“What do you think that means?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “It could be a sign that something serious is going on, or he might just be acting like he’s so much better than everyone else that he doesn’t have to do his job and tell a patient what’s going on.”
That altercation in the ER waiting room really seems to have sparked some fury for Ash. I try to lighten the mood, asking, “Is it true that doctors and nurses really don’t get along or do they just play that up for television?”
“Screw it,” Ash says and gets back in bed with me, giving my ribcage a good squeeze when she gets comfortable.
“Easy there,” I tell her. “I’m going to be pretty tender for a few days.”
“Right,” she says, pulling away. “I’m sorry. I forgot he got you there.”
I smile and tell her, “It’s all right. I don’t think he broke anything,” though since Ash put pressure on those ribs, I’m not entirely sure I’m right about that last bit.
“You know when I knew?” she asks.
“When you knew what?” I respond.
She looks up at me and then away, not answering my question. “It was that day at the lake,” she says. “You saved me that day.”
“I’m sure you would’ve let go of the boat when it started to pull you under,” I tell her.
“It already was,” she says. “You’re right, though. I’m sure I would have let it go. I’m not going to let myself drown just to save some stupid boat, but that’s not what I’m talking about. That was just incidental.”
“What do you mean, then?” I ask.
She shakes her head a little. “I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. It’s just,” she hesitates, “when we were out there, chasing after the boat
, I knew there wasn’t going to be anything we could do about it. I mean, we were in the water: It’s not like we had something solid under us for leverage. Still, though, once my hands touched the rim of that boat, I didn’t want to let go. Everything but that boat felt so utterly hostile,” she says. “That sinking rowboat felt like the only solid thing I had to cling to, but it wasn’t.”
“What made you decide to take me seriously?” I ask.
She sighs. “Are you ever going to get tired of that question?”
“I’m glad you did,” I tell her. “I guess it still doesn’t make sense to me, given the way I looked when we met.”
“There was something in the way you carried yourself, something in the way you spoke,” she says. “You were confident, but it wasn’t just a show. I mean, it was a show, but it wasn’t just a show. I have never felt that.”
“You’re kidding,” I tell her. “You’re probably the most impressive person I know. You know,” I jest, “myself excluded.”
She gives my ribcage another quick squeeze as punishment for the joke, but I’m wheezing laughter as I say, “Ow, ow, ow.”
“In the world I grew up in, real confidence is one of those things you just never find,” she tells me. “In my parents’ circle, you’re either acting confident because you’re trying to cover how incredibly insecure you are or you’re more than a little deluded. You didn’t start getting delusional until I told you I liked you, and by then it was too late.”
I snicker a little and kiss her forehead.
“Can I go back to what I was saying now, or are you going to further undermine the very confidence that tricked me into liking you in the first place?” she asks.
“Fine,” I laugh. “Go ahead.”
She rests her head on my shoulder again. “The heavier that boat felt in my hands,” she says, “the tighter I held onto it and the harder I tried to lift it to the surface, even after you first told me to let it go. I can’t tell you how much I hated you for saying that.”
“You hated me?” I ask.
“…for saying that,” she says, finishing the thought. “I hated you because you were telling me what I knew very well to be the logical thing, but I had no intention of letting that thing go. Like I said, I’m sure that would have changed if I held onto it even five or ten seconds longer on my own, but it was what you said after that. That’s when I knew,” she says.
I want to see if she’ll finally explain what it is that she knew, as that’s not the sort of thing I guess about anymore, but a new person in scrubs comes into the room.
“Miss, I’m sorry, but—” he starts.