Tick Tock

I dropped Adam off at the hospital and got him all checked in and as they were going through all the surgery prep I had to go run some errands for work.

“Okay,” I said smiling at him even though I was dead tired, “I have to go pick up that thing for the shop, but I’ll come back and greet you when you come back from surgery.”

“Alright.” Adam said. He gave me a kiss.

“Good luck.” I squeezed his hand and waved as he walked back to the inpatient surgery ward with the nurse.

Our musical is going to have a large moving piece of scenery and we needed a special piece of engineering equipment for it to work safely and correctly. Tech is right around the corner and everyone is stretched pretty thin so I offered to go pick it up at our last production meeting. The hardware store owner that had ordered it for us had called me the night before to let me know it was in and ready for pick-up. I didn’t want to leave Adam before he went in for his surgery but he insisted I go take care of it.

I got to the shop pretty early but the owner was there and we made the transaction. I used the company card and everything (oh so fancy!) to pay for it then headed to the scene shop all the way across town to drop it off with our technical director so he could try and get it set up that day when the shop was open.

Because I had borrowed Molly’s car to drop Adam off at the hospital, it didn’t take me very long to get that taken care of but there was a huge traffic jam on my way back to the hospital and every alternate route I tried was just as bad. I didn’t end up getting back until after noon, well after when Adam’s surgery should have been done. I felt awful for not being there when he woke up, even if it hadn’t been the first time (Adam had had a few surgeries during his recovery, his most recent had been at the beginning of December, and had dealt with all of them by himself more on his insistence than a lack of supportive friends *ahem* or family). When I arrived on the recovery floor I headed to the nurse’s desk to see where he’d been taken after the surgery.

“Room 1235.” The way the nurse had responded made me uncomfortable but I couldn’t figure out why. I felt her watch me as I walked down the hallway to his room.

“GET OUT!”

I heard him before I even found his room. As I approached, I saw a nurse come out of his room looking pissed off and harried. She was muttering under her breath as she walked past me.

“…good thing that jerk is cute or I….”

I stood awkwardly outside of his room and looked at a few of the nurses who were staring straight at me.

“Do I want to go in there?” I asked an older, blonde nurse with glasses.

“You the girlfriend?” She asked.

I nodded.

“Maybe you can talk him down. He’s been throwing a fit every time we go in there since this morning.”

I blinked and was really confused. The blonde nurse waved at me to go into his room and then turned around to take a phone call.

“Adam?” I popped my head into his room and hadn’t bothered to knock.

He was sitting up in his bed, absolutely pissed-the-hell-off. His face softened a little when he saw me but not very much.

“What’s going on? I could hear you all the way down at the other end of the hall.”

“They delayed my surgery!” He yelled.

The blonde nurse raised her eyebrows at me as if to say “good luck, with THAT honey” as I slowly slid his door shut. I walked over and sat in a chair near his night stand.

“Okay.” I said soothingly, “Why don’t you take a deep breath and then tell me why.”

He ignored the deep breath and went right on yelling.

“Because I have a ‘fever’!” Adam made air quotes and an obnoxious voice at the word “fever”.

“What?”

“They won’t do it because I have a fever.” He said a little less angrily, but then yelling in the direction of the nurse’s station, “It’s NOT a freaking fever!”

“How high is it?” I asked.

“100.2.”

“Well how long are you going to have to wait?” I asked.

“They’re going to let me stay the night and do it tomorrow if it goes down.”

I laughed and Adam gave me a dirty look.

“Oh, come ON!” I said trying to make him see reason, “It’s not even a day, Adam! You can wait, like, 15 more hours.”

For a second Adam was quiet and his face almost looked serene.

“BAG OF LITERAL CRAP!” He yelled, “BAG OF CRAP PERMANENTLY ATTACHED TO MY BODY! I DON’T WANT TO WAIT!”

I crossed my arms and stood up because I was thoroughly OVER his behavior and yelling.

“Alright, YOU are going to stop yelling at me and these very patient nurses. You can throw a tantrum if you want to but it’s not fair for you to drag everyone else into it.”

Adam opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off.

“No. You’re an adult. Yes, this sucks. But you’ve had your bag for months, in the grand scheme of things it is A DAY, Adam. A DAY. Stop with the tantrum.”

I saw Adam’s anger leave his face and then he collapsed into sadness. He started crying and I was completely caught off guard by it.

“Adam…” I said sympathetically. I walked toward the side of his bed and gave him a kind smile.

“You don’t know what it’s like.” He said quietly, “I just want it gone.”

“I know you do,” I said rubbing the back of his head gently, “And it will be. It’s not like they cancelled it. Having surgery when you have a fever could be dangerous and leave you susceptible to infection. You know that. It could lead to more complications, a longer recovery time…”

“I feel disgusting. All the time,” his eyes flicked up to look at me, “I hate it.”

Adam’s face had a dark look.

“I can kind of relate.” I said.

He gave me a questioning look and I continued.

“I mean, I recognize that this is a stretch but when I get my period I feel disgusting and gross and I hate it. I know what it feels like in that regard.”

Adam crossed his arms and gave me an “oh, come ON” type of look.

“Okay,” I said putting my hands up in surrender, “so empathy isn’t exactly what you’re looking for right now. How about some silver linings?”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. I nudged him so he’d scoot over and then sat to face him on the side of his bed.

“One silver lining is that the nurses aren’t in a full-on riot against you yet because you’re so cute.” I smiled.

He sighed again.

“Not good enough? Okay, well, we can hang out all day here together and explore the hospital. I’ll call out of work.”

He looked at me and I took his hand which caused him to uncross his arms. He sniffled.

“Getting closer? Ummmm. I could convince the nurses to let me get you some sorbet from the cafeteria.”

“Fine.” He said not looking at me.

“Oh. Well that’s a shame.” I said.

“What is?” He eyed me.

“I hadn’t gotten to the best silver lining yet, but if I won you over with the sorbet…well…”

I moved to get up and he pulled me back down.

“Are you going to bring me my Xbox?” He asked.

“Uh, no.”

His face fell a little, “Well, then, what?”

“Well, it sucks that your surgery has been delayed but on the bright side,” I leaned across him and propped myself up on my elbow and moved the index finger of my other hand around the knuckles of his hand and looked down, “you have a girlfriend who loves you and is REALLY great at card games.”

I looked up at him and smiled.

“Sorry, what was that?” He broke out into a grin.

“I’m also great at word finds. Like, freakishly good at them. Like, I could win contests and break records if they had those for word finds.” I said.

Adam wrapped his arms around me and hugged me and then gave me a deep kiss.

“I’m glad you’re here.” He said when we broke apart.

I wiped a tear from before off of his cheek and held my hand there for a moment.

“Me, too.”

Just then a nurse came in and interrupted the moment.

“Are you going to behave, now?” She asked him.

I got up so she could take his blood pressure and temperature.

“It’s coming down.” She said looking at the thermometer, “We’ll give you some more meds to bring it down to normal and you should be good to go in the morning.”

Adam beamed as she left then looked at me.

“What kind of card games?” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

“It wasn’t a line.” I said, “I actually AM really good at card games. Although, I draw the line at UNO because that game has the ability to ruin friendships.”

“I have a better idea,” he reached his hand out to me and I joined him on his bed again.

“What?” I asked plopping down.

“We make out for, like, an hour, and then you go get an entire gallon of orange sorbet for me.”

We both laughed and he pulled me in for kissing. Lots of kissing.

“Okay. I’m going to go get you your sorbet, but while I’m gone you really need to apologize to the nurses you were terrorizing all day. I wasn’t kidding when I said you were on thin ice with them. And do your sexy half-smile thing, you look super hot when you do that.”

“What?” Adam asked with a smirk.

“Yeah, just like that. That one.”

“You think I’m super hot, huh?” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

“Oh my God, Adam.” I laughed, stood up, and headed to the door, “I’m serious, you should apologize to them.”

“I will.” He said waving at me as I left.

So, that’s how I told Adam I loved him. He had his surgery the next day and it went smoothly. He was discharged from the hospital a few days ago and is doing well. The nurses received an apology that day and a muffin basket to thank them upon his departure from the hospital. Adam certainly wasn’t kidding about how his bag made him feel. He’s not a completely different person or anything, but I’ve noticed he’s been carrying himself differently and doesn’t seem so uptight if I wrap my arms around his torso or touch it anymore.

I’ve gotta admit, I realized I was in love with Adam the night before his surgery but I wanted to wait to tell him until after his surgery (that didn’t happen, obviously) because I wanted him to just be able to focus on that and his recovery but I think, in the end, telling him when I did worked out. I feel a little embarrassed in hindsight about how I acted when he first told me but he caught me off guard! I do feel that our relationship has moved pretty fast when I wanted it to move a lot slower but it seems silly not to acknowledge how I feel. The fact is that I love my boyfriend. And while that revelation happened only a month into our relationship, I think we’ve moved pretty slow with regard to everything else. I mean, we haven’t even had sex yet and Adam hasn’t met the girls yet, either. I haven’t met his friends, yet. We still have so many steps to (slowly) take together that I don’t feel scared about where we are.

I love him. And that’s where we are and it feels good and comfortable and safe.

(Author's note: SURPRISE POST! -del)