“I’m bleeding,” I say. She looks down, lifting the gown, and I see dark purple welts and where the blood has now soaked through the gauze over the wound. “That doesn’t look good,” I joke. She just looks down at me over the eyeglasses propped on the end of her nose.
“Should I even ask how this happened?” She reminds me of my grandmother, Cristine, straight and to the point. I shake my head, erasing it from my memory.
“I was trying to see if I had both my legs, and if they worked,” I say, and she shakes her head.
“You guys. I’m surprised you didn’t try to get off to make sure that worked, too.” I laugh now but then look down.
“It’ll work,” I say, “right?” She laughs, walking over to grab a pair of gloves and new gauze to change the bandage.
“All fixed,” she says. “You’re lucky the stitches didn’t break open.” She tosses the gloves and the bloody gauze into the garbage. “Why don’t you do yourself a favor and get some rest?” She takes off her glasses. “And please don’t try to see if your other member works.”
I laugh as she walks out, and I watch her go to the nurses’ station. She gets my clipboard and starts writing notes. I fight sleep as much as I can, but when it becomes too much, I close my eyes. My training kicks in, and I relax my body, but my ears stay alert, and I hear footsteps. I wait to see if the steps get closer, and when they stop right in front of my bed, I open my eyes, but nothing could prepare me for who is there.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Came to give you a ride home,” he says. I just look at him because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him dressed in a suit. He stands with both hands tucked into his pants pockets.
“How did you know where I was?” I ask, and he smiles.
“You should know by now, Ethan, that I knew where you were the second you enlisted,” he says with all the cockiness Casey can. He looks just the same as he did the day I took off except he now has a bit of white in his hair. I wonder how Olivia is, and the feeling of longing fills me. I shut it down before I start to wonder about the other person I left behind.
“Good for you,” I say, the chip on my shoulder bigger than it’s ever been. “Now, you can forget you saw me and fuck off.”
“Big words for a big man,” he says, not even flinching at my words. “You finished with your tantrum?”
“You finished talking?” I counter.
“You almost lost your life,” he says, his voice getting tight. “Doesn’t that make you see?”
“The only thing it makes me see is the next time I have to be more cautious,” I tell him. “Did you tell anyone?”
“No,” he says. “It’s not my place to tell them. But your mother, she isn’t -”
“I don’t care,” I say, stopping him from talking, my heart in my throat when I think of the last time I saw her. I regretted that moment more than anything in my whole life. But what’s done is done, and there is no going back. “No regrets” is my new motto.
“It’s time you come home and face the music, Ethan,” he says. “If not for you, then for your family.”
“I don’t have a family!” I shout, and the hurt is even more than it was five years ago. “The only family I did have died right beside me on the battlefield.”
“You know deep in your heart that isn’t true.” His voice stays low. “You know that.”
“I know nothing,” I say. “And what I do know is that for my whole life, I was lied to and made to believe something that wasn’t even true.” I sit up, ignoring the stinging of the wound and the fact it’s probably opened and bleeding again. “That is what I know.” He shakes his head and doesn’t say anything. Instead, he walks over to the side of the bed, and I see him take something out of his pocket. I wonder if he’s going to show me a picture of my mom and my dad. Or maybe he’s going to show me how much Chelsea has grown. Instead, he places a key right beside my hand. “What is this?”
“That is the only time I’m going to extend the olive branch,” he starts to tell me. “I promised that I wouldn’t say anything to you.” I want to ask who he promised this to. “I said I would just come and make sure you’re okay. See it with my own eyes instead of hearing it from someone else. I wanted to make sure if anything happened to you, I would be the one telling your parents and not that they bury you with no one knowing.”