Kendall's story. Description to come.
Tropes: strangers to friends to lovers, new adult, good girl/bad boy, ballerina, street racer, Formula One, diabetes awareness, she saves him
The nurse scans his badge, and the automatic doors swing open, revealing an empty corridor in the radiology ward. He guides the mobile hospital bed through the doorway. I follow close behind, keeping River in my field of vision.
We turn a corner, finding a group of medical staff pushing another bed in the opposite direction. There are privacy curtains drawn around the patient, but I can see through the gaps. It's only a second, but long enough for me to note the gauze on the patient's head, and a glint of metal coming out of the man's skull.
A chill skates up my spine. River is due for an MRI to assess the damage to his brain. It appears his brother was scheduled for one just before him.
Dominique Arsenault isn't dead, no. I'm not sure how, but the man is breathing. His heart is pumping. He's been put into a medically induced coma. Neurosurgeons are mapping his brain. They're going to remove the straw soon, and they want to make sure they don't inflict more harm.
River's unconsciousness isn't a result of medical intervention. He's in a diabetic coma. The normal human blood sugar level is between sixty and ninety milligrams per deciliter. When we were admitted to Mount Sinai, River's level was over nine hundred. His brain was in survival mode, severing contact with the remainder of his body. As a result, his organs were shutting down.
The emergency room was a flurry of activity—stitching my arm together, shining lights in my father's eyes, hooking River up to an insulin infusion. I admit, Dominique received most of the attention. It's not every day they see a man with a metal straw impaling his skull. And the triage unit doesn't care what you did before you got to them—they're trained to treat the worst injuries and sicknesses first.
The nurse wheels River into the imaging lab. A radiologist greets us, directing me to the nonhazardous zone. It's a small alcove with monitors, and a window to view the scan room. I watch the staff transfer River from his bed to the stiff cot. I wonder if the surface is still warm from Dominique. I wonder if River can sense his brother's presence—if he can sense anything.
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They strap his limbs down, and secure his neck so he doesn't roll off the surface. I put my right hand in the pocket of my satin pants, twirling River's jewelry between my fingers. The rings, the barbells, the screws, the platinum balls—they all had to be removed. I insisted on doing it myself. He looks different without the adornments. Younger, tender, vulnerable.
I'll hold onto his rough edges for him. I'll keep them safe. I'll clean the jewelry and put it in a plastic bag, ready for him when he wakes.
The technician returns to the alcove, giving me a friendly nod. She takes a seat at her swivel chair, waking the monitors with a shake of her computer mouse. The cot begins to move, positioning River's upper body inside the giant machine. It hums to life—a loud, continuous clunk. Images appear on the screens, a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of River's skull.
