Chapter 18 18
Roman's POV
Bruno had been my mother's driver for eleven years, and in that time he had developed the skill of making himself invisible inside a moving car. He kept his eyes on the road, his hands at ten and two, and his voice entirely to himself. I had always respected that about him.
Right now, I was sitting in the back seat of my mother's town car, staring out the window at Chicago moving past in the grey morning light, and my phone was already ringing. I picked up.
"Are you in the car?" Came my mother's voice.
"Yes."
"Good. Bruno knows the way to the house. I've had your old room prepared and Sarah will be there by...."
"I'm not coming to the house, Mom."
A pause. "What?"
"I told you this yesterday. I'm going to my apartment."
"Your apartment is a two bedroom box in Wicker Park," she snapped. "You have a fractured kneecap, and you need proper care in a proper environment, not in a bachelor's pad!"
"Do I sound like I care, Mom? I'm going to my apartment," I said again. "Tell the nurse to wait there for me."
"I did not arrange all of this so that you could—"
"You arranged all of this without asking me," I reminded her, and I heard my own voice go cold and hard. "You made a decision about my medical care without once asking me what I wanted. I am twenty years old, Mom. You cannot keep doing this."
"I am trying to help you."
"You pulled me out of a clinic where I was actually getting better!" I snapped. "My physiotherapist had a plan, and it was working. And you came in and dismantled the whole thing because you were angry with me, and now you want me to be grateful for it?"
I heard my mother cursed on the other end of the call, something I hadn't heard her do in a long while.
"I'm going to my apartment," I said, for the third time. "Sarah can meet me there, that's about as much as I am willing to compromise. Take it or leave it."
The silence on the other end stretched out long enough that I could hear her breathing.
"You are so much harder than Aaron ever was," she growled. I ended the call and put the phone face down on the seat, feeling a heaviness in my chest.
"Bruno," I called out.
"Yes, sir?"
"Take me to my apartment please."
"Of course, sir." Bruno replied, and changed lanes without another word. A buzzing sound came from my phone, and I picked it up, half dreading that it was my mother again. But it was only a text from Miles.
MILES: yo did you finally escape the clinic or what?
ME: I just left, on my way home now. please come over after classes I am begging you. bring food.
MILES: 😂😂😂 coward. relax I got you. done at 4
ME: my mum hired a private nurse for me
MILES: bro 😭😭
ME: I know!
MILES: is she at least hotm
ME: Miles, I will end our friendship
MILES: 😂😂😂 see you at 4
I put the phone in my pocket and leaned my head back against the seat.
The drive to Wicker Park took twenty minutes, and Bruno pulled up outside my building in no time at all. I got my crutches sorted, thanked him, and moved myself out of the car.
There was a woman already standing at the entrance of the building.
From what I could see, she was somewhere in her fifties, wearing her salt-and-pepper hair in a tight looking bun, and a medical bag over one shoulder. She was dressed in a white uniform that looked ironed within an inch of its life, and she was staring at me with a determined look on her face.
I stifled a smile as I remembered Miles asking if she was hot.
"Mr Foster?" she asked.
"That's me."
"I'm Mrs Sarah." She looked down at my knee, then back up at my face. "I expected you earlier. I've been standing here for thirty minutes."
Then her eyes dropped to my leg again. "That clinic really did a number on you, didn't they. The swelling should be further down by now."
"The clinic was doing fine," I replied. "I was discharged ahead of schedule." I started toward the entrance. "Come on."
She followed me inside and into the elevator, where she stood with her medical bag clasped in front of her. She said nothing throughout, which was fine by me. We got to my floor and I let us into the apartment.
It was small, as student apartments went, two bedrooms with a living room that connected to a kitchen that was just big enough for two people to stand in at the same time. I had lived here since freshman year. It wasn't as big as my mother's house in Lincoln Park, but it was mine, and I was happy to be in it again.
"Sit down," I told Sarah, nodding toward the couch. "Make yourself comfortable, I'll get some..."
"I don't sit on the job, Mr Foster," she replied, already opening her medical bag on the kitchen counter. "Your mother has given me a full briefing on your condition, but I'd like to do my own assessment before anything else. If you could just—"
"It's your first time in my house, and you're still a visitor in my space." I pointed out to her. "So I'm asking you to sit down."
"And I appreciate that." She pulled out a blood pressure cuff. "But I am here in a professional capacity, not a social one. I'm sure the nurses at your clinic sat around chatting, but that is not how I operate."
I looked at her for a long second. "I can see why my mother hired you."
She didn't react to that. She just kept unpacking her bag with brisk, organized movements, laying things out on my counter in a neat row.
I left her to it and went to the cupboard just off the living room, the narrow one beside the bookshelf that I kept locked. I found my keychain in my sweatpants pocket, sorted through them and got the door open. The bottle of Hennessy was where I had left it, right at the front of the shelf. I pulled it out, already thinking about the glass in the kitchen cabinet when a hand grabbed the bottle from me.
I turned around. Sarah had the bottle in her hand.
"What the hell?"
"Mr Foster! Alcohol consumption with a patellar fracture is counterproductive to recovery," she scolded me, holding it at arm's length. "It interferes with bone healing and interacts badly with the anti-inflammatory medication you're on. I'll be keeping this out of reach for the duration."
I fixed her with a murderous look. "That is my cognac!"
"And it will still be your cognac when your knee has healed," she replied, wedging it under her arm.
"Alcohol thins the blood," she continued, unprompted. "It also increases inflammation in the joint, which is the exact opposite of what we need right now. Additionally, it impairs balance and coordination, which, given that you are currently on crutches, gives you an unnecessary fall risk. I could go on."
"Please don't."
"Hydration is also going to be important. I'll need you drinking at least two litres of water daily. I've brought a schedule for your medication and your exercises, which we'll go through together this evening. I also want to talk about your diet, because the nutritional component of bone healing is something that is often overlooked and..."
"Can I at least take a nap?" I asked. "Or is that prohibited too?"
I didn't wait for the answer. I picked up my crutches, crossed the living room and went into my bedroom, closing the door behind me.
I got onto the bed carefully, propped my leg up on the pillow I kept at the foot of the mattress, and lay back against the headboard with a long, frustrated sigh. I picked up my phone, and Miles had texted again.
MILES: okay, so my lecturer just spent forty minutes explaining something that was literally in the first paragraph of the reading. I think I aged three years in forty minutes
With an amused smile, I typed back.
ME: I might have just met a worse know-it-all than your lecturer today. The nurse confiscated my Hennessy.
MILES: 💀💀💀
ME: When you come, bring a rope so I can put myself out of my misery.
MILES: Yes, captain 🫡 see you at 4