“I couldn’t leave you here all alone. I begged off the dinner, saying I didn’t feel well.”
“With the way Marcus went on about it...” He closed his eyes and sighed before slowly opening them again to try to focus on her.
“I did. I’ll hear about it for sure.”
“Am I in the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“What have they found out?”
Chrissy bit her lip. “They said you have a mild concussion. They’re keeping you for observation.”
“For how long?”
She didn’t know. The first doctor who examined him muttered something about “bikers who got rowdy” and ordered a CT scan. When they tried to wake him Saks was incoherent, which shot Chrissy’s worry meter to ultra-high. Each time they tried to rouse him he seemed slightly more together, but not enough. That concerned the doctor as well.
A knock at the door brought in a different doctor, the result of a shift change. The man in blue scrubs looked at a tablet and moved his hand to flip pages.
“Anthony Parks,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Good to see you’re awake now. How’s the head?”
“Sore.”
The doctor nodded and did a physical check of Saks’ head. “This is an unusual accident. The hood of your car fell on you?”
“It’s an old car.”
“It rarely happens that you tear a ligament in your shoulder at the same time.”
“I uh, I fell afterward. Must’ve wrenched it.”
“Yeah,” the doctor said with suspicion. “Your sister told me a similar story.” He glanced at Saks’ Hades’ Spawn jacket neatly folded over the one chair in the room.
“Sis—”
Chrissy put her hand on his arm. “You weren’t remembering things so good when I brought you in, bro.”
The doctor walked to the bed and had Saks put his feet over the edge, and then flashed a light in his eyes, and then had him touch his nose and a few other exercises. Chrissy bounced on the balls of her feet waiting for the doctor’s verdict.
Please, Saks, be okay.
“Your responses are much better than last night. And your CT scan didn’t show any fractures or swelling. Which is good news. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an injury. Any time the brain gets hit by something hard, it’ll bruise like any other body part. Only this is the brain, so it pays to be careful. So, no work for the next three days, no driving for a week, no contact sports of any kind, and try not to get banged over the head with your car roof again. And no,” he tapped at the iPad, “biking till I, or another doctor, clears you.”
Saks groaned. “I’ll be fine.”
“You will, if you listen.” The doctor moved toward the door, his eyes still on his screen. “Oh, and you’ll need someone with you for the next twenty-four hours.”
“I’ll stay with him,” said Chrissy. “And make sure he does as he’s told.”
“Good,” he said with a nod. “Then I’ll sign the discharge papers and we’ll get you out of here today. Also, because of the head injury, I can’t give you any narcotics for pain.”
“Not a problem,” said Saks.
“He’s a tough guy,” said Chrissy at the same time.