by Sierra Riley
“Yeah, that’s what Dr. Turner said.” Russ sighed, raking a hand through his thick hair. “I thought we were finally hitting a good patch, you know?”
“Is your insurance still the same, Mr. Callaghan?” The receptionist asked.
“Yeah,” he said offhandedly, reaching for his wallet. After a moment, he corrected himself, “No, it’s… I was on my…” He stopped himself, then tried again. “It’s different now. Let me get the card.”
Jake had always admired Russ for starting his own business, but being a woodworker didn’t exactly come with a huge benefits package. He’d always been on Carrie’s insurance, to the best of Jake’s memory. Now he had to pay for a far worse plan out of his meager profits.
“I just don’t know how long I can do this.”
The emotion in Russ’s voice killed him. Jake wanted to wrap him up in a hug. Hold him tightly and never let go. Promise to be there for him, always.
But he did none of those things. Instead, he gave Russ a sympathetic look and reached for his shoulder to give it a squeeze.
“You’ll get through this. I know you will.”
“Is this going to be another ‘time heals all wounds’ thing?” Russ’s half-smile didn’t quite hit the mark. “Because I don’t buy that anymore.”
Neither did Jake, really. He’d hoped time would eventually spare him from having feelings for his unavailable and completely straight best friend. But time hadn’t done anything for him, and time wouldn’t bring Carrie back to Russ and Ryan.
“Time doesn’t heal anything, you’re right. But you have Ryan to worry about now. You’re an amazing father. You’ll get through this because he needs you to get through this.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking away. “I just wish…”
Whatever it was, he didn’t say it. He just shook his head and pulled out his credit card.
“The total today is going to be two hundred ninety-seven dollars,” Patti said, and Jake tried to hide his wince.
If there was one thing he hated about being a doctor, it was this.
Russ started to hand over his card, then stopped, as if suddenly realizing what she’d said.
“My co-pay is only twenty percent. How is it two hundred ninety-seven?”
“You haven’t met your deductible yet, I’m afraid.”
“Right. Right, it’s higher now,” Russ said, almost to himself. “Put it on my card, I guess.”
Patti looked at him with sympathy, but Jake schooled his features. He knew Russ didn’t want to be pitied.
He also didn’t want handouts. Jake was so very tempted to offer to cover it. He had the money. He certainly wasn’t doing anything with it. He’d hoped to start the process of adopting a child by this point in his life, but that required a stable relationship, and he definitely didn’t have that.
He’d leap at any chance to help Russ, but he knew his friend wouldn’t allow it.
“Thanks again for letting us get in here,” Russ said. “I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Russ said with a beleaguered smile.
But it was still a smile. It still brought a bit of light into his beautiful brown eyes. And it still made Jake’s heart skip a beat or two.
“Call me on Monday when you find out more?”
Russ nodded, collected his receipt, and headed out. Jake watched him leave, then exchanged a glance with Patti. The idea that popped into his head was wrong. He knew it the moment he thought it. But Russ wouldn’t notice if this visit just disappeared from his card, right? His friend had never been very meticulous about combing through his credit card statements in the past.
Shit. Was he really going to do this? Russ would be pissed if he ever found out. But $297 was a lot of money for a single father. It wouldn’t be long before Russ’s credit card payments became unmanageable.
“How hard is it to cancel his payment?” He asked, leaning over the desk so he couldn’t be heard by anyone else. He reached into his jeans, pulled out his wallet, and handed over his bank card.
If he was going to hell for being in love with his best friend, he might as well rack up a few more charges along the way.
5
Russ
Russ found himself in an odd sort of relationship with Monday morning.
On one hand, it couldn’t come soon enough. He needed to know what was wrong with Ryan’s eye. He hadn’t been able to sleep all weekend. He’d dragged himself into his workshop on Sunday, but then dragged himself right back out again after nearly cutting off a few fingers.
He couldn’t afford another restless night, but a part of him didn’t want to face Monday and everything that came with it. He wanted to turn back time, not to when he was younger and didn’t have these worries, but to a year ago, before Carrie had been deployed. Before he’d gotten that dreaded visit from a uniformed soldier.
He needed someone there with him. Someone he could lean on. Someone who would share this burden and somehow manage to stay calm and rational even when he fell apart.
Jake had been that person for him lately. If he was honest with himself, Jake was always best at being that person, but he couldn’t ask his friend to miss yet another day of work just to keep him from freaking out. He needed to pull himself up by his bootstraps and man the fuck up. For Ryan’s sake, if not for his own.
And that started with getting Ryan to the ophthalmologist’s office.
They made it to the waiting room with a few minutes to spare. Russ filled out the paperwork and provided his insurance and payment information while trying not to get sucked in by worrying how he was going to pay for this so soon after the $300 clinic visit. And that wasn’t even counting an in-office procedure.
Following his passion had been fine while his wife brought in a stable paycheck, but it was looking more and more like he’d have to put woodworking on the back burner and take up a “real” job. Maybe the consulting work he’d actually been to college for.
Glancing around the waiting room, he couldn’t help but notice Ryan was the youngest one there by miles. It had to mean something good, right? Someone as young as him couldn’t have anything seriously wrong.
Russ tried to hold on to that optimism when they were called back, but he found it slipping once he saw all of the equipment in the office. Clunky machines that swiveled to press up against a patient’s face like a mask shouldn’t be so intimidating, but when they were held up against Ryan’s small face, they were.
And it only got worse when the doctor—Dr. Patel—pulled out the physical 3-D model of an eye.
Opening up the iris and the pupil—the only parts Russ knew by name—he pointed toward a piece in the back that he assumed was meant to represent the retina.
“The tear he has is right here,” Dr. Patel began, as if Russ already knew there was a tear to begin with. “He has what is called a posterior vitreous detachment. The eye is filled with vitreous fluid, and in Ryan’s case, the fluid is leaking through the tear to the back of the eye and pushing the retina away from where it should be.”
Unlike Dr. Turner, Dr. Patel didn’t include Ryan in the conversation at all. Russ thought he’d be happy for that. At least his son wouldn’t have to try and understand what was happening to him.
But mostly it just pissed him off.
“Dr. Turner mentioned it could be corrected by a laser procedure?”
“Only in cases where the detachment has not yet occurred. If the process has already started, we have to correct it surgically.”
Russ felt a sharp pounding behind his temple. He reached up, pressing two fingers against it. “I don’t understand. He just got hit Saturday. How could it have detached already?”
“It’s possible the process started then. Dr. Turner does not have the tools to see a tear. It could also have happened before the contact, and was exacerbated by it.”
Russ stopped listening after that. Dr. Patel kept talking, kept writing things down on Ryan’s
chart, but to Russ it was just one continuous, droning buzz of sound. Russ’s gaze instead fixed on Ryan, who sat in the too-big chair, scrunched down against it, a look of confusion and fear on his face.
Surgery.
His ten-year-old son had to have surgery to save his eye.
How did that make sense? How was that even remotely fair? Ryan had suffered enough in the past year. Why did he have to go through this? He wasn’t old enough to handle everything that happened in a hospital, in surgery.
Fuck. Russ was thirty-five and he wasn’t old enough to handle it, either.
“Mr. Callaghan?”
Russ snapped his attention back to Dr. Patel. The man was still holding Ryan’s chart. Russ’s pulse hammered in his ears, and he could barely hear the question the doctor asked.
“Is the third good for you?”
He stared uselessly at Dr. Patel for a moment before it clicked. “That’s almost a week away. Doesn’t he need it now?”
“As long as he’s not especially active, the retina should not deteriorate in that time. If he experiences any vision loss, though, we will move it up.”
That got under his skin. Dr. Patel was still talking about Ryan like he wasn’t even in the room, for one. And the fact that he didn’t consider this an emergency bothered Russ, even if he was in no hurry to see Ryan admitted to surgery. But instead of trying to pick a fight, he signed off on the date and was handed paperwork in exchange.
Pre-op instructions. Consent forms. Contact forms.
This was actually happening.
Dr. Patel left the room, and Russ looked over at Ryan who was still seated in the large chair. Pain lanced through his heart. He could see in his son’s eyes that he’d followed along with everything the doctor had said.
“Do I really have to have a surgery?”
Russ wished he could say no. He wished he could somehow exercise his right as a parent and have the outcome change just by him refusing to put his son through this ordeal.
But instead he just gave a soft nod.
“Yeah, bud. We have to make sure your eye is okay.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Russ didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want Ryan to think about it, either. “It’ll work.”
His son looked skeptical. Russ tried on his best reassuring smile, and while it came close to fitting just fine, he could feel it slide a bit.
Someone else might think this wasn’t a big deal. That Russ should just be happy his son wasn’t in any mortal danger. But it was a big deal. Ryan shouldn’t have to worry about any of this. He should be playing soccer and building little model airplanes.
Not worrying about whether he was ever going to see again.
“We’ll get some ice cream, okay? And then you can help me out in the shop if you feel up to it.”
Ryan looked dejected, but he did nod.
Ice cream wasn’t going to fix anything, but at least it was something he could promise his son.
As they waited for the nurse to come back with the last few papers they needed, Russ pulled his phone out of his pocket.
He could call his parents. They’d want to know this was happening to their grandson. But he didn’t exactly relish the idea of hearing his mother tell him he should never have let Ryan play soccer to begin with.
And he definitely didn’t want his father to ask him how he was going to pay for all of this.
There was only one person he could call who wouldn’t judge him. Feeling like a complete ass for having to lean on him so much over the past few days, Russ dialed Jake.
He expected to catch his voicemail. Jake didn’t have the luxury of keeping his phone on at work. Not while he was seeing patients.
But to Russ’s surprise, it only rang once before Jake picked up.
“Hey, how’d it go?”
“They’re scheduling him for surgery the third.”
The line was silent for a moment, then, “Shit, Russ. I’m sorry. There’s no chance of them doing it in-office?”
“I guess not.” Russ heard someone reach for the door handle. Apparently his chance to grasp at moral support wasn’t going to last too long. “I have to go. Ryan and I are getting ice cream. We might swing by the comic shop or something.”
He looked toward his son, and when even that didn’t perk him up, he felt a stab of guilt. Wasn’t it his job as a father to protect him from feeling this way?
“I can drop by later tonight, if you’ll be home.”
He knew what Jake was really saying: If you need somebody there. He knew he shouldn’t. Millions of people had probably gone through worse than this. Why should he be the one asshole to need a shoulder to cry on?
But what he found himself saying was, “Yeah, that’d be good. We can break into a six-pack.”
6
Jake
Jake had prepared himself for this. He’d spent Sunday stalling on paperwork by looking up retinal detachments in children and even calling up a colleague to get his opinion.
He knew it was a possibility. He’d just desperately wanted to believe it would turn out any other way.
His hand was shaking when he hung up with Russ. He’d made sure to leave some time in his schedule to be available, and he was glad he was alone in Exam Three now. Every rational part of him knew Ryan would most likely be fine. Surgeries were a lot safer these days, and while it would be an ordeal, he was a strong kid. He could get through it.
But if it had been possible for Jake to go through it instead of Ryan—and even instead of Russ—he would have.
Taking a seat on the stool, he just stared at his phone for a moment. Russ was probably freaking out. His voice was calm enough, but Ryan was right there. What would happen when Russ was alone and forced to shoulder the weight of yet another huge blow?
A soft knock at the door interrupted his thoughts before they could get much further.
“Come on in,” he said, knowing it was Lynn on the other side.
“Just sent our last pre-lunch appointment out to reception. I take it you heard back from Russell?”
He nodded, pushing himself up from the stool. “Yeah. It’s not good. Ryan’s going in for surgery on the third.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, J.”
He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, nodding. “Yeah. I may need you to cover for me. I want to make sure I’m available in case Ryan needs me. I’ll take over whenever you want a day off.”
She put up her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. I know Ryan’s important to you.”
Jake spread his knees and ducked his head down, scrubbing his fingers through his short hair.
“Sometimes I hate this job. Seeing kids have to go through this shit. It’s not fair.”
“Yeah, it’s not. But they’ll take good care of him. It’s a minimally invasive procedure. Couple hours in surgery, a little time in recovery; he’ll be fine.”
“I know,” he said. And he did know. But that didn’t change the fact that he wished Ryan wasn’t going through it. “Christ, this is the worst time for it, too. I helped Russ choose his policy. I know what it’ll cover.”
And more important, what it wouldn’t. A whole hell of a lot when it came to medical conditions that weren’t considered life-threatening.
“Think I’ll wake up tomorrow and all healthcare will just magically be free, no strings attached?” He asked.
“Don’t hold your breath.”
He looked up at her, saw the sympathetic smile on her lips, and felt a stab of guilt. She shouldn’t feel sympathy for him. He’d taken matters into his own hands.
“I paid for their visit here.”
“That was nice of you,” she said, and from her tone Jake could tell she already knew that wasn’t the whole story.
She was just waiting to hear it from him.
“I slipped Patti my card after he’d already paid.”
“What are you planning on telling him?”
“Nothing, if I c
an help it.”
She didn’t say anything to that, and he ventured another glance at her. She had that look in her eyes. The one that told him to expect an “Oh, honey. Really?” in the near future.
She’d given him the same look when he’d agreed to be best man at Russ and Carrie’s wedding.
“You already know what I’m going to ask.”
Lynn knew his story. She knew he’d grown up in foster care. She knew he’d had to take two jobs during his undergrad years, and that he failed the MCAT once before getting into med school. She knew he would be paying off student loans for the rest of his life.
And she also knew that he’d been head over heels for Russ for almost twenty years now.
So yes, he knew what she was going to ask. But he gestured for her to ask it anyway, letting out a sigh.
“Go ahead.”
“How much of this is you wanting to help Russ as a friend, and how much of it is you wanting to ride to his rescue?”
Jake had always valued Lynn’s blunt honesty. She was capable of great empathy and compassion, but she could usually tell when he needed that, and when he needed the knife to just cut straight through to the truth.
This time, he wished she’d settled on the former.
“I just found out my friend’s kid is going in for surgery, Lynn. I don’t really want a lecture right now.”
“I’m not going to give you a lecture, I’m just… making you aware of the situation.”
“I know the situation,” he said, a bit more bitterly than he’d intended.
Lynn folded her arms over her chest and leaned back against the counter, regarding him for a long moment. Jake didn’t care for that scrutiny, but he did everything in his power to keep from squirming.
“You’re a grown-ass man, J. I’m not going to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do.”
“But…?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
“But I don’t want to see you get hurt. You forget, I’m the one who picked you up off the floor when you slammed six Jamesons after Russ’s wedding.”
