I shook my head.
“You should. It’s a great book,” he chuckled. “Enough questions. Let’s get you a hotdog.”
So I followed Yoss to what would become my new family.
And I didn’t feel so alone.
Present Day
I ran from the ICU.
It wasn’t my finest hour.
I ran and I ran and I didn’t stop until I got to a door at the other end of the hallway. I rushed into the silent, empty stairwell just as my knees gave out and I slid down to the floor.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through my very real, very serious freak out.
His face flashed through my mind. A thousand memories collected in the span of months. I remembered the soft, kind face of the boy he used to be.
But now it was mixed up with the harsh, brutal truth of the man he had obviously become.
That day in the rain as I stood waiting for him underneath Seventh Street Bridge felt like it was only yesterday. I was transported back to the love struck girl I had been. Exhausted, alone, scared about what I had seen. But hopeful that we could start over somewhere new.
He was supposed to meet me and we were going to leave town. I had begged him to go away with me. After what had happened, it seemed we had no other choice. To flee the life we had been living. We were going to make something better. Isn’t that what he had promised?
Even though a part of me had doubted, I had refused to listen to it.
He had promised.
I had crouched in the cold for hours, listening to the cars drive overhead. It was only when the sun began to set and the sky turned red that I realized he wasn’t coming.
I had gone back home that night and my entire life had changed all over again.
I always wondered exactly what had kept Yoss from meeting me. Even after what I had seen, I still couldn’t understand. I had thought nothing would have prevented us from being together. We had felt like a force of nature. Unstoppable. Destined. We thrived on the passion and confidence of youth that left no room for doubt. We loved each other. And in the ugly world we had inhabited, it was a light we had clung to.
There were days afterwards when I thought he was dead. I was full of so much fear that I almost choked on it.
I went back to the bridge hoping he’d show up. Dreading the moment when I realized he was fine and just didn’t want me anymore.
But it never happened.
It was like he had disappeared. As though he had never been. A figment of my overwrought imagination.
There had never been a Yoss and Imi.
Our story ended with a thud.
But it turns out there was more to the story than I thought.
Because right at that moment, the love of my young adult life was lying in a hospital bed, clearly still held prisoner by the choices he had made long before I had ever met him.
I got to my feet angrily, balling my hands into fists. I felt like hitting something. Smashing things.
No one even knew who he was. No one was looking for him.
He was still the lost, forgotten boy.
I was so angry with him for becoming another damn statistic. For giving up on our dreams.
How could he do that?
I opened the door and stepped back into the hallway. I should return to his room. I needed to notify the police about who he was. I knew his name. I knew his history. I knew bits and pieces about his life that would help fill in the gaps.
But I was missing the big chunk. What had happened to him in the last fifteen years and how he ended up nameless and bleeding in a hospital bed?
I pressed my fist to my mouth and swallowed the enraged sobs that inched up my throat.
I should pass the case off to Tess. I needed to tell Jason that I knew him and thus working with him inappropriate.
I opened Yoss’s file and stared down at the black and white facts.
Homeless.
Found unconscious.
Significant trauma.
I closed the folder and headed to the elevator. There were some phone calls I needed to make before I did anything else.
“Hello, this is Imogen Conner, the ICU social worker over at Lupton Memorial Hospital. Is Detective Preston available?” I chewed on the end of my pen and waited as I was transferred.
I couldn’t stop re-reading Yoss’s admission paperwork. The extent of his injuries was significant. But he was expected to make a full recovery.
That’s what worried me.
After he was better, where would he go? What would he do?
I knew the horrible things he did to stay alive. I had tried to ignore them when I was a girl. I couldn’t ignore them now.
“This is Detective Preston,” a rough voice said on the other end. I pressed the phone to my ear and took a deep breath.
“Hi Detective Preston, this is Imogen Conner, the social worker assigned to the homeless man’s case.”
“Excuse me?” Detective Preston asked, sounding annoyed.
“The unconscious man you and your partner brought into the emergency room early this morning. You found him underneath Seventh Street Bridge,” I prompted, irritated that he didn’t remember.
“Oh, him. Yeah, sorry if I don’t remember every crack head hustler that I find half dead on the streets,” he remarked unkindly. His casual dismissal of Yoss pissed me off.
“He’s not a crack head. He’s a person,” I reminded him firmly, unable to help myself.
Detective Preston chuckled indulgently. “You bleeding hearts are all the same. I apologize for my less than sympathetic response. But you see one, you’ve seen ’em all, I’m afraid.”
I tapped my pen against the desk in agitation. I cleared my throat. “What do you know about him? Have you been able to locate his family? People that know him?” I asked. I didn’t rush to reveal what I knew about the mystery man in ICU. Something told me to hold off on handing over my own information.
“A couple of officers took his picture down to the burned out warehouse the kids call The Pit. It’s where the city’s homeless hang out. There was a nasty fire there years ago. Would have thought it would keep those people out. But they’re like cockroaches. We try to sweep through a couple of times a month but they keep coming back.” He sounded disgusted and I already loathed the judgmental man.
“Anyway, a few people thought he looked like a guy named Yossarian Frazier, but they couldn’t be sure. Apparently this Yossarian character hadn’t been around in a while. One woman thought he had gotten a job and moved away. If the guy in ICU is this Yossarian, the only job he had was of the don’t pick up the soap variety.” He laughed as though he were telling a joke. I tasted bile and thought I was going to be ill.
“I don’t think a man being almost beaten to death is something to laugh about, Detective,” I spat out, furious at his dispassionate assessment of the Yoss’s situation.
Detective Preston coughed and sobered a bit. “Well, my partner recognized the name. Said this Yossarian fellow is a street hustler. Has been since he was a kid. He was arrested five years or so ago for solicitation down near the river. That’s a well-known place for johns to pick up their flavor of the day. Yossarian seems a little old to be appealing to the normal sleaze that frequents that area of town. But obviously he’s gotten mixed up with some messed up stuff if this is the same person we brought in last night.”
“What about his family?” I asked softly. Maybe he had someone, somewhere that would be looking for him. Perhaps his grandmother…
“Ms. Conner, these people that live at the warehouse don’t have any family. And from the sound of it, this guy had been on the streets for a long time. Any family he has forgot about him a long time ago. If they ever gave a shit to begin with.”
I bit down on my lip so hard that I tasted blood. “So what happens next?” I asked sharply.
“Well, that’s why we have you, Ms. Conner. Help the guy get some services or something. I don’t know. But I can tell you that the department just do
esn’t have the resources to look into another beaten up rent boy.”
“That’s horrible! What about the person who did this to him—”
“I know to you this sounds heartless, but you and I both know that men like this don’t change. He’ll get better, then go back out there, turn tricks, and end up with a shiv in his neck. I’m not being callous. I’m being realistic. So while it’s great that you want to help him, don’t put too much energy into it. We’ll do what we can on this end, but don’t expect miracles. You’ll go home disappointed.”
“Well, thanks for nothing, Detective,” I snarled.
“Don’t shoot the messenger, Ms. Conner.”
I hung up the phone and slammed my palms down on my desk. Maybe I should have confirmed that the man up in ICU was indeed Yossarian Frazier. Perhaps I should let the not so kind detective know that Yoss’s family used to live across town in the fancy Heights development. That his dad was an abusive alcoholic who dressed up during the day as an ad executive and that his mother had died when Yoss was just a little boy.
I could have told him that the man with his face smashed in didn’t have any brothers or sisters, but at one time he had a grandmother, but I wasn’t sure she was even still alive. That he loved his grandmother so much that he used to visit her every month, without fail, at the residential home where she lived. He never told her that he lived on the streets or that he had run away after being almost beaten to death by his own father. He had never wanted her to worry about him. Particularly since most of the time she lived in a fantasy world, lost in memories, unable to connect with the present.
But I hadn’t because I knew all of those details that made Yossarian the person that he was, wouldn’t matter to a man like Detective Preston.
I had thought about him every day for the last fifteen years. Yoss had broken off a big part of me that day in the rain. He had been my moon. My stars. My everything when I had had nothing at all.
But that day, with my heart in pieces, I had gone home to my mother and a new life had begun.
I had tried to make a better life. Even if I always felt a bit empty.
I had been so hurt and angry and there was a part of me that still was. But that hurt and anger was all mixed up with the love we had shared all those years ago.
Even when I met Chris and later married him, my soul was somewhere else. I hadn’t realized exactly what I was missing until thirty minutes ago.
Or maybe I did and I hadn’t wanted to face it.
Because Yoss was my past.
And I had made myself believe he was never meant to be my future.
“Hey, you. How’s the new case?” Tess asked, poking her head around the door.
I closed Yoss’s file and forced a smile on my face. “Complicated,” I told her.
“Aren’t they all?” Tess commiserated sympathetically.
“Some more than others,” I said softly. She had no idea how true that statement was.
“Hello, Imogen. Jill mentioned you were assigned this young man’s case,” Dr. Howell said. We were standing at the nurses’ station in ICU. I had been making excuses. Filling out paperwork. Checking facts and talking to hospital staff.
Anything to avoid going into that room again.
I should pass this off to Tess if I can’t even look at him.
But I knew I would never do that.
Yoss was mine.
Mine.
Even after all these years I still thought of him that way.
“Such a sad situation,” Dr. Howell remarked shaking his head. Dr. Howell was an older man with a head full of silver hair and warm eyes behind round frames. I liked him. His bedside manner was competent and compassionate. Frank and to the point, but careful of other’s feelings. I had worked with him many times over the years and he was by far my favorite physician. I was glad he’d be looking after Yoss.
“I spoke with the detective handling the case from the police department,” I swallowed, my mouth dry. I hated referring to Yossarian as a “case.” It didn’t feel right. As though he were less a person.
“His name is Yossarian Frazier,” I said quickly.
Dr. Howell’s eyes widened in amusement. “Yossarian? What an interesting name.”
“It’s from Catch-22. John Yossarian, the fighter pilot,” I filled in.
Dr. Howell gave me a strange look, his eyebrows rising. “Yes, I’ve read the book. How do you know he’s named after the character? Did the detective tell you that?”
I felt my cheeks flame hot and I had to look away from the doctor’s penetrating gaze. “It was just a guess. I’ve never heard of another Yossarian, have you?” I answered lamely.
“No, I suppose I haven’t.”
I kept my mouth closed unless further incriminating myself.
“So did the detective have any other information about our friend?”
I looked down at the notes I had taken during the angry phone call, though I didn’t need to read them to remember what they said.
“Only that they aren’t going to do much to find the person who beat him up. To them, he’s just another homeless guy.” I sounded angry and bitter. I didn’t bother trying to hide it.
Dr. Howell made a noise of disgust. “That’s horrible. How can they look at someone who was hurt the way Mr. Frazier was and not want to seek justice. There’s something wrong with this world when we overlook the ones that need our help the most.”
“Exactly,” I agreed weakly.
“I was just about to check on him. Why don’t you come with me? We can discuss his prognosis a little bit more. I’m hoping he will wake up soon. I’ll order another CAT scan for this afternoon if he doesn’t.”
“I’ve started the paperwork for public assistance to cover his care while he’s here. I’ll have it submitted by the end of the day,” I let the doctor know.
Dr. Howell headed towards room 102, but I didn’t follow right away.
The thought of going back into that room and seeing the once vibrant Yoss small and defeated in that bed…
“Are you coming, Imogen?”
I hesitated.
“Yes, sorry,” I said after a beat, following the doctor into Yoss’s hospital room.
Dr. Howell looked down at the chart and made a few notes. “We’re still waiting on the results of the blood panels, until then I’ve ordered a course of antibiotics to be on the safe side and given the severity of his injuries, the likelihood for infection is high.”
The doctor pulled back the curtain and we walked over to Yoss’s bed. Dr. Howell looked at the various monitors and I looked down at the man who had once been the boy I loved.
The boy I loved.
“Tomorrow you can tell me why you don’t have any options.”
My savior. My protector.
He had helped me when he didn’t have to.
He had taken care of me. He had made sure I was warm. Fed. That I had a place to lay my head at night.
Even when he couldn’t keep himself safe, he made sure that I had been. He put me first. Always.
God, I had missed him.
I had forced myself to forget how much.
“He looks pretty rough, but that swelling should go down in a few days. He’ll have a colorful face for a while though.” Dr. Howell pulled down the hospital gown and placed the stethoscope on Yoss’s chest. I noticed the scars. Lots of them.
His scars had scared me in the beginning. I had been frightened to touch them. I had learned they were a part of him. The ugly part. The part I wished he would change.
There were more of them now. A lot more. Some of them so large and so deep I didn’t want to think how he had gotten them.
“I’m scared to touch you,” he whispered, his lips quivering, his green eyes full.
My blood whooshed noisily in my ears and I felt a little lightheaded. We were so close, but I wanted to be closer.
So did he. But I could tell that the idea terrified him.
“Don’t be,” I murm
ured, reaching out and placing my palm over his heart. He was beautiful. And right now, in this moment, he was mine.
“There’s a lot of old scar tissue and badly healed breaks in his hands and arms. I hope he wakes up soon so he can tell us what happened to him.” Dr. Howell looped the stethoscope around his neck and made a few last notes in the chart. He reached down and patted Yoss’s arm gently. “We’ll take care of you. You’re safe here,” the older doctor promised the motionless man.
I shivered.
“You’re safe, Imi.”
His remembered voice rang in my ears.
“Are you coming, Imogen?” Dr. Howell said, breaking me free of my thoughts.
“I’m going to finish my assessment. I’ll stop by your office later and we can discuss his…case,” I replied.
After Dr. Howell left, I forced myself to sit again by his side. I stared long and hard at his face, trying to find the person I used to know somewhere beneath the cuts and bruises.
He was so much thinner than he used to be. I carefully turned his arm over and ran a thumb along smooth, unblemished skin, relieved there were no track marks.
Someone had shaved part of his head when they had stitched up his scalp, but I could still see some of the black hair I used to love running my fingers through.
His nose was swollen from the altercation that brought him here.
His cheeks were hollow and his skin had a yellow hue. I didn’t like that at all. There were a few things that could cause jaundice and none of them good.
I picked up his hand and held it lightly in mine. His were rough and calloused. The knuckles were busted and two of them were clearly broken
“It’s been a long time,” I said softly. I stared at his unresponsive face and felt a sinking in my gut.
“I used to tell myself that you left town and started your own life. That maybe you headed to the beach like we talked about. That you were somewhere, enjoying the ocean, making those silly crafts made out of shells and selling them to tourists. I liked to think that maybe you got married, had kids. That somewhere you found your happy life. Even if I was really pissed off that you dared to find it without me, I still wanted that for you. Because if anyone deserved to have the best of everything, it was you, Yoss.” I pursed my lips together, trying to bottle up years of emotion and failing.
One Day Soon Page 4
