*ON HOLD*
"She wasn't alright. But he promised she would be."
After being rescued in the wake of a devastating tornado, Dana Pierce seeks to put the pieces of her life back together again.
Tyler Owens hadn't expected the path of a tornado would lead...
"About me?" Her eyes flickered to the wall. "I don't think I'm nearly as interesting as a 'tornado wrangler.'"
"I'm sure you're plenty interesting." He didn't want to quit, did he?
"And considering you're a stranger I met in a laundromat," She looked back at him, forcing herself not to smile, "I don't have to tell you anything."
His head dropped as he failed to hide a smirk. "Guess you're right about that."
Dana leaned forward to take a sip of water, then grunted from the sharp pain in her ribs.
Tyler looked back up at her. "I know it hurts like hell."
"Four broken ribs," Dana echoed the words of the doctor and the nurse. "I can't stand up without assistance, both for pain and dizziness." She groaned. "I guess it beats what could have been."
His lips thinned to a line as he thought on her words. They seemed to have resonated with him, drawing all too familiar events back to the present. "Yeah."
As Dana worked to readjust her sitting position again, Tyler stood. "I better get going. I'm sure the nurse is gonna pop in to say visiting hours are up." It'd only been twenty minutes.
Holding his hat to his chest in his left hand, he extended his right. They shook hands formally. "Thank you. Really," she said.
"You take care now." He headed for the door.
"Oh," she began, making him pause in the doorway. "And it was good meeting you, Owens."
He turned and tipped his hat. "Nice meeting you, Pierce."
—————
The hospital room felt strangely empty. Dana tried watching television but failed to find anything that would take her mind off of present circumstances.
With her phone being left in the tote bag still presumably in the storm shelter, her last resort was magazines left by a nurse. Magazines dated ten years ago. Dana sighed and tossed the magazines aside onto the empty chair by the window.
She glared at the chair. Did she actually miss him? She'd value any company, really. It was her first time staying in a hospital room. She never knew how lonely it was.
Trying to dull the pain, her mind wandered back to the storm chaser.
The way he smiled and tipped his hat. His kind eyes. The interest he took in her.
The painkillers were getting to her head. They gave her the confidence she never had. They made her feel things she shouldn't.
But the loneliness wasn't medicine induced. Dana closed her eyes and rested her head back against a pillow.
If everything checked out, she was to be discharged the next day. Released to go back home.
The fears returned as her mind wandered back to the apartment complex. She could hear the freight train and feel the hail. Her stomach twisted into a knot. Dizziness returned, and with it, nausea. Dana pressed the nurse's station call button.
The next day couldn't have come any slower. With a full morning of tests ahead of her, Dana braced herself.
Physically, it turned out she was healing nicely. The concussion would linger, but she showed signs of improvement. It'd be at least six weeks until her ribs healed. The rest were just cuts and bruises. She could be discharged from the hospital. Now on lesser pain meds, she could think clearly. But the thought of going back scared her.
Dana was allowed to return to her room for lunchtime as discharge paperwork was completed. As she ate a sad grilled cheese and tomato soup, someone knocked on her door.
"Come in," she called.
A nurse entered the room holding a vase full of vibrant, beautiful flowers. Tulips and chrysanthemums. "I believe these are for you." She set it on a side table and placed the "get well soon" card beside it before leaving.
Dana swallowed her food and took the card.
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