The Embrace by Vivian Wood

2

Without opening my eyes, I’m awake. I feel strange, like the entire world is wrapped in gauze or cotton wool. It sticks to everything and makes it very hard to open my eyes.

I shift ever so slightly in bed and then I’m smacked with pain.

A searing, ripping pain that radiates from my chest, just above my heart.

What is it from?

Balling up my face, I groan. I try to touch the spot that hurts without opening my eyes.

“Calum?”

It’s my brother’s voice. What is Lucas doing in my bedroom?

Opening my eyes is a monumental task. I peel them open and try to focus on the white walls that surround me. Lucas comes into view, hovering, looking concerned.

“What… what’s going on?” I croak. My throat is dry as a desert.

My shoulder throbs.

“Jesus,” Lucas says. “You fucking scared me, Calum.”

I squint at him, trying desperately to string thoughts together. I don’t recognize this room but clearly I’m in a hospital room.

The image of Kaia rushes to the surface. I struggle to sit up.

“Where’s Kaia?” I wonder. “What happened to my shoulder? It hurts.”

Lucas’s brow furrows. He reaches forward and presses me back against the bed. “You were shot, Calum. You’re in the hospital.”

I scrunch up one side of my face, reaching for a memory. All I get is a fuzzy flashback of Kaia’s tear strewn face.

“Where’s Kaia?” I demand.

He looks over his shoulder. “Here she comes.”

Kaia appears in the next moment, as if by magic. Her blonde hair is tousled and she is dressed in oversized hospital scrubs. She has enormous black circles under her eyes and looks as though she’s only recently been crying. She’s holding a Styrofoam cup, her eyes down as she heads through the doorway.

“Kaia,” I call to her.

Kaia looks up, her blue eyes widening. She drops her Styrofoam cup and launches herself toward me. “Calum! Oh god…”

The breath is knocked out of my lungs when Kaia buries herself against my uninjured shoulder. The feeling of comfort is instant, knowing that she’s safe and in my arms. My shoulder aches but I ignore that, leaning closer and pressing my face against her hair.

My heart thuds loudly in my chest. The feeling of holding her close is pure relief.

“I’m okay,” I murmur. “It’s going to be okay.”

She wipes at her eyes, pulling back and looking up at me. “I am so happy to see you awake and talking, Calum. I thought you were dead.” She sucks in a breath, her blue eyes hard on mine.

“Apparently I was shot?” I joke. “I can’t actually remember anything.”

Kaia scrunches up her nose. “Maybe it’s better that way.”

Lucas clears his throat. “The young dancer who shot you is in police custody.”

I nod. “That’s good.”

A sharp pain begins to shoot from my shoulder down my arm. I wince right as a young Black woman comes in wearing a long white doctor’s coat. Kaia blushes and climbs off of my bed, which makes me frown.

“Mr. Fordham, you’re up,” the doctor says, smiling. “I’m Dr. Smith. I was your surgeon. You were hit by a bullet, which collapsed your lung on its way out of your body.”

I flex my arm, sending shooting pain down to my fingertips. “I gathered as much.”

A rueful smile plays about Dr. Smith’s lips as she checks my chart. “Funny. Let’s check out your wound.” She lifts my arm and instructs me to move it back and forth. Then she purses her lips. “How is the pain?”

I shrug my uninjured shoulder. “Honestly? It feels like I got hit by a speeding train.”

She nods, scribbling a note in my chart. “I’ll have the nurses give you something for that. The hospital administration has made it abundantly clear that you are a major donor. So if you have any questions, the nurse will page me to come answer them. Okay?”

My lips curl up. “Sure. Thanks.”

“This machine here adjusts your pain medication,” she says. She waves to an IV pump, demonstrating its use. “Give it a try.”

She hands me the button trigger and I squeeze it. The pump makes a noise. “Ah. Okay.”

“Be careful with that,” she warns. “That is straight morphine. So only use it when you really need it and don’t mind sleeping.”

“Ah. I want to be weaned off the pain medications and all the machines as soon as possible.” I cock my head, beginning to feel tired. “When will I be ready to leave?”

Dr. Smith frowns. “It would be best if you stayed with us for a few days. Two days, if you’re really ready to go.”

I squint at her. “Thank you, Dr…”

She flashes me a cautious smile, looking around at Kaia and Lucas. “Dr. Smith. I’ll be back in a few hours to check in on you.”

She starts to head out the door.

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow!” I call after her.

She shakes her head but doesn’t stop on her way out the door. I can’t help the yawn that bursts free from my throat.

Kaia looks at me with a sigh. “Are you feeling okay? Can I get you anything?”

I yawn again and scoot over on my hospital bed, pulling back the blanket. “You can sleep with me.”

Kaia’s eyebrows leap up. She licks her lips and casts a hasty glance at Lucas. “Calum, I want you to get some real rest.”

I feel my eyelids growing heavy. “Knowing that you’re safe in my arms will help me sleep. Lucas won’t mind. Will you, brother?”

Lucas shrugs, retreating to a chair in the corner. “I have work to do.”

“Come on, don’t make me beg. I just took a bullet for you. Quit being so stubborn.”

Kaia blushes, picking at a thread on her scrubs. “Well, if you insist…”

She climbs in bed beside me. The second I feel her body against mine, I turn so that I’m on my side facing her. She turns too and I pull the blanket over both of us.

I close my eyes, sheltering her body against my own. My shoulder throbs but it seems faraway; someone else’s shoulder, someone else’s pain.

I drift for a long time. When I wake again, the sun has gone down. Kaia still sleeps peacefully beside me. I feel a little guilty knowing that she could have been taken from my arms while I was asleep and I likely wouldn’t have even noticed.

Using my uninjured arm, I reach over and brush a strand of her hair back from her face. God, I really love this woman. Now isn’t the time to tell her… not with my brother here.

But I think I knew when Crispin fired the bullet. My exact thought process wasn’t fear-based.

It was that Kaia was worth being shot over. I knew I loved her.

And I’m going to find a way to tell her, sooner rather than later.

“Are you awake?”

My eyes open. I find Lucas leaning against the wall, his expression unreadable. I grimace, shushing him.

“Shhh, Kaia’s still asleep. I would rather not wake her yet. What’s up?”

His gaze tightens on me. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

I rub my face, a little taken aback by that. “Me too.”

He tilts his head to the side. “I think we need to talk after you get out of the hospital.”

I yawn. “About how I’m not dead?”

Lucas flushes. “About contingency plans, yes. But more than that. We have never quite finished our conversation about Kaia. Or Anita, for that matter.”

Hearing Anita’s name is like a lash of ice water in my veins. I scowl, dropping my voice even more. “This is not the place or the time, Lucas.”

He sucks in a breath, his expression pinching. “I just almost lost you, Calum. If we leave things unresolved for another week, another month, another year…”

I wince, gently sitting up in bed. My shoulder aches so badly that I grit my teeth, willing the pain to pass. “You have my word. Okay? We will talk about whatever you want.”

“Yeah?” He looks a little surprised.

“I promise.” I move my legs over the side of the bed, looking at all the tubes in my arms. “Do me a favor? Get a nurse. I’ve got to piss and I don’t want to be hooked up to all this fucking plastic while I do it.”

His lips twitch as he pushes himself off the wall. “The nurses already hate you.”

“Seriously. Go quickly.” I flick my fingers at him a few times and Lucas heads out of my room.

His simple request, that we sit down and talk about everything, sticks in my head though. After I’m disconnected from all the IVs and I’ve finally taken the most satisfying piss of my whole life, I turn that thought over as I close my eyes again.