Bared: A King's Hart Novel Book 3 (BWWM)

XXIV: That In Between Place

1 Week Later

Nathaniel.

I didn't quite register the loss until the annoying sound of some beeping apparatus went off nearby and never stopped. It was foreign to me, yet also ...so very familiar.

"Nuri," I called out to my wife and flinched at the ache in my throat. It was like I swallowed a million tiny pieces of broken glass. My hand went to my neck and I massaged it. The peaceful thoughts in my mind were quickly leaving me, suddenly becoming some fuzzy distant memory.

Flashes of the most precious face flitted across my mind in rapid succession. "Naveyah?" I spoke the name quickly since my mind seemed to be forgetting the face just as quickly.

My eyes blinked open and I was hit with the harshest lights, sounds, and sensations. I had a gnawing pain at my side and instantly recoiled when I touched it and felt the pain multiply.

How long have I been here? What happened to me? Every part of me wanted to sit up and take in my new surroundings but I could not. It was like my body weighed a ton. - - and when . . . in the fuck. . . will someone come and shut the damn beeping thing off?

Everything rushed to me in an instant.

I am in a hospital bed.

I was stabbed.

Emma?

I was able to push myself up using my elbows and looked around the room for a phone or something to call Ambrose. I needed to know where Nuri was. I needed to know what happened with Emma.

After sitting up, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and pushed myself to a standing position. I lost my balance and fell forward right as another loud alarm sounded off.

A young black nurse came in instantly. She had an IV bag in her hand.

"Mr. King, you're awake," she stated and came to my side to help me up to my feet. She helped me back into the bed and quickly shut off the bed alarm and IV alarm. "Let me do a quick neuro assessment on you and check your vitals okay.

"Who are you?"

She slapped a blood pressure cuff on my arm and some other small thing on my finger. She was shining some light in my eye and checking the strength of my hands and legs while the cuff inflated. She was moving entirely too fast.

"My name is Elizah, I'm your nurse for the day. You have been in - what some would call - a coma for three weeks now."

"I recognize your voice," I told her as I remembered some of the encouraging words she would say to me. "Three weeks? I've been out for that long?"

She nodded. "Yes. Do you know who you are and who the president is?"

"I'm Nathaniel King. The president is Barack Obama."

"Do you know where you are and what happened to you last?"

"I'm in a hospital-- I'm assuming in Savoie, and last night I was stabbed." I shook my head. " I guess that happened three weeks ago huh?"

"Yes. You are right," she said and put a temperature probe under my tongue. "You have been here in Savoie Hospital for about three weeks now. You were stabbed and they had to perform emergency surgery on you. During the surgery, there were some complications which required a machine to help you breathe afterward. Fortunately, you started to breathe on your own and now you're awake."

Her hands were in my hair looking for something and she asked me about tenderness. I shook my head.

She took the probe away and put everything back in its proper place. "I will call the doctor and surgeon and inform them that you've returned to us. They will be happy to hear this news."

"What about my wife?" I asked and looked around the room for the phone to call her. "Where is Nuri?"

"Nuri Hart?" The question in her voice did not go unnoticed. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize she was your wife. She didn't say so in your paperwork."

I shook my head. "I mean my girlfriend. She's my girlfriend."

"She stepped out a few moments ago, she said something about a doctor's appointment." The nurse, Elizah, held paperwork in her hands and faced me with a smile. "Your girlfriend Nuri has been here at your side, afraid to leave you alone even for a moment. She told me to call her if you wake."

I cannot imagine the agony I put her through for three weeks.

"Would you like me to call her- - or would you rather call her."

"I'll call her. I just can't seem to find the phone." I rubbed at my eyes as the stabbing pain behind them became unbearable.

"The phone is right on the nightstand here," she said while she walked over to it and handed it to me. "You just dial 91 to get out."

"Thank you."

"I will be back in a few minutes to do some follow up assessments," she said. "I will warn you though. . . since you've fallen, I have to perform frequent neuro checks on you for the next twenty-four hours. They will have to perform a CT scan sometime soon."

"All this cause I fell?"

She nodded sadly. "A patient fall is a serious thing here, Mr. King. You've been in a coma for several weeks and we have to make sure that you are 100% okay. The next four hours are going to be very fast and very busy. Prepare yourself."

"I just want to see Nuri."

"I understand. I know she will be very happy to see you as well."

When she left, I quickly made calls to Nuri, Ambrose, and Maggie. They all went unanswered. I tried a second time and again, the calls were not answered. I had a mind to call my brothers and sisters or my parents even. If I was in a coma, surely they knew all about it. I even called Adelaide . . . still with no success.

Worry and panic swelled as I wondered about Emma and her son. I worried that things were still uncertain and Nuri's safety was still threatened. All this panic was compounded by the fact that I couldn't shake the thought that I was missing something.

I felt completely lost.

~

That nurse Elizah was not lying. Within those following hours, I had so many specialists and surgeons in and out of my room that I lost track. At every instant, someone was poking at me, prying at me or questioning me non stop. I prayed for the moment when I could be sent home.

It was about 2 pm when I finally had some peace and quiet. I shut the door to my room and sat at the small table by the floor to ceiling window. On the table, there was a big file organizer. It was colorful and I became curious.

I opened it and pulled out the first manilla folder and was pleased to find reports from Maggie. I thumbed through them and was happy to see that she kept me updated every day for three weeks. I guess Nuri read these to me while I was. . . away.

I put those reports away and looked at some of the other things Nuri had in her folders. There were beautiful sketches and floor plan designs in one folder. Another folder had some manuscripts with her handwriting all over it. I sat back in the chair and started to read.

I had no idea where my cell phone was and didn't have access to the outside world. If I was being completely honest with myself, I didn't really care. I was happy to be invisible for a while.

Something stirred within me. I kept getting the nagging feeling that I was forgetting something. I couldn't put my finger on it and it was unnerving.

It wasn't Emma. It wasn't even her son and the fact that he might be my son.

It was something else. Whatever it was, I couldn't get it out of my head. It seemed strange to miss something you couldn't even remember. I had to come to terms with the fact that I was checked out for nearly a month. I also had to come to terms with the fact that I was someplace different in those three weeks.

It was a nice place, a place where time didn't matter. With every passing moment, the memories of that place became foggier and foggier. They became so obsolete that I even questioned their existence at all.

I must have dreamed it all. . . whatever it was.