Sophia’s Point of View
It felt like the surgery had taken hours when the moment the doctor stepped out of the operating room in his light blue scrubs.
In mere seconds, Nana and I were at his side, Nana’s hold on my hand almost painfully tight.
“Doctor, how is my grandson?” She asked, her voice holding a slight tremor.
The world seemed suspended in that moment before the doctor spoke.
“He’s out of danger,” The doctor said. “Luckily, the knife didn’t hit any of his vital organs.”
I almost fell over from the rush of relief that flooded my veins. Mr Prescott was fine. He was alright.
Caught up in my relief, I barely heard the doctor’s following words saying something about stitches and mandatory overnight monitoring by a house nurse for early discharge or something like that.
“Can I see him now?” I asked, interrupting the doctor midspeech.
He looked at me and seemed to register the blood on me and my overall disheveled appearance for the first time
“Ma’am, have you gotten checked out and-” The doctor was saying but I didn’t let him finish.
“I’m fine, I promise,” I said. “I just need to see him for a moment, he’s my husband.”
For a moment, it seemed like the doctor was going to decline my request until Nana interceeded.
“A few seconds shouldn’t be a problem, right doctor.” Nana said and it wasn’t a question but a demand.
“Alright,” The doctor said, relenting. “But it will only be for a few seconds and you mustn’t do anything that will potentially bother the patient.”
Then with a grateful glance at Nana for letting me see Mr Prescott first when she was beside herself with worry, I went into Mr Prescott’s room.
The room was quiet save for the beeping of the machines in the corner and there at the center of the room, there was Mr Prescott.
He was tucked into a bed so attached to some fluids and with his pallor not as ashy as it was earlier he looked better but still more vulnerable than I had ever seen him.
Something shifted inside me as I took my seat on the chair at Mr Prescott’s bedside. I placed my hand over his much larger cooler one.
“I’m the one who is sorry,” I whispered, trying and failing to stop the tears in my eyes from falling.
I shouldn’t have gone out for the engagement party celebration. I shouldn’t have overheard Kate’s conversation. Then none of this would have happened.
Whatever Mr Prescott had apologized for before passing out couldn’t be as bad as what I had done.
“I need you to be fine, please, Mr Prescott.” I said, my mind overthinking all the failings I needed to make up for.
If he was fine, if we got through this then I would give this thing between us a chance.
I’d take a chance because if there was one thing I had realized as Mr Prescott’s warm blood stained my palm red, it was that I was more scared of losing him than I was of getting my heart broken again.
I had to leave the room after a few seconds but I held on to Mr Prescott’s hand for as long as I could while I was there.
I knew I was throwing caution to the wind at this point and that there was a high chance I would get burnt but I couldn’t make myself care.
Nana ignored my protests and forced me to return home afterwards to rest and eat for the sake of the babies after a doctor had checked me out and given me some drugs to lower my blood pressure.
She would stay at the hospital overnight with Mr Prescott she said, and she would call me the moment he opened his eyes.
I didn’t want to leave but my children needed me to be strong right now and besides I couldn’t help Mr Prescott if I was weak myself.
So I went to our now empty feeling home, forcefed myself and took my medications that wiped me out almost immediately after I had them.
When I woke up, it was late in the afternoon.
Cursing lightly, I rushed to dress up to go to the hospital ignoring the covered plate of food at my bedside that Nana must have instructed the staff to leave for me.
I took the stairs two at a time only to stop midstep when I saw Nana entering the foyer, a nurse at her side pushing Mr Prescott in with a wheelchair.
Mr Prescott’s clear gray eyes met mine and before I fully registered what I was doing, I raced to meet him going on my knees so I was just the right height to hug him.
Mr Prescott seemed surprised by the suddenness of my hug, his hands still on his lap before a soft wince escaped him and I realized I had leaned on his stitches in the process of hugging him.
I pulled away with an almost embarrassed flush.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”
“That’s because he isn’t supposed to be.” Nana harrumphed. “He refused to stay in the hospital. The doctor had to confine him to this wheelchair so he wouldn’t rip his stitches.”
Oh. So that was why the nurse was here.
Mr Prescott didn’t seem to hear what Nana was saying, his eyes staying on me and it wasn’t until he reached out to touch my neck where the faint red line from where my attacker had almost strangled me was.
“Did you get checked out at the hospital? Nana mentioned you were being stubborn.” He asked, his fingers still on my pulse.
I couldn’t speak or even come up with a coherent thought with him touching me and looking at me like that. Despite the fact that Nana and the nurse were there, it felt like the world had faded save from us.
Mr Prescott’s gaze grew softer but no less compelling as he spoke.
“You need to take care of yourself, Sophia. I can’t see you hurt.”
It felt like my heart left my chest for all of a few moments. It wasn’t just the words, it was the way Mr Prescott was looking at me as though this attack had changed something in our dynamic.
“I’ll take care of myself.” I promised then I straightened from my crouch to face the nurse. “Thank you for all your help but I can take it from here.”
Mr Prescott had saved my life, the least I could do was return the favor.
“Sophia.” Mr Prescott cautioned but I ignored him still facing the nurse.
“Just tell me what I need to do.” I said.
“Of course Mrs Prescott, I’ll send all the specifications for the changing of dressing and check-in schedule to you as an email.”
She nodded amiably, sharing a suspicious-looking side glance with Nana. Huh. Strange.
Mr Prescott didn’t wait a minute once we were inside our room before he made his displeasure known.
“You don’t need to do this.” He said.
I folded my arms fully ready for this argument.
“You didn’t need to save me either.”
Mr Prescott frowned.
“Miss Evergreen.”
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, Mr Prescott,” I said, my voice cracking slightly on the last line. “Because you came after me, you almost died. I’m allowed to want to take care of you.”
Mr Prescott’s expression was unreadable and I had never wanted to have the power of mind reading than I did in that moment.
“Alright.” He said finally but his voice didn’t hold any emotion that would point at his reaction to my claim of wanting to take care of him.
Good going, Sophia. I just had to keep embarrassing myself.
“You need a clean shirt.” I pointed out his stained shirt to avoid saying something else that could possibly be fatal.
Mr Prescott glanced at the blood-stained shirt and tried taking it off only to stop midway.
Oh. His stitches were still new, even a slight movement would cause a lot of pain for him.
“I’ve got it.” I told him crouching to assist him in getting it off.
I pulled the shirt off him and I definitely didn’t let my hands longer on his broad bare chest. I also definitely didn’t lose myself in his gaze, temporarily forgetting what I was supposed to be doing. Definitely.