Fate Interrupted

40. Hospital

Ren

"Well, you were lucky, Ms. Schemer. Your car did an excellent job of protecting you. Your hands are fine—no broken bones. They most likely got hit when the airbag panel popped off."

Phew. A wave of cool relief washes over me.

The tall and lanky ER doctor sits at the computer, taps in a few notes, and continues speaking to me. "They will most likely bruise up and feel stiff, but they should feel much better in a day or so. You can just take ibuprofen for any pain." Then he looks up from the screen to make eye contact. "You might still develop whiplash, so monitor yourself. Look for neck pain or stiffness. Other than that, you're ready to be discharged."

"Okay. Thank you. Um, my fiancé... Gio Regali... has he been discharged yet?"

"No, he's still being monitored. His injuries were also minor, but due to his manic behavior, he's being held for observation. Dr. Larson has a few questions to ask you about him. I'll send her in."

"Okaaay." An unsettling buzz forms in my body again.

My eyes drop to my lap as he exits the room again. My hands are all scraped up and whiter than usual. I test them out again—slowly opening and closing them. They move stiffly and painfully, and I can't quite make a fist, but I'm relieved they're not broken. After ten everlasting minutes of sighing and waiting, Dr. Larson, a stout middle-aged woman, enters the tiny room.

"Hello, Lauren, is it?" she asks, looking down at her notes. "And you're Giovanni's fiance?"

"Yes. How is he doing?"

"He's doing okay," she says, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her petite nose and giving an enigmatic look. "There was a little bit of... resistance, but we got a hold of his psychiatrist, confirmed the medication he's been on, and upped the dosage of those mood stabilizers."

She flips to the second page of her notes. "He's not showing signs of psychosis, so that's good. We are waiting on some blood work to see if his medication is in the 'therapeutic range,' But I think he'll be released in a few hours, and he can go see his psychologist in the afternoon as planned."

"Great! So it works that fast?"

She sits down on the stool, rests her clipboard in her lap, and sighs. There are bags under her eyes, but they shine on me kindly.

"We're not sure yet if it'll work at all, but hopefully it will. Let's cross our fingers that it does," she smiles at me softly.

"What if it doesn't work?"

"Then he can try another medication. It's kind of trial and error," she shrugs and picks up her clipboard again. "Let me ask you, when did you first notice a shift in his behavior?"

"Oh, um... well..." It feels hard to organize my thoughts; my brain feels like jangling bells. I reached back to when I first noticed him acting differently. "Um, in Hawaii, really. He wasn't sleeping very much, but I didn't think that much of it at the time. I mean, vacation sometimes screws up sleep, right?"

"How long ago was that?"

"Um, about two weeks ago?"

"Okay," she says, scribbling notes down. "Besides sleeping differently, did you notice anything else?"

I shrug. "Um, not really... more energetic, maybe?" 

"When did the pressured speech start?"

"Oh, uh, yesterday, but he's been hardly sleeping at all this week. Like four to six hours. He's been really focused on his work." My heart rate picks up as the sudden need to defend him kicks in.