Justin fumbled around for the call button with his left hand instead.
He was hurt—obviously—but underneath all of that he was terrified. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened at the house. He couldn’t remember anything at all after Steve started kicking him. Where were the kids?
“Hi, Justin,” a woman in pastel scrubs said as she walked into the room. “Can you tell me how you’re feeling?”
Justin made a dry sound in the back of his throat, but couldn’t get any words out.
“Okay, I’ve paged the doctor, but I’m just going to check your vitals first. You’ve been out for a few days.” She began to read the screens on the equipment and jot down notes. “Your family has been really worried. They’ll be happy to know you’re awake again.” She smiled at him. “I’ll call them and tell them they can come and see you after the doctor’s been. It’s past visiting hours, but that’ll be our secret, okay?”
Justin nodded, his mind whirring. His family? Did she mean the kids? The kids and Del? It wasn’t like he had anyone else who fitted the description.
The doctor came in to see him, and was still in the room when Justin heard shoes slapping on the floor outside. A moment later Harper burst into the room with Wyatt on her heels. Wyatt stopped the second he saw strangers, but Harper hurried forward.
“Careful,” the nurse said.
Harper nodded, and slowed down. She stood beside Justin’s bed, and reached out and gently touched his shoulder.
Justin’s eyes stung with tears and he wanted nothing more than to pull her into a tight hug, but he knew his body wouldn’t cope with that right now.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered and leaned down and pressed her forehead against his.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, his voice rasping.
When Harper leaned back, Wyatt was standing beside her. He wiggled his fingers in a wave, his face pale and anxious.
From the open door behind them, Del appeared with Scarlett on his hip, and Justin’s stinging eyes produced a flood of tears.
Del was at his side in seconds, pulling up a chair and sitting down, and then reaching out to brush his hand over Justin’s forehead. He was crying too. “Justin. God.”
Justin could hardly concentrate on what the doctor told him after that. He didn’t even know what a pancreas was, except now he didn’t have one, so apparently that meant he’d be on insulin now, forever, because his body wouldn’t make it anymore. He had an enlarged spleen. He’d also lost part of his liver, but that would grow back. He had broken ribs as well, and three fingers on his right hand were fractured, and he had a lot of bruising and soft tissue damage. But the doctor said—and this was the only part Justin really took in right now in his fuzzy state—that with some lifestyle changes, there was no reason he couldn’t live a full and healthy life.
A full and healthy life.
Justin wondered what one of those was like. He looked at Del, and couldn’t help imagining that he was a key ingredient in one.
He dozed off again looking at Del’s face.
* * * *
Justin was in hospital for thirteen days. Unlucky thirteen, his mom would have said, but Justin didn’t feel unlucky. He was alive, and he had Del and the kids. When he was released from the hospital Del drove him home—not to the shitty little house with holes in the wall and blood on the kitchen floor, but to Del’s house—and Justin spent the next few days on the couch, eating soup and sleeping a lot.
Abigail was still staying with Del as well, even though Justin got the impression her parents weren’t totally happy with that. She told Justin she was taking the semester off to help Del set up his social media and being his PR maven, whatever that was, but Justin got the impression she was doing more than that as well.
Del spent a lot of time looking after Justin, and Abigail picked up the slack with the kids. Justin might have felt guiltier about that except Abigail clearly loved spending time with them. And Harper was a different kid with Abigail around. She loved dressing the same way Abigail did, and copying her mannerisms, and painting her nails using the same colors Abigail used, and singing along to the same music Abigail did. She listened to everything Abigail told her with the sort of intensity like she thought there might be a quiz at the end. It was total hero worship, but Justin was glad. The only other woman in Harper’s life had been their mom. She’d been lacking a female role model until now, and Justin couldn’t think of a better one than Abigail.