Truth or Lies? by A. Gomez (book club recommendations txt) 📗

on the gurney to the elevators. David picked up one of the office phones to call downstairs, probably to make sure everything was ready for Pam.

“Isabel, are you cold? You’re shaking.” Davis was rubbing my arms in an effort to warm me up. “Why is your arm wet?” He looked at his hand. “Shit! You’re bleeding! Doctor Summers!”

“Huh? I’m what?” My head was starting to feel a little dizzy. I glanced at David, he looked at me and his eyes were wide with fear. Things were starting to dance around me and I heard David’s voice echoing.

“Isabel Grace! Stay with me!” David’s voice sounded echoey. He yelled, “Catch her,” and then everything went dark.

I woke up in a hospital room with machines beeping and an IV attached to me. I looked down at myself and saw I was attached to the beeping machines, wearing a hospital gown. I looked around to see what section of the hospital I was in and it looked like the children’s wing. I saw a nurse pushing medicine through my IV.

She pushed the intercom button on the bed. “Tell Dr. Summers his patient is awake. He said to page him STAT when she woke up.”

“Where am I?” I asked in a raspy voice.

“You’re on the fifth floor in one of the children’s wings of the hospital. There are two very scary looking fellas outside your door, making sure I am the only one that goes in and out of this room and that Doctor Summers is the only doctor seeing you. You must be someone important, sweetie. I also heard there was a commotion about you in the ER.”

“Would you mind telling me if one of those fellas outside is named Davis?”

“I don’t know that, sweetie, but I’ll check.” She scurried to the door and peeked her head out to ask. She was an older lady with a gentle face and a very chipper voice. She was undoubtedly the perfect personality for the children’s wing.

“Angel, they said neither of them is Davis but he’s on his way up with Doctor Summers, as we speak. And don’t worry about using the potty, love. You have a Foley catheter in. We pumped you full of blood and fluids. You should be fine. The bullet went straight through you,” she patted my hand. Bullet? I was shot?

David came in the room, panting as if he had run a marathon. He had beads of sweat on his brow.

“Why are you breathing so hard, David? Did you run here?” I was trying to focus but my eyes weren’t working very well.

“Yeah, well, sort of. The elevators were taking too long so I ran up the stairs.” He was trying to catch his breath.

“So, you ran up five flights of stairs…for me…hmm. The last time you hurried to get to me, you thought you were going to get to pop my cherry but instead you decided to copulate with nurse slut.” Oh my, I sounded rude.

“Ha,” he chuckled. “It must be the pain medication that’s making you so feisty.” He laughed awkwardly, looking at the nurse. “Thank you, I’ll take it from here,” he told her.

The sweet nurse nodded, her eyebrows raised, shocked at what I had said, and left. David examined me and took my vitals. It looked like he enjoyed this since he got to touch me a lot and in places he hadn’t touched in years. My eyes were beginning to focus a little better and I could see his face more clearly. Surprisingly, he was not grinning while he was groping and prodding me. I felt too weak to care anyway. He came around to my left side and undid the large bandage that was on my upper arm, close to my shoulder. It looked like it wrapped around my arm. I looked at my arm and saw that I had five very dark stitches. He examined the back of my arm as well.

“Why are you looking at the back of my arm? What happened there?”

“Well, my love, this is where the bullet exited. And since you’ve been unconscious for several hours, I just want to make sure everything is still looking okay here.”

“Am I okay? Is my arm going to be okay? Why didn’t I feel it when I got shot? Was my adrenaline pumping that hard?” I let my head fall onto the pillow, trying to process all this.

“Yes, love, your arm is going to be fine and you’re going to be just fine. You lost some blood but all you needed was two units. I think once you’re finished with this bag of fluids you should be fine to leave. The bullet missed your bone and you probably did have a pretty good surge of adrenaline, hence you not feeling a thing. Thank goodness I was here to help you.” He kissed my bare shoulder, sending goose bumps down my arm. He grinned at my body’s reaction to his kiss and put the bandage back in place.

“David, stop kissing me and calling me love and honey. We are not together and I suspect Ginger still thinks y’all are not broken up. She has a volatile personality and I venture to say you’re afraid of what she may do if you truly tell her it’s over,” I said with a hint of disdain in my voice.

“Okay, for the record, I did tell her I’m still in love with you and it was over between us, but yes, you’re right, for some inexplicable reason she thinks there’s some ray of hope and we can work it out. And, I might be just a tad nervous at what she’ll do or how she’ll react.”

“Thought so.” I popped my head up and glared at him. “Where’s Davis?”

“He’s just outside. I told him to wait outside until I finished examining you.”

“I’d like to speak