Emergency Medical Dad

LXXVI: early december, present

JORGEN

I don't hear from Jessie from the time I set foot off the plane to the time I put my feet back on it a day later. Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday morning. I text her, I call, I plan to pick up the phone for our normal late night talks while I'm on the road and none of it comes.

The only thing I do hear from her is Monday afternoon.

JESSIE: just heard from my mom. No need to worry.

JESSIE: i need a little time with it.

I'll admit that it didn't do anything to ease the worrying and I slept not at all well, barely enough to even get me through the game. I was high strung enough that Nico walked into a room behind me and I about punched her for scaring me.

JORGEN: are you alright?

JORGEN: please get back to me, i'm a little worried

JORGEN: a lot worried, actually. I just want to know if you're alright after that. And if Connor's okay if you're not doing well with it.

JORGEN: I'll be home wednesday morning and we can talk then about what we need to do, if its something drastic

I manage to catastrophize it in my head enough that I'm almost expecting them to be gone back to Chicago by the time the plane hits the ground again in Regina. Expecting Jessie to be off somewhere and Connor alone in the house though she'd never do that. Expecting both of them to be missing, or dead, or running away or anything.

I don't expect her to be sitting in the parking lot of the rink, my truck idling and an old crewneck of mine over her shoulders, dwarfing her.

She looks exhausted as I approach, purple circles under her eyes, hair fuzzy and messy. The sweater is an old green one I got from god knows where, a little logo on it from something, maybe a development camp I med watched a few years back, that might be it.

I swallow down nerves, walking toward the car, my bag slung over my back.

The door clicks as I pull it open, setting my backpack in the back seat before tugging open the driver's side, ready to face it, face whatever I need to face.

I end up looking down at her and the wrinkle of exhaustion between her eyebrows, the hoodie falling slightly and showing the strap of her bra and nothing else, making me think she must be cold or something.

"Jess," I breathe. "I haven't heard from you in days I thought, you, I-"

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, dipping her head to look away from me. "I was going to text or call or say something but it... I had gone so long without talking to you I thought it was going to be weird and..."

"Hey hey," I slip my hand around her cheek, pulling her eyes back up to mine. "Don't apologize for something knocking you off balance, just, please, god, tell me next time. Don't leave me with two texts alright? You had me really freaked out."

"I'm sorry," she manages again.

"No, no," I shake my head. "Don't apologize, it's over, I'm more worried about you than irritated about not hearing from you. Are you alright? What did she say? Please don't tell me she made you agree to something or that she's taking us to court or-"

"Jay?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you do something?" Her voice is so shallow that I'm convinced she's going to ask me to shut up, or worse, I don't even know.

"Anything."

"I'm going to tell you about it, alright," she wipes her cheek off on the heel of her hand. "And then I want you to drop it and never bring it up again. I'm done with it. I've had a few days to process it and I never want to think about it again, okay? But I need you to know, everything, I need you to know everything, I just never want to think about any of it again so you can't, you can't bring this back up."