Free Death Changes Everything by Linda Crowder Page B

nurse know they would be in the waiting area in case Kristy needed them. Using the phone in the waiting area, Emma called Grace.
    “Oh thank the good Lord,” she exclaimed, when Emma told her Matt seemed to be doing well. “Give Matthew my love when he wakes.”
    “I will. How are you feeling?”
    “Tired, but my headache is gone. I’ll keep dinner warm for you.”
    Hanging up, Emma sat in one of the room’s sterile institutional chairs and watched Jake pace. The clock ticked away eighty-seven minutes before Kristy emerged from the ICU. Emma jumped up when she saw her and Jake put down his cell phone, where he’d been playing solitaire to pass the time.
    “He’s awake!” Kristy announced, her face radiant. “The doctor says there doesn’t appear to be any brain damage.”
    Emma threw her arms around her friend and they laughed and cried together. “They’re going to watch him overnight,” explained Kristy, “but if he’s still doing well in the morning, they’ll move him into a regular room. He might even be able to go home by Wednesday or Thursday.”
    “Oh, Kristy, that’s amazing. It’s the best news I’ve ever heard.”
    “Can we see him?” asked Jake, standing a foot or so behind Emma, not wanting to intrude.
    “He’s asking for you, Jake. Soon as I told him you two were out here, he wanted to see you. You go on in. I want to talk to Emma.”
    Emma pulled Kristy onto the waiting room’s vinyl-covered sofa. “Is he all right, really?”
    “He will be. The plastic surgeon says Matt will have some scars but they’ll just give his face character.”
    “Thank God. When Jake got the call, I thought he was going to pass out.”
    “Seriously? Jake always seems so calm.”
    “He was scared to death, let me tell you. Me, too.”
    “Me three.” Kristy leaned back and closed her eyes. “Oh Emma. I’ve never been so scared in my life. Even when my ex-husband beat me so bad I thought I’d die, all I felt was numb.”
    “The mind uses that for self-defense. You shut down when the situation is out of control. It’s what causes PTSD.”
    “Today I found out what fear is all about.” She sat up and looked at Emma, eyes shining with tears. “Nothing, but nothing, ever hit me like when you opened that curtain and I saw him lying there.”
    Emma took her hand. “He’s going to be okay. We have to hold onto that.”
    “I was gonna tell him,” said Kristy, her voice soft and distant.
    “Tell him what?”
    “Then he got the call about Steven Hill’s murder and he had to leave. Emma, if I tell him now, he’ll think I’m only saying it because I thought I was gonna lose him.”
    “Saying what?”
    “That I’m falling in love with him.”
    “There’s never a bad time to tell a man you love him.”
    “You don’t think it’s too soon? We’ve only been together for a few months.”
    “You’re the only one who knows that. I knew my ex-husband for five years before I married him and look how that worked out. What matters is how you feel about Matt and how he feels about you.”
    “I don’t know how he feels. That’s what’s been keeping me up at night.”
    “Surely you can see how he feels about you.”
    “Sometimes. Maybe? Oh, Emma, I don’t know. All I know is when you told me he was hurt, my heart stopped.”
    She started shaking and Emma put her arm around Kristy’s shoulders and held her while she cried. Emma saw Jake in the doorway. She shook her head. “You have to tell him how you feel, Kristy. He’ll know it’s not because of the accident.”
    “No. I’m going to wait and let him say it first. That way, I’ll know it’s real.”
    “Men are shy about being the first one to say I love you. Jake could tell you that.”
    “Don’t tell Jake! He might say something to Matt.”
    “Not if you asked him not to.”
    “Just leave it alone. It’ll work out.”
     
    ***
     
    “Back so soon?” asked Matt when Jake walked back into his room in the ICU.
    “Lotta girl talk