"Ah!"
The man stumbled and dropped to the floor.
I went down too, from the impact, the back of my head slamming hard into a fire hydrant beside me.
Warmth spilled out, and my vision blurred.
Not enough to stop me from seeing Miranda leap off the hospital bed and run straight at me.
On instinct, I reached out to her.
But she went right past me and gathered the man off the floor, her face full of tenderness.
"Michael, are you okay? Did it hurt?"
Then, without turning her head, she snapped at me, cold:
"Are you blind, or in some rush to the afterlife—"
I drew my hand back and gave a bitter laugh.
Laughing at myself for flattering my own feelings.
Miranda's whole body went rigid. She turned, saw clearly that it was me, and her face darkened further.
"Eric? It's you?"
Michael leaned against her, choking back tears.
"Miranda, don't blame Eric. He cursed me, shoved me, and I'll take it all! It's my fault you almost died!"
With that, he slapped himself hard across the face and apologized to me.
"Eric, you're right, I deserve to die!"
I hadn't said a word, and already he was putting on a show.
And Miranda, of all people, believed it.
She couldn't see how pale I was, couldn't see that I'd fallen too, couldn't see the blood running down into my black funeral clothes.
She just raised her hand and slapped me.
"When Michael said you refused to come to the hospital to be with me, and cursed at him, I didn't believe it! But I never imagined you could be this vicious! Coming all the way to the hospital just to pick a fight with him!"
"Do you have any idea that the smallest injury could kill him right now?"
"Are you taking your father's death out on him? Getting revenge?"
"If you're angry, come at me. Why torment Michael?"
Her three questions, one after another, only made me want to laugh. Laugh at eight years of devotion spent on the wrong person.
"Don't laugh! Say something!"
I opened my mouth and only then tasted the rust filling it.
My throat hurt like I was swallowing razor blades, and I couldn't get out a single word.
Miranda took it as an admission.
She grabbed me by the collar and forced the words out of me.
"Apologize to Michael! Or don't blame me for not mourning at your father's funeral!"
Cecily came back with the medicine and saw me forced down on my knees.
Her eyes went wild as she shoved Miranda aside and tried to lift me up.
And felt the blood on my back.
Both women's faces changed. Without a word between them, they both moved to hold me.
Michael suddenly clutched his head, retching without stop.
"Miranda... my head hurts..."
Miranda instantly pulled her hands back and caught Michael, who had already gone limp.
Cecily had gotten to me first and rushed me straight to the ER.
"Doctor, hurry, help him!"
Before the doctor could examine me, Miranda squeezed into the room with Michael, her eyes red, shrieking:
"Doctor, treat him first! He has late-stage brain cancer, and someone shoved him on purpose—now he's retching, his head hurts, and he's passed out!"
The doctor looked at the unconscious Michael and took over at once.
But still found a moment to call an intern over to clean my wound and stop the bleeding.
The intern brought us to the room next door, and the moment he saw the gash at the back of my head, deep enough to show bone, he flinched on instinct.
"I can't handle a wound like this. I'll go get another doctor for you!"
The one who came was Dr. Lambert, who had written up my medicine earlier.
She knew I was allergic to anesthetic, and looked at me, uneasy.
"I'll use acupuncture anesthesia to dull the pain, but it may still hurt a lot. Can you bear it?"
I nodded hard.
Even braced for it, the moment the needle and thread went through the scalp at the back of my head, the pain had me trembling all over.
Dr. Lambert couldn't work like that, so she had Cecily hold me tight.
By the time she'd finished twenty-four stitches, the pain had drained every trace of color from my face.
Dr. Lambert told Cecily:
"Take good care of your husband. Don't let him step out the door and come back hurt again!"
Miranda walked in just in time to hear those words.
The worry on her face vanished in an instant.
Her face black, she rushed over in a stride and yanked hard, trying to drag me out of Cecily's arms.
She couldn't budge me at all.
Seeing me cling to Cecily for dear life, she felt a fire burning in her chest.
"Eric, your father isn't even cold in the ground, and you've got time to chase after another woman? What do you take me for?!"
"Or is this your way of goading me into going back to mourn at your father's funeral?"
