Finding Our Course (Finding our Way 3)

“So what happens now?” Quinn asks.

I look around and notice for the first time that Jamie is sitting between Nate and Crystal. She’s holding his hand and looking at the ground nervously. Then I realize she’s never met my parents until tonight. Her eyes catch mine, and I try to give her a reassuring smile. She bites her lip and starts to blush.

“Why don’t you, Crystal, and Morgan go back to Nate and Bryce’s?” I reach into my bag for my set of keys to their place. “Get some rest, and I’ll call when we have news. Y’all have to be tired.”

“What are you going to do?” She props her hands on her hips and tilts her head at me knowingly.

“I’m going to wait here. I’m not leaving until he opens his eyes.”

“Then we wait.” She settles in her seat and rolls her eyes at me. “Did you really think we’d leave you? Maybe Bryce isn’t the only one who hit his head.”

Even with all the tension and fear in the room, Quinn manages to get a few giggles.

I lay my head on my dad’s shoulders and mouth ‘love you’ to her. Then I close my eyes and pray.

“Who’s the boss’s, boss’s, boss?” Quinn questions, and I widen my eyes at my brother, trying to stop him from answering.

“You mean the largest in command?”

“Yes! The Chief Commander.” She nods eagerly.

He looks at me and raises an eyebrow in disbelief. I move my eyes back and forth, trying to warn him again.

“We citizens call him the Commander in Chief, in other words, the President of The United States.”

She scrunches her eyebrows and then shrugs nonchalantly. “Him it is then.”

“You aren’t seriously going to write a letter to the president, are you?” I question her.

“Hell yeah. He needs to know that there are some incompetent people on his ships. No offense, Nate.”

He sighs and looks at me. “Is she for real?”

“Who knows?” I bite my tongue, trying not to laugh at his expression.

For the last three hours, Quinn has done her best to get our minds off waiting to hear news. There’s still an edge of tension floating around the room, but her efforts are working to a degree. Even Sheila and Dave have cracked a small smile. Her latest effort is to write the ‘boss’ of the Navy and explain their erroneous actions reporting the wrong sailor hurt.

Poor Morgan has only spent a few hours around us before today, and he’s probably regretting his decision to stay. Crystal, on the other hand, is encouraging Quinn in her endeavors to lighten the mood. I watch as every time she looks at him, his eyes melt. Even with my growing anxiety, I’m happy for them.

“Randolph family?” An older man in green scrubs comes in, and we all stand.

“Yes,” Dave answers.

The man looks around the room, questioning the number of true family members.

“I’m Dr. Crabtree, Bryce’s surgeon. Can I speak with the parents in the hallway?”

A whimper slips through my lips, and Quinn is at my side in an instant.

“Dr. Crabtree, we can speak freely here,” Dave answers.

The doctor nods and takes the cap off his head. “Bryce had very little bleeding in the brain. We drained it, but there is still swelling. His lobes look good, but we will watch for memory loss and motor skill functions. There was more swelling on his pituitary gland, but we think that is from the impact. We set his collarbone and the fracture in his shoulder. The burns are superficial and will heal in a few days.”

“This sounds positive.” Shelia speaks up and reaches for my hand. I walk to her side and hold on.

“Yes, but the next forty-eight hours are critical to watch his reaction after the surgery. We’ve tried to wake him, but he’s still not responding. He was extremely agitated, and his blood pressure kept spiking. We had to sedate him more than I liked.”

“So he’s probably drowsy. He’ll come out of it,” Dave pointedly states.