Doubt Me Not

“Give me your phone, Sasha.”

“I wasn’t texting and driving, I swear!” Sasha squealed, clutching the iPhone to her chest, utterly petrified to be parted from it.

“Give me your phone,” Ximena repeated and slowly enunciated each word. She knew the reason why Sergio was in the hospital was because Sasha couldn’t take her eyes off of the damn thing. Ximena could only be thankful that Sasha had begun to slow down the car to park and she could now only hope that Sergio’s CT scan hadn’t shown signs of a concussion.

“I would just hand it over if I were you,” Sergio’s voice was gravely as it rolled quietly over the words causing both girls to jump out of their seats and drop their quarrel.

“Go get his doctor,” Ximena ordered under her breath and Sasha rushed out the door her phone still pressed against her chest.

“You’re awake; I don’t know if you should be, but actually maybe that’s good, it means you don’t have a concussion…how are you feeling?” She asked uncertainly as she approached his bed.

Sergio watched her, observing her slow, uncertain steps. She wouldn’t meet his eye, she searched the room, his bed, his monitors, but she wouldn’t look at him, and he couldn’t seem to understand why.

“I thought I dreamed that I saw you again,” Sergio confessed as he rubbed at his eye before glancing down at his chest to take note of the leads attached to him.

Ximena gave a shaky, tiny smile, amazed at how familiar his voice still was to her, and the sort of feelings that it could awaken in her, “I bet you wish you had been dreaming so you wouldn’t have wound up here.”

“Where the fuck have you been, Mena?” Sergio asked in quiet awe, already irritated with the small talk. He winced with his eyes half shut, making Ximena wonder just how long it took to bring the doctor or at least a nurse around. She dreaded the idea of having this particular conversation in a hospital room with Sergio’s heart rate being monitored.

Sergio continued when she didn’t answer, “Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you? Do you know how many times I-“

“I thought you didn’t want to see me again. I thought that you didn’t forgive me for leaving…I thought you didn’t care.” Ximena defended suddenly her voice rising and going cold as she cut him off. Regret instantly flooded through her as she noticed his heart rate begin to rise on the machine beside his bed, and she had to remind herself now was not the time to settle ancient heartbreaks.

“Why on earth would you think that? I never said that, you never talked to me, you only left me that letter,” Sergio reminded, anger lit in his tone, as his heart rate picked up to alarming levels, “That’s a pathetic excuse for staying gone for so long after everything we went through, after everything I promised you.”

“I think you need to stay calm,” She retorted, forcing down the thousands of responses she had thought of for just this very moment, “We’ll talk about everything later, after we get you out of here.”
Sergio gave a howl of a laugh as he sat up and away from the fluffed pillows, wincing all the while, “Later? Yeah, see that’s the problem with you, no? I don’t know if I can trust your idea of later. How do I trust you to stay? No, we talk now. You answer me now. Not later.”

The doctor finally arrived with Sasha trailing behind just as Ximena was poised to lose her temper, but she pressed her lips tightly shut and stepped back from the bed. The doctor immediately glanced at Sergio’s heart rate monitor and called for a nurse as she pressed a button to silence the shrill alarm alerting them of Sergio’s abnormal heart rate.

“Good you’re awake, we need you take you down for another CT scan,” She announced and jotted down a note on her clipboard.
Ximena’s eyebrows knitted together in worry, why would they need to do another scan?

“I’m not done talking with her,” Sergio glared at the doctor who was already instructing the nurses that had arrived to drive the bed out, “Come back later.”

“Sure, I’ll tell the twenty other people scheduled behind you to wait since you’re not quite finished with your conversation,” She replied with calm sarcasm, “No, you need to get scanned, and it’s likely we’re going to keep you overnight for observation, and I have no problem tying you down if need be.”

Sergio continued to shake his head muttering and mumbling with his arms crossed stubbornly across his chest as the nurses connected his leads to a smaller monitor.

“Don’t disappear on me again,” Sergio remarked.

Ximena arched a brow and flexed her jaw, but chose not to reply. Obviously she had no intentions of going anywhere, but his snappish attitude was grating against her own.

“He’s okay? I mean he’s going to be okay, right?” Ximena turned towards the doctor and bit down anxiously on her thumbnail as the nurses drove him out of the hospital room.

“Who are you?”

“His girlfriend,” She lied, “Please, tell me he’s going to be okay.”

The doctor didn’t ask any other questions. She assumed whatever she had walked in on was a lover’s squabble so she flipped open Sergio’s chart and began to read, “They did the CT scan when he had first arrived, it came back inconclusive, so we’re doing another one, but it’s more of a precaution than anything. There’s nothing to hint at a concussion, so it’s better for him to rest. And keep calm. There is no internal bleeding and he’s got some bruising on his right side and at the back of his head, we’re assuming that was the point of impact. Lucky for him the car was going slow at the time, and he was wearing a leather jacket.”

“Why…the leather jacket?” She stuttered slowly as the relief washed over her now that she knew Sergio was going to be just fine.

“It absorbed most of the shock. He’s going to have some aches and pains for the next few days, but he’s going to be able to go play for Real Madrid once the season starts,” She replied, “He should be okay to be discharged in the morning.”

Ximena gave a slow nod, “That’s great, thank you doctor.”

The doctor excused herself and left; Ximena finally allowed herself her own small smile as she peeked over at the temporarily empty space where Sergio’s bed had been. She heard the subtle locking of an iPhone and spun around just in time to find Sasha trying to quietly put her phone back down. She carried in a half dozen foil balloons attached to a teddy bear that all had a chipper variation of ‘get well soon’ written on them.

“I brought balloons,” Sasha jiggled the balloons with a sheepish smile before placing the bear on a nearby table, “Where did he go?”

“To get rescanned,” Ximena arched a brow, staring down Sasha with narrowed eyes, “Can I trust you to stay by yourself tonight?”

“Are you seriously going to stay the night here?” Sasha was oblivious to just how deep the history between Sergio and Ximena actually went. Ximena had given her highlights to her romantic summer in Sevilla, but she had never given Sasha the name of the Sevillian boy she had fallen in love with.

“I’m going to stay the night. The doctor said he’ll be ready to leave in the morning. I’d hate to leave him alone,” Ximena explained, “And I probably need to make sure he doesn’t press charges against you.”

“Do you know him?” Sasha asked with her own arched brow.

“I used to, years ago.”

Sasha’s eyes widened, but Ximena cut her off before she could ask for further details, “Take your phone, call a taxi, go straight back to the apartment or so help me I’ll-“

“No need to complete that thought, Mena” Sasha hurriedly assured.

Ximena squeezed the younger girl’s shoulder and pulled her wallet out of her jean’s back pocket, handing Sasha some cash, “Order something to eat when you get there.”

“What about you? You want me to bring by some food?”

Ximena shook her head, “No, I’ll be fine, don’t worry, I’ll text you if something happens here.”

“Ok, so I’ll see you back home.”

“Behave,” Ximena kissed the top of her head and sent her on her way before taking her seat with a small yawn.

All these years and she had believed that Sergio didn’t want to see her again. She had been told that he had ripped up the letter she had written him without even reading it. She had seen the ripped up letter with her own eyes so she had been left with little doubt about the accuracy of his reaction. And not only that, but he had been planning on breaking up with her at his going away party anyway.

Then why was he so angry with her now? Before he had left for his scan, he was asking her where she had been, Mena recalled in confusion, and point-blank denied ever saying any of the hurtful things she had been told he had said. What was she missing?

Ximena looked at the clock set above the door which read just past nine in the evening. She never doubted that she would cross paths with Sergio. She knew this reunion was coming; that it was as inevitable as it was doomed from the start.

By the time Sergio was rolled back to his room, Ximena had fall asleep on the narrow couch that could seat two tiny people. He asked for one of the nurses to bring by a blanket, already deciding against waking her up to continue their conversation. She hadn’t left, and that had to be enough for him – at least for the night.