Chapter Text
A broken leg and a concussion were not how I expected to spend the weekend before my thirtieth birthday.
Three years ago, if you’d told me I’d be a mountain biking enthusiast, I would have laughed. Can you imagine? But now, I love the rush, the outdoors, and that childlike thrill of flying downhill. It was easier on my old knee injury than running (that had left me couch-bound for a week) and far more fun than the virtual kickboxing Taylor kept trying to drag me into.
I’d first tried it with my ex, Logan, expecting to do it one time and show him I was a good sport. But I’d stuck with it, and in the end, it had lasted far longer than my time with Logan did. Now, I had my very own bike and gear and had even entered a competition or two.
But now, I was immobilized and waiting for a brain MRI. All because I’d ignored common sense and ridden after the rain. One slippery mud patch, one rock, and I tumbled head over heels. Luckily, my friend Sarah was just a few seconds behind me and called for the very first ambulance trip of my life.
The pain in my leg was sharp, relentless. While Sarah sat with me in the ambulance she said I’d been unconscious for a couple of minutes. Helmet or not, head meeting rock at full speed apparently equals a concussion. The paramedics stabilized my leg and had given me pain medication. The ER staff now just needed to make sure I’d done nothing else stupid to myself, before casting my leg.
The nurse rolled me back from the MRI, chatting with me about where I lived and what I did for a living. I think he was maybe asking me the same questions from earlier to see if my brain was scrambled.
I was pretty sure my brain was scrambled the minute they rolled me back into my room in the ER because sitting there talking with Sarah was Conrad Fisher.
“Conrad?” I croaked, barely able to focus. “Are you my doctor?”
“Hey, Belly.” He stepped closer, taking my hand. Warm. Steady. Safe. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t think you can be my doctor,” I mumbled, prying my fingers off his.
“I’m not your doctor.” He gave me a quick tight smile, and even in this moment, I felt that old pull. Three years without him and his smile still could shrink the world down to just us.
“Good. Because they won’t let you operate on family.”
“No one’s going to operate on you.” He brushed a lock of hair from my face. It felt almost like we were still together. Maybe I did have brain damage, and I was forgetting getting back together with him. Or maybe I was imagining this. Maybe I was dying. I’d read once how you relive the best ten minutes of your life when you were dying. It seemed like this might be what was happening.
“I miss you.”
“Me too.” His gaze softened, then shifted toward the monitors over my bed. Concern, but controlled. He leaned closer, and for a second I thought, maybe this is it, our first kiss in three years, right here in the ER. My heart rate was probably giving me away.
Instead, he pulled out a penlight and shone it in my eyes, then checked my pulse again on the heart monitor and made to move towards my leg.
“Wait Conrad, don’t leave. You’re supposed to kiss me,” I whined, half-lucid and unsure what was being thought versus said out loud.
“Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow but continued calmly. “I’m pretty sure you’ve had the good painkillers and have a concussion, sweetheart. I’ll find your doctor and make sure your brain isn’t bleeding. Kissing can wait.”
“No… wait.” I grabbed his arm to stop him and promptly threw up all over him.
He froze, eyes wide. A beat. Then he calmly hit the nurse’s call button and grabbed a wipe from the cart to clean me up. He gently tucked my hair behind my ear before letting the nurse take over, leaving the room. I assume it was to clean up, or maybe smartly to never come back.
I lay there, mortified, while the nurse helped me change gowns. After she left, I turned to Sarah.
“Was he really here, Sarah?” I ask palms pressing against my closed eyes to ward off both embarrassment and a pounding headache.
“Yeah… that was… uh, embarrassing for you. How do you know him, by the way?”
“He’s…the fucking…love of my life,” I said, staring at the ceiling.