Love At First Sight / Post Malone

Chapter 3

Austin POV

"How is she?" I nearly sprung up from my slumped position on the lumpy mattress as Aria entered my room to bring me my breakfast and another dose of Tylenol. I was heavily invested in an episode of Futurama that was airing on Comedy Central when she knocked on my door, the scent of French toast sticks and maple syrup accompanying her presence.

"Austin." She firmly scolded, reminding me of last night when she lectured me for ten whole minutes after I snuck out of my room to get a glimpse of the woman whose injuries I was responsible for.

"We talked about this. I cannot give you information about another patient, you know that. It's a breech of confidentiality. And you of all people should know to respect someone else's privacy."

"Aria c'mon. You mean to tell me that if you crashed into another person and put them in the hospital because of your own goddamn stupidity, wouldn't you want to know how they are? You mean to tell me that you would just be able to let it go and pretend it didn't happen? I need to know how she is, the guilt is fucking killing me." I groaned, throwing back the pain killers and pushing away my breakfast tray with a frown.

"You need to eat." She raised her brows, unhooking me from my IV fluids that had been discontinued by the doctor. "Dr. Sanders will be here soon to discharge you."

Instead, I gave her a harsh glare and pushed the tray even farther away, turning my attention back to the cartoon on the television screen as I crossed my arms over my chest.

She rolled her eyes upwards as she tidied around the area in silence before making her way out of my room. She paused in the doorway, turning around swiftly to face me, causing me to shift my gaze back to her with raised brows as I waited patiently for her to finally open her mouth.

"I could get into alot of trouble for telling you this." She sighed tirelessly as her ethics and her gut fought back and forth.

I swallowed hard as I remained quiet, silently nodding at her as she finally cracked.

"We had to intubate her last night. She was having trouble breathing. Her oxygen levels went down and her heart rate was through the roof. They transferred her to the ICU." She said in small voice, the news sending me into a downward spiral and almost making me wish she hadn't told me at all.

"Fuck." I buried my head into my hands as I nearly felt tears forming in my eyes. I was taking this much harder than I had anticipated and I was hoping she would make a full recovery from everything she had been through. Everything that I put her through.

"This is really killing you." Aria said, giving me a sad but sympathetic glance as she looked as if she were in deep contemplation.

"Yeah. I don't know how I could just move on like nothing ever happened. I can't just walk out of here today and go on to live my life while she's fighting for hers. It's not fucking fair." My voice began to raise as I expelled my frustration, Aria taking a few steps closer to the foot of the bed just before she lowered her voice.

"Look, once you're discharged, you'll no longer be a patient here. You'll be able to visit her, if you want to. Maybe once they extubate her and she wakes up, you'll be able to apologize to her face to face."

I gave her a small smile, her idea making me feel slightly better. "Really? Thanks Aria, I really appreciate your help."

"You're welcome. Let me take your IV out and call the doctor. Let's get you out of here."

_______________

"A car accident? Dude why the hell didn't you call me? I would have flown in to see you." Smitty exclaimed loudly over the other line as I held the phone nearly a foot away from my ear, his voice almost summoning my migraine that I had finally gotten rid of. Though I was almost always surrounded by a flock of people a majority of the time, I didn't really have anyone close to me here in Utah. My parents lived back home in Texas and and most of my small circle of friends and people from my team lived all over the country, most of them residing in my old dreaded city of LA. I had given all of my security team time off as my plan was to stay home for two blissful weeks and play endless hours of video games before Dre decided to switch things up last minute.