I waited and waited for my fiance, knowing with each passing minute and unanswered text that something was wrong. Punctuality was life for Caleb. 

After half an hour I gave up and, because I am familiar with fate, drove to the hospital. I arrived just as the ambulance was bringing him in. Smashed up and covered in blood, but alive. 

Alive was good.

More than eight hours passed before anyone was allowed to see him, and his parents went first, which was bullshit. They were just there for show.

After five minutes they came back out, his mother wailing dramatically into a wad of Kleenex and clutching his father. 

I tried to keep the distaste off my face. It was almost midnight and I was beyond exhausted.

"For Chrissake, Susan, pull yourself together!" the big man hissed, sneaking a glance at his watch. We called him The General, though he was only military in his own mind. 

"But his injuries are so bad!" Susan blew her nose loudly, looking around, hoping for more attention. She looked medicated to the gills, but that was nothing new. "What will I do if he dies?"

Anxiety twisted my insides at the words. 

The General winced bodily, whether disgusted from the nasal discharge or the lamentations, I wasn't sure, but he gripped her arm tight enough to make her wince. He was all about using force to keep everyone in line. "Get control of yourself, right now."

I stood up, eyeing him with contempt.

He turned his attention to me, his expression mirroring mine. I don't know which of us hated the other more. "Room A2. They said keep it short." His lip raised in an almost comical snarl, his hammy fists clenched at his sides. "This is probably your fault somehow."

He couldn't lay his hands on me, the way he solved annoyances, and it incensed him to no end.

"Fuck yourself," I muttered loud enough for him to hear, brushing past them and through the doors with a pounding heart. It was a combination of hushed and rushed that I immediately recognized with an internal shudder. 

The five weeks I'd spent here were always too fresh in my mind.

A1 was on my left and made me think of the steak sauce of the same name. I carefully didn't look at the guy moaning inside, though goosebumps rose on my scalp. Taking a deep breath, I slipped into the next room, instantly shaken by all the tubes and machines. 

I made myself approach the bed and look at Caleb, at his unrecognizable face. I knew it was him only from the scar over his right eyebrow, and his familiar hand with the IV taped on the back. Dried blood was everywhere. Couldn't they have cleaned him up more?

"Fuck," I said softly, touching that hand so lightly he couldn't have felt it had he been awake. "Couldn't wait to ride that fucking bicycle, could you, baby." Our mocking pet name had no effect on his stillness.

Road rash covered the left side of his face and his nose, where the skin had been shredded away by a cement wall and pavement. Both arms and legs were in casts, his left in traction. They'd shaved his head and a shunt protruded above his right ear to prevent his brain swelling.

Horror rose in me and my first cowardly thought was to run away. My second was no way should his mother have been allowed to see him. Unless they thought he was maybe going to die.

"Fuck," I said again, helplessly. I was too stunned for tears. "I'm sorry, babe. This is pretty bad. I guess I shouldn't say that. You just rest, they'll fix you up. Just rest. I'll be here." I touched his hand again.

The fluorescent bar light above his head was shining brightly on his face. I switched it off but the bulb kept glaring. I tried to find the plug in the wall but couldn't get to it, so I just detached the foot-long light from its casing, burning my fingers in the process, and set it on the nightstand. 

Better. 

I went downstairs and got a couple of Red Bulls out of the case in my trunk, then sat on the curb and smoked for ten minutes to pull myself together.

Next I got to call his twin brother, who was also my best friend.

It barely rang once before Leif picked up. "Dude."

"Dude," I answered, and my nose and eyes burned. I took a drag and allowed the harsh smoke to interrupt the would-be tears. "I just saw him."

He knew me so well I didn't have to elaborate. "That bad, huh? I was hoping my parents were exaggerating for drama purposes." I could hear his lighter, and the inhalation that meant he was smoking too.

I couldn't joke about it. "He's very broken," I said, my voice faltering. I took another drag and blew out smoke rings. The stars were tiny, cold pinpoints in the black sky.

"Should I come?" In the background The General was yelling at one of his siblings. I heard a crash.

I flashed on the battered body upstairs. "No. Sounds like you're needed to run damage control at home anyway." He still lived at home because even though we were twenty-six, he had little sisters to protect.

"I should come though." He was torn.

"Nothing you can do here." That, and seeing Caleb like he was would wreck him. Maybe in the morning things would be different. Better somehow.

His hesitation made him uncharacteristically silent for a few moments. "Did he wake up?"

I watched a couple get out of their car and look around frantically in the dark. They'd received The Call. I wondered how bad their loved one was.

"Not yet. They said hopefully soon," I lied. I hadn't even talked to a doctor or anything. But of course he would be awake by morning.

A girl's scream from his end dropped my heart further. 

"Fucking hell. I gotta go. Call me if you need me." He hung up.

I wiped my face and finished my cigarette, then went back upstairs to the waiting room for ICU. 

The couple that had passed me outside was talking with the doctor in the hall. Rather, he was talking while they cried.

I avoided their eyes and took the same chair I'd vacated. There was a brown, fake leather couch with tufts of white stuffing spilling out the cracks, and I waited half an hour before stretching out on it with my head resting on my purse. I would probably catch some horrible disease but whatever. 

I didn't end up having to share the room because the person the couple was waiting to see had died.

I was dreaming when the doctor woke me, and for a moment was super disoriented. 

"Caleb?" I asked automatically when I realized why a strange woman was a foot from my face. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My back hated me, but nothing new there.

She smiled a little. "I'm Dr. Patel. Caleb is stable. He has not regained consciousness yet, but the brain swelling looks good, so we'll plan to move him from ICU into his own room in the morning." 

The doctor's whole demeanor was calm and unhurried, which was odd for her profession but comforting. I stared at her hands, thinking of them sewing him up, even drilling the hole in his skull. Ridiculous, as she probably hadn't even been the one to do those things.

"Okay," I said dumbly. "Thank you." The round clock on the wall said it was a quarter past four. My eyes burned from fatigue.

"Would you like me to go over his numbers with you?" she asked patiently. Her white coat was too bright.

"No, that's--no. Thank you," I said again. It wouldn't mean anything with my mind so tired. "Do you think he will? Wake up, I mean?"

She didn't dodge my gaze, which I appreciated. "I really can't say for sure," she said, apologetic but firm. "Chances are good that he will, yes. His injuries are . . . severe. We'll do all we can for him."

Her voice was gentle but panic welled up inside me. "But he's not going to die?" I knew she couldn't promise me anything, but I had to ask.

She placed her hand on my arm. "I don't think so," she allowed, and truth or lie, it helped. She took her hand away. "Someone will keep you posted. It's a quiet night, so you should be able to rest some more."

"Thank you," I said a third time, and she nodded before disappearing into the hall. "Shit," I said to myself. I checked my phone and texted Leif that he was stable.

Define stable, he wrote back. Immediately, as I'd known he would. Sleep eluded him when his anxiety was bad.

Which it usually was.

I sighed. The swelling in his brain is better. They're going to move him out of ICU in the morning. That's all I know.

I could almost see him pacing. Fuck. You okay?

How did I even answer that? Yeah. 

The General went to do PI shit so hopefully he'll get shot or something, or at least stay away all day.

We can only hope. I considered a Red Bull but stretched out on the couch again. I already ached from the cramped sleeping arrangement. I'll be here.

I'll come in the morning, hopefully without the Brady Bunch.

K, night, I texted back, and went back to sleep.