What The Water Brings In

3

"Sang? Why don't you go ahead and change into some dry clothes?" Dr. Green suggested after the lot of us managed to gather our wits to ourselves once more. I had just righted the vitals cart and returned all the little loose bits into their appropriate little baskets. Johnny was kind enough to assist me so the time needed for the task was cut in half. "Do you mind dropping off my bag in my office?"

"Not at all," I smiled kindly, but it soon fell from my face once I remembered where our bags were. "Uhm, we left our bags outside." I pushed my bottom lip against my teeth in embarrassment.

I didn't know it was possible for a fully grown man to giggle (19 was considered to be a man in this day and age, right?). Sean managed to do so rather well, and it wasn't creepy like one would imagine it to be. "I bet they are!" he said with a grin that told of no other emotion than pure mirth, even as he pulled out blankets and a hospital gown for the cabinets for Jackie. "We got a little distracted, didn't we?"

Johnny shifted back and forth on his feet and rubbed the back of his neck. The poor man probably thought Sean was referring to him and his daring rescue. The wink Dr. Green gave me confirmed my suspicions he was referring to our own... erm... recreational activities instead. "Will you be okay by yourself for a bit?" the doctor asked with genuine concern.

Before I could answer, Johnny jumped in. "I can escort the little lady out to the door," he volunteered.

Sean nodded at him and held out his hand. They shook as Sean thanked him both for being a Good Samaritan and for keeping me company.

I grabbed the wheelchair to return to the lobby since we were going there anyways. Johnny fell into step beside me as we headed back the way we came.

Or at least we tried to. Hospitals were mazes to anyone who did not work in them, and this wing proved to be no different. We were stopped twice by badge-access only security doors, forcing us to detour and ask for directions once at a nurse's station. The kind nurse wrote down which way to go on a sticky note, but his handwriting was illegible, making the directions useless. Johnny and I eventually wound up outside from an unfamiliar door, so we circled around a portion of the medical center in the parking lot, running through the pelting rain until we came back to the covered drop off zone of the Academy wing. Loud booms of thunder and bright bolts of lightning punctuated our adventure through the storm. I caught a brief glimpse of a section of parking lot submerged under the water; the lake it was under rippled, waved, and extended over the landscaping surrounding the campus and onto the roads on the other side.

Sean's and my overnight bags were exactly where we dropped them. I left the wheelchair in Mr. Galloway's charge as I gathered the pair of gym bags. They were nearly dry; the rain did not reach the spot they were dropped. The straps were slung over one shoulder, and we walked back inside.

After Johnny parked the wet wheelchair next to the others, Susan at the Welcome Desk gaped at us in surprise. "Oh my heavens! I didn't see you two sneak out! What were you doing outside in that dreadful weather to begin with?" She fussed like a mother hen.

Johnny and I exchanged guilty looks with each other like two kids who were caught with hands in the cookie jar. "We got lost and had to come the roundabout way, ma'am", he answered.

Susan huffed. "My word. Children. How I envy the vitality of youth."

I quickly examined Johnny from head to his steel toed boots. He didn't look like a child to me. He had crow's feet wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He probably earned those from smiling and laughing frequently. There were also a few strands of white at his temples mixing in with the rest of his light brown hair. I guessed him to be about forty years old.