Second Chances: The Seahaven Series - Book One (7 page)

Matt turns back to me and feels my throat, my windpipe. He grimaces at my neck.

“Bad?” I ask, raspy.

He keeps feeling around. “You'll have some bruising.”

He asks if I can swallow, and I do it.

“Sore,” I say.

“It will be,” he says back. “That guy was really squeezing.”

He stands up. The ER is really bustling, everybody's talking, everyone's on high alert after the choking.

“Everybody!” says Matt loudly to the room. All the motion stops and everyone looks at him, with only the beep-beep-beeping of machines competing for attention.

“This will never happen again. If any hospital employee ever feels threatened by a patient, or intimidated by anyone else in this ER, tell someone immediately and you will have help and you will be protected. This will not happen again.”

He motions to a nurse. “Ice pack.” Someone cracks a pack and hands it to him and he holds it against my neck.

“I'm okay,” I say. I look into his face and watch his eyes worriedly analyzing my injuries.

“Hey,” I say. His eyes stop darting all around and focus on mine. “Thanks.” I smile. He smiles back, still worried.

I look at his hand and frown at the knuckles turning more purple-bruised by the second. I wince. I take the ice pack off my neck and put it on his hand.

“All the punches I've thrown and I've never learned how to do it right,” he says.

“Oh yeah?” I say. “You'll have to tell me those stories sometime.”

He smiles and puts the ice pack back on my neck. His pager goes off and he checks it. Then he stands up. “I have to go,” he says. “Stick around for a bit and I'll come back to check on you.”

I nod. “Thanks for saving my life,” I say.

He leans in close to me and whispers what sounds like, “Thanks for saving mine.” Then he smiles and leaves.

I watch him go, confused by everything that's just happened, and wondering what he means.

I feel a cup being put in my hand. “Hot, for your throat,” says Maria, plying me with coffee. Danny pulls up a chair next to me.

“Are you okay?” they both ask.

I nod, the ice pack against my throat. “Sore. That guy really had me. I didn't pass out but almost.”

“The doc checked you?” asked Danny.

I nod. “Windpipe okay. He said just bruising.”

Danny and Maria both look at my neck and frown. “I'll loan you a turtleneck,” says Maria.

“What is this, 1992?” jokes Danny.

“I have them not for fashion, but in case of emergencies. You never know when you'll need to cover up a hickey,” she says.

I laugh, and it hurts. “Ow,” I say, “Don't do that.”

“Do what?” says Maria. “Talk about hickies? Looks like the doctor wants to give you one.”

Danny looks immediately uncomfortable and sad, and I give Maria the hairy eyeball.

“What?” she says, not getting it. “Guys don't punch that hard protectively for no reason. He practically knocked that guy's face off.”

Danny stands up. “I'm going to get a sandwich while we have some down time. I'll check back in fifteen, okay Ellie?” I nod. “You okay?” he asks again.

“I'll be fine,” I say. “I'm good.”

He squeezes my hand and leaves.

“Maria,” I say when he's gone, “you gotta cut that stuff out in front of Danny. He's really sensitive and I think he's almost asked me out a couple times lately.”

She raises one eyebrow. “Really, genius? He's only had a thing for you since we were sixteen. So, like, twenty years and you're just figuring it out now?”

I try to take a drink of coffee. It hurts.

“Listen,” she says. “I know you don't feel fireworks for him, but he's a good guy. Maybe you should give him a chance. He's so nice, like the nicest guy ever.”

I'm shaking my head no as she's singing his praises. And then it hits me. “You and him,” I say. “What about the two of you? You'll grind him up and spit him out a little, but he'll get used to it.”

Now it's her turn to shake her head no. “He's too nice. Too nice for me. I don't know how to act when I'm around him. I feel like if I show too much cleavage he'll spend the next year in confession talking about it. You know?”

“Yeah, but he'd make a great husband and a great dad,” I say. Suddenly it feels like this is the best idea anybody's ever had. Danny and Maria together. Why didn't I think of it sooner?

“Yeah, yeah, that's all great,” she says, “but I want something hot right now, you know? Not all that other stuff yet.” She keeps talking about what she wants in a guy, but I'm stuck on hot. I start thinking about Matt, about the past week, about the way he touches me, about his mouth and what it does to me, and how I can't wait until next time. How I want there to be a next time, and a next time.

“Hello, Earth to Ellie,” Maria says.

I snap out of my daydreaming. “You look a little red,” she says. “You still okay? Should I call someone over?”

I shake my head no. She looks at my neck again and grimaces. “You should consider that guy, though,” she says.

“Who?” I ask, moving the ice pack to another spot and wincing.

“The doctor,” she whispers. “I bet he knows what he's doing in the sack. Those wild outback men have to know some tricks. G'day, mate!” She laughs, giving me an elbow, trying to get me to go along with it. I feel my cheeks starting to flush again.

“I'm just kidding,” she says. “We know he's a jerk, and I heard he has a wife back home who he left when he came here, so stay away from that business. No way.”

I go pale. I bring my coffee cup to my lips and hide behind it.

She stands up and pats my leg. “We'll find you a good one, El, and you'll get that jerk husband out of your system. One good bang and shazaam, you'll forget the past fifteen years in a heartbeat.”

She looks at the clock. “I gotta get back to the desk, but let me know if you need anything. I'm glad you're okay because that was really fucking scary.”

She leans in conspiratorially. “And if that giant drunk asshole is still here when food service comes, I'll spit in his oatmeal.” She gives my arm a squeeze and goes back to the desk.

I sit and stare at nothing. Wife. He left his wife. He's still married, and he's a guy who leaves his wife. I don't know what his reasons are, I mean I left my husband and I had good reasons. But leaving a wife and fleeing 6000 miles away instead of working it out seems worse.

I look up to see him talking in the corridor with several other doctors and nurses. God, he is gorgeous. How can they even concentrate on what he's saying? But I'm realizing that I'm going to have to ask him some questions soon, and I don't know if I'm ready for the answers.

Chapter Eleven

It's about 5am when I leave work, and it's still dark outside as I'm walking to my car. After the earlier events of the evening I'm still on high alert and high adrenaline, so when I see a shadowy figure near my car I swing wide, way wide in the parking lot so I can catch them in the light.

“Who's there?” I shout.

A man comes out of the shadows.

“Me, Sis. Cesar.” My brother walks into the light, his eye still cut and purple from the other night. He's walking slowly, a little crooked. I go to him, and he falls back against my car, laughing.

“Cesar, what's going on?” I demand, worried.

“Nada, hermana, se bueno.” He's totally high. I grab his arm and pull up the sleeve. Needle marks. He yanks it away from me and pulls it back down, suddenly more sober for his shame at being caught.

“It's nothing! I was just having fun,” he says.

I take a deep breath. All of a sudden I am extremely tired. And sad. My poor, troubled, beautiful brother. I feel like crying.

I lean my back against the car next to him so we're side by side. I hang my head.

“How many days did you give up?” I ask him.

“Aw, man,” he complains. “You're pulling my mood down, man!”

“Thirty? Forty?” I say. I wait, sad for him and what this means.

“Fifty-five,” he says, suddenly realizing what he's done. “I just gave up fifty-five days of no drugs.”

“How many times?” I ask.

“Just once,” he says. “Tonight. A couple hours ago.”

I take his hand and hold it. He lets me, which is good. I'm trying to be careful with what I say because I don't want to push him away.

“The good news is you can stop again. The good news is you know you have it in you to get that far and keep going. Don't give up trying.”

He shakes his head. “The last time I saw you you told me not to be like dad. I can't help it though. I'm just like him.”

He's upset, and he starts to cry. He pulls his hand away from mine as he gets more and more angry.

He hits his palm against my car and kicks the tire. “I can't get away from him! I'm just fucking like him!”

The alarm turns on and shatters the still night. I beep it off. He sits down hard on the ground and holds his head in his hands, crying. He's a mess.

I sit down next to him in the parking lot and put my arms around him. After a minute his crying slows down, so I help him stand up and get into the passenger seat. Then I bring him home.

Chapter Twelve

I wake up in the late afternoon and go out to the living room. My brother's asleep on the couch, totally passed out. Buster is licking his hand.

“Oh, Buster, that's an old trick. You trying to make him pee?”

My brother's eyes flutter open and he looks around, confused. He pulls his hand away from Buster and then zeroes in on me and settles down, realizing where he is.

“Were you trying to get him to make me pee?” he asks.

I laugh. “Lara Gomez did that to me at a sleepover when we were eight and I swore I'd never do it to anyone else. It was totally Buster's idea.”

“What time is it?” asks Cesar, sitting up.

I look at my cellphone to check. “Two-thirty,” I say, and I see a new text from Matt. It says, “Do you want to get breakfast?” from about an hour ago. I suddenly feel a pulsing warmth and a hunger for something other than food. How can this happen to me by just getting a text from him?

My brother yawns. “Want to get breakfast?” he asks.

My head snaps up. “Huh?” I say.

“Food,” Cesar says. “I'm starving.” He squints at me. “What's wrong with your neck?”

I touch it. I remember the strangling, the almost passing out. Matt saving me with one champion, knock-out punch.

“Work,” I say. “A drunk guy decided to take his frustration with women out on me.”

“Jeez, Sis, you okay? It looks bad. You want me to go find him and kick his ass?” I look at my little brother, a man now, and smile at how protective he's being.

“I'm okay. Someone else knocked him out pretty good.”

I look back at the text and the promise of everything having breakfast with Matt would be, and I look again at my brother, my little brother who's been through hell and has no one else to turn to. He needs me. He's my family.

“Okay, let's go,” I say to him. “Breakfast sounds great.”

* * *

While Cesar and I are eating, I try to be very conscious of not scaring him off. I have seen many, many OD deaths in my time on the job, and although lots of the victims were homeless and without a support system, many of them had a family desperate to help them and get them clean.

So I try to carefully walk the line with him, to scare him enough with a few stories to keep him on the straight and narrow, and to also give him the support and encouragement I know he'll need to kick this and get better. And I definitely do not mention him being in any way, shape, or form like our father.

He surprises me at one point by asking about Paul. When did I last see him, if we're getting along, if we're ever getting back together. “A month ago, no, and no.” I say firmly.

I know Cesar liked him in the beginning. When we first were together my brother was eleven and totally into cars. It was a match made in heaven. Paul was nice to Cesar on the holidays when we were together, and always encouraged my brother to follow his dreams, which were at various times a DJ, an artist, an architect, and, of course, a race car driver.

Paul's special occasion and holiday time was especially meaningful to him because of the relationship Cesar had with our father. At home there was no joy, but when Paul came around Cesar could have fun and be a playful little boy.

When Cesar turned sixteen and got his drivers license Paul took him to the track and let him go a few laps, but Cesar didn't have any aptitude and lost interest after that. Encouraging Cesar was one of Paul's best qualities, and I'd felt grateful to him for being nice to Cesar, and for urging him to do what he wanted and was good at in life.

What I came to understand later was that that's how people should automatically relate to each other. That kindness and support should be the rule, not the exception. But all through our lives our father had taught us the opposite, so that's what we knew.

And while Paul was great with my brother, his behavior toward me always left a little something to be desired.

* * *

When Paul and I had been married for about nine years, Cesar started dating a girl named Irene. The four of us would occasionally all go out to dinner together, which was nice because we liked her and we liked seeing Cesar happy and settling down.

Cesar had left Seahaven and moved to my big city and was taking art classes and working in a coffee house, and Irene was a nursing student, so she and I had a lot to talk about. Cesar was doing great: making his own way, doing what he loved, dating a nice girl, and was away from our father.

But by this point in our relationship Paul and I were having a rough time. He wanted me to quit emergency services and stay home and cook and have babies. He'd also had a few injuries, and was starting to get one-upped by some younger drivers, but he refused to take the next step into becoming an instructor. He wanted the glory of being in the driver's seat. I had turned thirty, and was totally in love with being a paramedic, and was a little bit less in love with Paul the more he tried to trap and manipulate me.

I had been starting to think that not only was he the wrong man for me, but that I wasn't right for him either, and there's a distinction there that's sometimes hard to identify. And also hard to admit. Realizing there might be someone else who's better suited to the person you're with is a hard pill to swallow.