an eye on my patient in 714? I want to make sure her visitor keeps his hands to himself, and doesn’t overtire her, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Dr. Philips,” Manny smiled, with a knowing expression.

  Manny’s oldest daughter had just turned sixteen, and he’d once confessed to Sam that he waited up for every single one of her dates with an aluminum bat in his hand, just in case a young man tried to get fresh at the door. He was the perfect guardian for Sam’s purposes.

  “Thanks Manny,” Sam said. “I’ll be down in the cafeteria. Page me if anything happens.”

  When Sam passed by Viola’s room on his way back to the elevators, he had to wade through a small horde of giggling nurses who were clustered around the door, listening to Aiden loudly serenade his girlfriend as he played the guitar. After he broke through, Sam practically sprinted the rest of the way, anxious to get out of the ward before he did something truly embarrassing, like punch a hole in the wall. Or smash the makeup-wearing poser’s guitar over his head in a hallway full of witnesses.

  In the cafeteria, Sam forced his raging jealousy to calm down as he waited in line for a sandwich and a coffee. He found an empty table in the corner of the busy room and sat down, pulling out his phone and inserting headphones into the top. He blasted The Used as he chewed, letting his repressed anger bleed into the angry percussion and angst-filled lyrics.