Page 38 of The Player Next Door
Clare’s eyelids were heavy. Heavier than heavy. It was like gravity had conspired with the universe to become unnaturally powerful, specifically on her eyelids. A quiet whirring sound hummed in the distance, emitting the occasional tiny beep. She considered giving up the fight and letting gravity win, keeping her eyes closed, when she heard the squeak of someone shifting in a vinyl chair.
She pried her eyes open to discover she was looking at the top of Logan’s head. His forearms were resting on his knees, gaze fixed on his phone just below the level of her bed. He was texting, letting out a vaguely annoyedharrumphevery so often. The world slowly coalesced into something understandable around her, the edges of the hospital room coming into sharp focus and the events of earlier crowding into her brain.
The trip to radiology, followed by a hurried consultation with a surgeon. Then the anesthesiologist, patiently telling her to start counting backwards and chuckling when she asked if she could do it in Elvish. It probably seemed silly to him, but the bravado was the only way she could get through this without crying. She had hazy, formless memories of the recovery room, a nurse telling her that her boyfriend would be waiting in her room and Clare trying in vain to explain that Logan was just a neighbor.
Or maybe that happened in this room, another indistinct memory of him standing off to the side as she made her thick, clumsy tongue explain that theyweren’t really anything, you see, not like that.She cringed, hoping that memory was wrong.
Logan ran his hand through his hair, back and forth until it was standing on end, eyes still on his phone. She lifted her hand to get his attention, but instead of waving she found herself reaching out and smoothing down an errant lock of his hair. It was thick and soft to the touch and suddenly there was nothing she wanted more than to run her hands through it.
Logan’s head snapped up. “You’re awake,” he said, scanning her from head to foot like he was trying to catalogue any missing parts.
“Awake and appendix-less,” she said.
Logan frowned thoughtfully. “There’s something you should know,” he said, leaning forward. “Something . . . went wrong. In surgery.”
“What?” She sat up as best she could, quickly scanning her body. Two arms, two legs, all seemingly intact. There was that, at least.
He tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear, looking mournful, biting the thumb of his other hand. “They—they ended up having to do an experimental procedure. You now have Nicolas Cage’s face and John Travolta has yours.”
His face split into a grin and she snorted, followed immediately by a whine of pain. “You dick,” she said, clutching her still-tender stomach as she cackled. “Laughing hurts.”
“Oh shit, sorry,” he said, but his eyes were dancing, and she decided the pain was worth it, if it meant he looked at her like that. “It is weird though, seeing you with Nicolas Cage’s face. Doesn’t look right,” he said.
Clare grabbed the nearest thing to her—a giant remote with a cable attaching it to the bed—and smacked his shoulder.
Logan plucked it from her hand before she could hit him again. “Seriously, how are you feeling? Do you need me to get the nurse?”
Clare felt wrung out, quite frankly. But she smiled wanly anyway. “I’m fine. Could feel better, but I felt worse earlier.”
Maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed like he let out a long, slow breath. “Good. Good good good,” he said.
“How did you know, by the way? That it was appendicitis? You might have saved my life.”
Logan looked toward the door and ruffled his hair again. “You would have gone to the doctor eventually,” he said.
“Not necessarily. Several years with shitty health insurance means I got very good at putting off basic necessities and ignoring problems. But how did you know? You were so certain it wasn’t just the stomach flu.”
For a long moment, he didn’t answer and when he spoke, he kept his eyes on the ground. “I used to look stuff up. Ways people died suddenly, how to know they were sick, when to go to the hospital. That sort of thing.”
Clare’s insides had already taken a beating, but it was nothing compared to the blow he just landed on her chest. “Oh Logan,” she said quietly, but then a nurse walked through the door with the surgeon in her wake.
“Oh good, you’re up,” Dr. Drew said, pulling out a stool from the nurse’s station near her bed and clasping her hands between her knees. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess,” Clare said, trying to peel her eyes away from Logan. She wasn’t sure how to respond to his revelation, or if he even wanted her to. Dr. Drew ran through how her surgery went (smoothly, no complications, no spur-of-the-moment face transplants), and the restrictions she would have for the next few days (take it easy, mostly, and no heavy lifting, which Clare didn’t really do anyway.) She finished up with an indulgent smile at Logan. “Any questions? No? Well, I’m glad he talked you into coming here,” she said, and Logan ducked his head in uncharacteristic embarrassment. “Things could have gotten very bad, but we were able to intervene in time. You’ll be able to go home tomorrow, assuming nothing changes.”
She left, and the nurse, Jamie, took Clare’s vitals while Logan fidgeted; rubbing his palms on his thighs and then through his hair, standing up to move out of the nurse’s way and then sitting down just a little too fast. Jamie left and Clare opened her mouth to ask him something—about his admission earlier, or maybe about why he even bothered to stay when she told him he didn’t have to—but Logan stood up again. “I’ll give you a minute to get settled,” he said, striding out like he wanted to be anywhere else.
Clare looked around the room, wondering what exactly she was supposed to do toget settled.She ended up raising the back of the bed so she was sitting up straighter and moving the blankets around her legs, just for something to do.
He was gone long enough she started to worry, but then Logan came back with something small clutched in his hands. “Sorry, there’s not much to do here and there’s nothing on TV, at least nothing that isn’t sports or home improvement stuff. And I know how you feel about sports, at least. Not sure how you feel about shows that overuse the termman cavebut I’m taking a guess that you don’t love them.” He held out his hand. “I figure this would kill, like, maybe ten minutes?”
Clare squinted, wishing she had thought to bring her glasses. “Is that . . . nail polish?”
“Yeah. Jamie, um, loaned it to me. She said we can’t do your fingers because they have to, like, see them? I didn’t totally follow, although I guess it has to do with circulation or something. But she said your toes would be fine.”
“Really?” she asked, cocking her head. Now that she was looking at him without the immediate haze of anesthesia hanging over her, she realized he was not wearing the workout clothes he had been in before. He was in blue scrubs that were too tight across the shoulders and around his biceps and baggy around his waist. “Wait, did they give youclothestoo?”
“Just temporarily,” he said, the awkwardness that surrounded him coming at her in waves. “I was a little cold, and one of the other nurses said they have extras.”