Falling

II

Buddy sat by himself in that God forsaken waiting room.

His mom told him that 'God forsaken' is a horrible word, only used by heathens that didn't know how to pray.

At the moment, he kind of felt like a heathen.

Whenever he opened his mouth to say something to God about Paul or George, it just stayed open and his mind went blank.

He couldn't think of one thing he should say without making a scene in front of all the strangers in the room.

But it was weird, being on this side of the doors and not on the other, lying on the operating table with people trying to save his life.

"Charles?" a nurse asked the crowd. The only people in the room with him were women, so he was pretty sure he knew who they were talking to.

"I said call me Buddy about five times now! But okay . . ."

He walked over to her, trying to read her body language before she said a word. At the moment, she was totally unreadable.

"Charles, George is finally out of surgery."

At that, Buddy cheered and smiled for the first time that day. It's been a long and scary process with George. He'd been in survey an hour or two before he'd gotten to the hospital and finally, he got out, six hours after Buddy came in.

"But Paul—"

"What about him? What's wrong?"

"The doctors found new bleeding that was found in his abdomen. It couldn't have been caused by his . . . incident when he woke up, so we're trying the best we can to stop that and the reopened wounds."

Buddy sucked in a small breath and looked around. The ladies in the room were staring at him, practically daring him to make a scene. Maybe he was overthinking it, getting paranoid. His old psychiatrist did say that was a thing that he kept doing, get paranoid and freak out. What were those steps again . . . ?

He nodded, sucking in a deeper breath this time and loosened up his hands. Think about the beach, and he'll be as calm as the waves. Or whatever nonsense that man was severely overpaid for.

The doctor squinted a little at him but ran back to the OR.

Buddy laughed to himself. She must be an intern not to know him. Being the sole survivor of a nasty plane crash and being helicoptered to this hospital with a leg badly messed up, an injury to his spine and a brain practically open for the world to see was not something a person forgot so easily.

●

George looked like a machine connected to other machines.

But a tinier machine. And much, much thinner than you'd want a person to be.

"You said his surgery was a success, right?" Buddy asked the surgeon in the room. It took a moment for the man to really say anything, he was too focused on Buddy's brace to think about it. "It's okay, you can ask about it. Y'know, if you want to."

The surgeon laughed a little, moving toward him to sit in the chair next to him.

"You do know there are better braces out there in the world for you?"

Buddy thought about it for a quick moment. After the accident, he felt like he might never walk again without breaking a sweat and having to use all his energy just to think about going somewhere with the practically dead left leg. Amputation was on the table. So using a cane felt like a miracle, albeit a long and painful one. And getting this brace now, it felt like his life was finally getting back on track. Funny that it all happened because of a job offer.