But I ignore her, and push my way right through the double doors.
I grab a cot, and lay Mia down on it.
The nurse has followed me. She’s angry, almost as red in the face as Mia.
Then she sees who I am.
I completely ignore her.
“Epinephrine!” I shout.
The nurses here know me.
Someone hands me a shot, and I jam it into Mia’s leg.
“You’re going to be just fine, Mia,” I say.
“You,” I say, pointing to a nurse. “I need methylene blue, pure. Get it from the pharmacy. As fast as you can!”
“What’s going on?” says Mia, looking around. She’s probably feeling more awake from the shot of what is essentially adrenaline. “What’s going on?” She looks wide eyed and scared.
Chapter 15
Mia
I wake up in a hospital bed. I always know when I’m in a hospital bed. This has happened to me so many times that I’ve gotten somewhat used to it that I can now always tell where I am.
But I don’t remember exactly what happened. My memories are a blur.
I remember losing my virginity finally. It was incredible.
And then I started to have a reaction.
Liam did something. He didn’t have the blue drops.
He took me here in his car, a terrifying drive.
“You’re awake,” says someone, a nurse with kind eyes, who peers down at me.
“What happened?” I say. “Am I OK?”
“Everything’s going to be all right,” says the nurse.
Suddenly, I notice something… something that horrifies me completely. It sends a chill down my spine, through my whole body. It makes me shiver in terror.
The nurse is wearing a mask. Not only that, she’s wearing the ridiculous plastic wrap suit that’s meant to protect me from allergens.
I look around the room, frantically. It’s one of those sealed off plastic rooms.
“Damnit!” I suddenly yell.
The nurse looks taken aback.
“Everything’s going to be OK, dear,” she says. “You just had another reaction.”
“Why am I in the hypoallergenic room again?” I say, almost yelling. “Why are you wearing a mask again?”
“Don’t you remember, dear? You have a condition where your immune system doesn’t function properly…. We need to protect you. That’s why you had a reaction. You shouldn’t be out there in the world without protection. You’re a delicate creature, aren’t you?”
“I am not a delicate creature,” I say emphatically. “Not anymore. Liam cured me. He gave me…”
I can hear the nurse sighing through her mask.
“What happened?” I say. “Didn’t the blue drops work again? Where’s Liam?”
“If you’re referring to Dr. Horton, he’s been suspended.”
“Suspended? What the hell are you talking about?”
“We can discuss that all later, dear,” says the nurse. “Right now, I need to take some measurements.”
She examines the machine that I’m hooked up to, looking at my vital signs apparently.
Now she looks at me.
“The swelling has gone down significantly,” she says. “I’ll be back soon to check up on you again. For now, just rest. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.”
“But tell me what happened!”
“There’s time for that later,” says the nurse. She clearly has no intention of explaining what happened to me.
Shit.
The nurse disappears through the double folds of plastic wrap. And I’m left alone again.
I’m alone, just like I was in my room for that horrible year.
This has to be a joke, right? I get one little taste of freedom, and now I’m back in the same situation as before.
I just don’t understand what happened. Did the blue drops suddenly stop working?
And what happened to Liam?
Suddenly, I get a memory coming back to me. Liam’s standing over me with a shot of epinephrine. I’m worried, but I know he’s looking out for me. After all, he got me to the hospital. I feel safer with him than with anyone else. And then a severe looking woman comes into the emergency room, trailed by five security guards. The security guards grab Liam by the arms and pull him away from me. He’s yelling at them, and he punches one of them in the face, but the others grab him.
Is that memory right?
The security guards came and pulled Liam away from me, when he was only trying to help me?
I look around for my phone to call Liam, to ask him what happened, to see if he’s OK. I know being a doctor is incredibly important to him. I know he’s not going to like being suspended from duty at the hospital. After all, as he’s always saying, he has people to save and brains to cut open. He’s got to get on with his work. What are they playing at?
But my phone is gone, and there’s no hospital phone. No doubt, my phone is considered a risk because it’s been in the outside world.
My mind starts going into a cycle of worry that I can’t escape from.
But at some point, my body is so exhausted from everything that happened, from the allergy attack, from whatever drugs they’ve given me, that I fall asleep.
I wake up to see my dad’s head above me. He, too, is wearing a mask.
“How are you feeling?” he says.
“Hi, Dad,” I say.
“Are you OK?”
I nod.
“Can’t you take that mask off?”
“You had another attack,” says my dad. “This is what I was afraid of.”
“But I’m fine. I just need to take more of those blue drops.”
My dad sighs. “That’s not going to happen, Mia,” he says. “The doctors have all agreed that there’s no evidence that the methylene blue works. And it seems to make you think you can go into the outside world when you can’t. It’s just a matter of time, if you take that stuff, before you have another attack.”
“But maybe I just need a drop,” I say. “I had the attack when I hadn’t had it for the whole day. I was fine before that. Maybe I just need to take it more frequently.”
My dad shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “That’s not a good idea, Mia. We just don’t know what’s going to happen. You need to be away from all allergens until the doctors here figure out a treatment for you, a real treatment that’s been proven.”
“No treatment like that exists,” I say. “But Liam found one! He cured me, and you want to put me back in my room. I can’t spend another year there. I can’t!”
“Mia, listen to me. Liam may have been trying to help. I won’t deny that. But he violated many of medicine’s codes. I was a doctor, remember? I know how doctors are supposed to act. We need evidence before we can just give a drug to someone. Liam used you like a guinea pig, and it didn’t work. The hospital has suspended him for a good reason, Mia. They didn’t do it for nothing. He’s been flouting convention here for years, violating every procedure there is. It was just a matter of time before someone got hurt. I’m just glad you’re OK.”
“But, Dad…”
“Goodbye, Mia,” says my dad. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about this anymore.”
My dad’s gone, through the double plastic folds that seem to swallow him up.
And I’m alone in the hypoallergenic hospital room yet again.
My thoughts turn to Liam.
Why hasn’t he tried to communicate with me? Even though he’s been suspended, I’m sure he could find some way to see me, or to pass me a note.
I’m sure he could do something.
Suddenly, the words of that nurse that I bumped into on the street ring through my memory: “the pump and dump.”
My heart starts beating fast in fear.
Is that what he’s doing to me? Just fucking me and then leaving me here, never to speak to me again?
Maybe it’s not that big a deal about the nurses
he’s slept with in the past. But I really thought there was something between us. He was my first sexual partner, after all. And the way he talked to me…
But was that all a ruse?
And then the most horrifying thought comes to me: what if he just gave me the methylene blue so that I could leave my room long enough for him to fuck me. Meanwhile, he knew it wouldn’t last forever, and that I’d end up stuck back in my room.
Meanwhile, of course, I was led to believe that it was a cure for life, and that I’d never have to live this horrible lifestyle ever again.
That couldn’t be true, could it?
Then again… he’s been nice to me, but I do have to look at the evidence. How many women has he done something similar to before?
Do I really think that I’m so special that Liam would completely change his previous behavior just for me? Just for little old me, the virgin who doesn’t even know how to have sex properly… possibly? He did seem to enjoy it. I can still remember the way he was grunting. But was I good? I doubt it. It was my first time, after all.
Chapter 16
Liam
There’s a knock at my door.
Wearing my gym shorts and a t-shirt, I head to the door and peer through the peephole. I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone right now.
But the face I see through the peephole changes my mind.
I open the door.
“Ryan Hudson,” I say slowly. “I can’t believe my fucking eyes. Where the fuck have you been?”
“Nice to see you, too,” says Ryan, grinning at me and shoving a six pack of beer against my chest.
“Come on in,” I say, gesturing to my living room, which is frankly a huge mess.
“Damn,” says Ryan. “You going through a divorce or something? What the hell happened here?”
“Wouldn’t you have known if I’d gotten married?” I say.
Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s been what…”
“Ten years,” I say.
“Long time,” says Ryan, appearing a little awkward for the first time.
“Yup,” I say.
Ryan and I were great friends at one point, before he got so involved with his company, and I got so involved with medical residency, working constantly.
“So what brings you around?” I say, flopping myself down on the couch.
Ryan sits down on the armchair near me, and holds out his hand for a beer. I crack one of the ones that he brought open and hand it to him. I crack myself one, and it feels good to hold something so cold. I savor the feeling of the cold glass in my hand, but I don’t take a sip. I’m not in the mood for alcohol.
Ryan takes a long sip, though, and sits back, relaxing in the chair.
“Well,” says Ryan, after a long pause. “My wife’s overseas for work. Just for a month. I thought I’d look up some old friends. You’re first on the list. I was hoping we could hit the bars, have a few laughs, but frankly, it doesn’t seem like you’re in any condition to do that.”
“Why not?”
Ryan looks me up and down and cracks a smile, the kind of smile that only Ryan Hudson has. It’s both arrogant and well-meaning at the same time.
“Look at this place, for one thing. What the hell happened? I already asked you if you lost your wife.”
“I’ve never been married.”
“So what happened?”
“I’m suspended from the hospital,” I say.
“Shit. What’d you do? Fuck one too many of the nurses? Or did you go after a patient this time?”
“A little of both.”
Ryan laughs.
“Tell me about it.”
I tell him everything, the whole history I have with Johnson and the hospital administration. And I tell him about Mia, and how she got better, how I rushed her to the hospital. I tell him she’s gorgeous, completely hot, but what I’m not able to admit to him is that I have feelings for her.
“Look,” says Ryan. “I used to be just like you, a new girl every week. Then my wife came along… You wouldn’t believe how similar they sound to each other. All I know is that you feel something for this Mia. She’s important to you. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Where’s the Ryan Hudson I used to know?” I say, joking. “I’ve never heard you talk like this before.”
“I’m changed, man. My wife did that to me. I wasn’t expecting it, but it just happened. So what bothers you more?” says Ryan, taking another long sip of his beer. “Her or the hospital?”
I pause.
“Her,” I say.
“You called her? What happened exactly?”
“She’s back home, stuck in her room.”
“Stuck in her room. You mean the allergy thing?”
“Yeah. It’s complicated. She won’t return my phone calls, my emails, or anything at all.”
“That’s a tough one,” says Ryan.
“Yeah,” I say. “So since you’ve got it all figured out apparently, what should I do?”
Ryan shrugs.
“Want to go play golf?”
“Golf?”
“Yeah, I know you still play. You were too obsessed with the game to ever leave it.”
“What good is golf going to do me?”
“Get your mind off things, and get you out of this stinking pit you’ve created for yourself. This place is a disaster.”
Ryan kicks a dinner plate that’s been lying on the floor for a week. Normally, I’d never leave something like that lying around.
“OK,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“You know a good place?”
“Yeah. Come on,” I say, standing up. “Let’s go.”
Ryan stands up, still holding his beer. He looks me up and down. “You look like shit, man, no offense.”
I laugh.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Take a shower while you’re at it,” calls Ryan to me, as I’m already bounding up the stairs.
“Fuck off,” I yell back at him.
“There’s the Liam I know!” shouts Ryan. I can barely hear him. I’m already in the bathroom.
I turn on the cold water tap, and strip off my shirt and shorts.
I step into the water and let the cold take over me. I don’t shudder and I don’t flinch.
Unlike the pain I feel from Mia’s absence, the pain from the freezing cold water is something that I can control. I can cope with physical pain. I can cope with losing my job at the hospital. I can cope with anything…
What I didn’t count on was how much she means to me.
I didn’t realize it until she was gone from my life.
I just need to talk to her. I just need to explain things to her.
I’ve pieced it together somewhat… She’s upset that the attacks came back. She must think that I conned her somehow.
That was never my intention.
Sure, I wanted to fuck her.
But more than that, I wanted to help her. I want to help all my patients. Maybe I wanted to help Mia more in particular.
I try to bring my mind back to the present. I soap up and rinse off. By the time I’m out of the bathroom, toweled off and changed, Ryan’s already out in the garage looking through my golf clubs, beer in hand.
I find him out there.
“Anything you like?” I say. “Or does Ryan Hudson now travel with his own clubs all the time?”
“I didn’t bring any,” he says. “But I should have. I thought for a brain surgeon you’d have some better clubs.”
Normally, I would laugh. But the thoughts of Mia have me down, unable to do so much as chuckle right now.
“Those are my old ones,” I say. “They’re only for lending out. But I suppose you deserve something better.”
I go to the corner of the garage and remove a tarp from what looks like just a pile of tools. Underneath the tarp, there are three sets of the best golf clubs money can buy.
Ryan grins.
“Now we’re talking,” he says, examining the
clubs with awe. “Damn, I don’t even have these. They just came out, didn’t they?”
I nod.
“Should we get going?”
“All right.”
We climb into the Porsche.
“Smells nice in here,” says Ryan, inhaling deeply.
I don’t say anything. I can smell it too. It’s Mia’s scent, still hanging onto the upholstery from the last time she was in the car, when I drove her to the hospital.
The events of that night keep replaying themselves in my mind.
Should I have done something differently?
I’m convinced that Mia simply needed another drop of the methylene blue. Those blue drops would have saved her. If only I’d had some on hand.
But why didn’t she bring any with her?
Over the last week, I’ve spent hours poring over the research papers. The way the blue drops work is that they enhance mitochondrial cellular function for a period, but they don’t work indefinitely. It’s probably necessary to take it at least twice a day. I suspect Mia was taking two drops in the morning.
By the time she was over at my place, the blue drops had probably worn off. Her cells and her body had returned to her “normal” state, making her allergic to everything. Her allergic reaction could have been triggered by anything really, some cologne I was wearing, something in the house. Most likely, though, it was the latex condom, or the lubrication that it comes with.
I feel bad, guilty about exposing her to a condom that made her sick.
If I could just explain this all to her, I know she would listen.
But her dad’s probably convinced her that I was just using her.
I shudder to think what Mia thinks about me now. She probably imagines she’s just another notch on my bedpost.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
“You’re not saying much,” says Ryan from the passenger’s seat.
He’s looking out the window on our way to the golf course.
I shrug. “Just thinking,” I say, taking a turn on a red light.
“About your girl?”
“Doesn’t seem like she wants to be my girl,” I say. “I’ve got a bad reputation, you know. She probably figured she’s just like the rest of the girls.”
SEAL'd Lips: A Secret Baby Romance Page 72
