Andy sat beside Cadell’s bed, reading on her phone, waiting for him to wake up. The white sheets draped over his sleeping body rose and fell softly, regularly. He had been in recovery for a while and regained consciousness once before she had arrived, the nurses had told her, but he had been asleep ever since.
She had done her rounds, checking on the other patients on the floor. Boyd Westerfield was back in the hospital, sicker than before but still far, far down on the transplant list. Dr. Jackson had labeled him as moderate risk, so they were keeping him overnight, just to be safe.
Cadell’s lips looked softer in sleep, almost like when they were swollen from kissing her.
The numbers on Cadell’s monitor were all within the normal range. His pulse was a little on the slow side, but he worked out a lot.
She was texting code words with the pediatric ICU nurses’ station due to HIPPA laws. The nurse had just texted the word Beauty, which meant that Emily was like Sleeping Beauty, unconscious, sedated, and with no complications.
Cadell stirred, moving his head, his dark hair gliding over the pillow.
Andy glanced at the door before she took his hand. “Cadell?”
He rocked his head back at her, his eyes slitted open. “Emily?” he asked, his voice hoarse and croaking.
“She’s doing fine. She came through the surgery like a champ. She’s sedated and going to stay that way for a little while.” Andy would tell him later that she had finished Emily’s surgery because the primary surgeon had had a heart attack and died on the floor of the OR. That wasn’t something to lay on a person while they were waking up from surgery.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
His voice was weak and hoarse from the intubation. “Sucks.”
“We have pain medication for you. It’s in this pump—”
“No,” he whispered. “No opioids.”
“Right,” Andy said. A lot of recovering addicts refused opioid pain meds, believing that they would retrigger their addiction. It was entirely possible that they were right.
“These meds are too much, too.”
It was all just the leftover anesthesia. “They’ll wear off soon.”
“Don’t marry that guy,” Cadell said.
Andy glanced toward the open door to the hallway. “I don’t think this is the time—”
“You shouldn’t marry him. I don’t want you to give up your family. It’s like an extension of yourself, a projection of force, like hyperspace and hypersensitive—”
Okay, now he just wasn’t making sense due to the anesthesia. This, she knew how to deal with. “It’s okay. Don’t try to talk. I’ll wait. Just rest.”
“Is Emily okay?”
And he wasn’t writing short-term memories. “Emily is fine. She’s sleeping. She came through the surgery without a hitch.” The child had five tubes extruding from her tiny body, four of them draining blood and lymph from around her new liver through incisions in her sides and one through her nose to remove stomach secretions, but her vitals were at the upper end of what they had expected. She was showing no signs of rejection.
“You shouldn’t marry him. You should marry someone you love,” Cadell was mumbling, and his voice was weak.
“Just rest. Sleep. I’ll stay with you.”
“I saw you with your family and your friends. After that, I don’t know. I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to lose them. You should have family. It’s hard to not have a family.”
“Just rest, Cadell.”
“I rebelled against what my parents wanted me to do, and I ended up doing it anyway, even after they died. It was the guitar, you know. It was always the guitar. My dad used to push me, crank up the metronome and make me play the same song in double-time, triple-time, faster. God, the things he used to do, the things he used to say to me when I fucked up. He used to scream, threaten me, burn my other stuff. Worse stuff. After all that, I can shred the guitar, but I’m still playing the fucking thing. Maybe we can’t really rebel. Maybe we don’t have free will. I will choose free will, will will choose will, but maybe we can’t.”
“Sleep, Cadell.”
“Is Emily all right?” he asked.
“Her surgery went perfectly. She’s sleeping. She’s fine.”
“You shouldn’t marry that guy. You should marry me.”
All the breath blew from Andy’s body. “What?”
“I want you to stay with me.”
He must have meant something else. “Of course, I’ll stay. I’m right here.”
“I’ve loved you forever. Every minute that I’m with you, I’m alive and I don’t hurt, and I want to marry you. When you first started taking care of Emily, I thought it was just relief that she was finally in the hands of someone who gave a damn about her. But it’s been months, months of watching you and trying to get through to you that I think everything about you is perfect. If this isn’t love, then I’ve never felt it. If this isn’t love, then I’ll live without it. I want you in my bed at night and to wake up to you in the morning and to be with you all day. I’ve loved you forever, and I want you forever. And forever, and forever, and forever, creeps its restless pace from day to day—”
He was misquoting Shakespeare. The anesthesia must still be greatly in effect. Everything that he said was suspect. She said, “I’m here with you.”
“Let’s get married. Here. Now.”
“We couldn’t do that.”
“Get a preacher. Let’s see if we can. I would slay dragons for you. I wrote that line. It was before I met you, but I meant it about you.”
Absolutely no sense. “Do you even know who you’re talking to?” she asked, smiling at him.
His dark eyes cracked open, and a faint smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Andy. Perfect, pretty Andy. Andy Candy. Andy of the morning and the night. Dr. Andal Kumar. And I want you to be Andy Glynn, to take my name and be my family.”
Her face flushed hot, almost a panic, but it also felt like a glimpse of something wonderful. “Sleep, Cadell. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
He asked, “Is Emily okay?”
“She came through the surgery perfectly. She is doing very well.”
Obviously, Cadell was not lucid. He was rambling and nonsensical from the anesthesia. Families were often grateful and emotional that she had saved their child’s life.
He must not mean any of it.
Disappointment rained through her soul.
His fingers crept toward hers, and he held her hand and slept.