He grabbed hold of my arm and yanked me toward the door, but I didn’t need the encouragement. I was already running toward the truck with worry twisting my stomach and making dots dance in front of my eyes.
“What’s going on? Is she okay?” I demanded as we pulled out of the driveway and headed in the direction of the hospital.
“I don’t know,” Derek said. “They wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone.”
I spent the rest of the drive terrified that I’d lost Ally and the baby before I even got a chance to tell her they were what I wanted.
26
Ally
I was no longer drifting in and out of consciousness, but whatever medication the team had me on was making my brain foggy. That was why I was a bit out of it when the door to my room flew open and Derek and Noah bounded in.
For a second, I was confused. I didn’t understand how they knew I was there and how to find me. I’d turned my phone off the day before after dealing with a flurry of unidentified caller calls.
Then I remembered I’d put Derek into my phone as my ICE person. Spurred on to make that notation by a particularly disturbing show on surviving horrifying situations, I added his name and phone number into my contacts under ICE. In Case of Emergency.
Which this definitely was.
I completely forgot that I’d even done that. It used to be Holly in there, but as her career progressed and she was gone more often, it became less practical to think she would be able to do anything in response to an emergency.
Case in point, that day while I lay in the hospital and she was in Boston working. Having her listed would just mean calling her to inform her something terrible happened without her being able to do anything about it. I needed someone I could rely on to get there if I needed them, and who knew me well enough to let people know what was going on, get the things I needed from my apartment.
My parents would have been obvious choices but being so far away meant they also wouldn’t be able to respond quickly. That left me with Derek. He ticked all the boxes, and as our friendship got closer, I realized I trusted him and would appreciate him being around if I was going through something serious.
Noah, not so much. This was not the time for me to not only have to face him, but to face him in a hospital gown, battered from the accident, and unable to escape the bed because of the complicated assortment of wires and tubes stuck to me. I was fairly certain most of them didn’t have a specific purpose and were just there for show. Whatever the reason, they kept me in place so all I could do was stare at Noah.
It made sense when I first put Derek into my phone under ICE. Now that Noah was looming there at the far end of the room, that face focused on me, I was regretting it a bit.
“Jesus Ally. Are you okay?” Derek asked, rushing to the side of my bed. “I had no idea what happened until the hospital got your phone unlocked and called me. I’ve been trying to call you, but you didn’t answer.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “There were a ton of unidentified caller calls, and I just couldn’t deal with it, so I turned my phone off.”
“Those were me,” Noah piped up from the foot of the bed.
Before I had a chance to react to the surprising interjection from Noah, the doctor appeared at the partially open door. He rapped his knuckles on it to announce himself, then stepped in with my chart in his hands.
“Hi, Ally,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess,” I told him.
“Great. And who do we have here?” he asked, looking at Derek and Noah.
“These are my… friends, Derek and Noah. Derek is my emergency contact,” I said.
The doctor nodded. “Well, are you okay with me discussing everything with them in the room?”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said.
“Alright. So, you are very lucky. I’ve seen pictures the police took of your car. You suffered a concussion and a cut in your scalp from hitting your head on the window. You also sprained one ankle and fractured your opposite side wrist. Other than that, you’re looking good,” he said.
The nurse had given me a brief overview of my injuries, so I wasn’t surprised by the confirmation. Derek looked extremely relieved, but Noah’s eyebrows were still pulled tight together, and worry was etched on his face.
“What about the baby?” he asked.
The doctor looked at him, and then his eyes slid over to me for permission. I nodded.
“It’s alright,” I said. “Noah is… the father.”