[TWO WEEKS LATER]
Refusing painkillers doubled Karter's recovery time. His body was more strained, he was more stressed, and so he recovered from his surgery slower than he otherwise would have.
But he was clean, and that was the most important thing to him.
Keenan's sutures were taken out of her forehead and Mariam, ever an angel, had been driving her to school and making sure she was alright when Karter couldn't.
Today, though, Karter was coming home.
He was feeling remarkably better, too, which in turn had everyone feeling better.
"Can we go?" Karter asked. He was sitting up on the edge of his bed, dressed in sweats instead of a hospital gown. He still had gauze wrapped around his forehead, not that he cared. He was happy to not feel like his brain was being split in half.
"Uh," I said, pausing to look around. I rechecked the hospital room, making sure nothing important would be forgotten. "Yeah, we can go."
"Did you talk to Louis and tell him not to feel bad?" Karter asked.
"I did," I said.
Louis and I had a label meeting. He opted to go and handle it himself so I could stay with Karter. He left the hospital early this morning to catch his flight to New York, very reluctantly.
He figured that I would be able to get Karter home in one piece better than he would. Where he was getting that logic from? I wasn't sure. But he insisted that it should be him going to New York instead of me.
"Does he still feel bad?" Karter asked. He stood up from his spot and I held my arms out, ready to catch him if I needed to. Luckily, he kept his legs underneath him.
"I'm sure he does, buttercup. It's Louis."
"That's fair," Karter said.
The last two weeks gave both of us a very new version of Louis to interact with. Panicked-stressed out-father Louis. Louis, who was always asking doctors and nurses for updates and if they thought everything was healing right.
In hindsight, it was probably good for Louis to get some space and go deal with other things.
Karter and I walked to the nurses station, where I was handed the final set of sign out papers.
"Remember. No strenuous exercise, no long showers, let's avoid standing or walking around for long periods of time. You're still healing, not healed," a nurse lectured.
"I'll be chill," Karter promised. The nurse raised her eyebrows. "Chill as ice. Cool as a cucumber. Chillin' like a villain. Cold like-"
"Okay, I get it," the nurse laughed, cutting him off. I laughed and shook my head. The nurse looked at me, laughing too. "If you have any questions or concerns, there's a bunch of phone numbers on this first page. Mine, Dr. Winn's, the hospital's. Obviously if something is very wrong, call 911 instead. Sound good?"
"Sounds good," I said, "thank you."
"Yeah, thanks for not letting me die," Karter said.
YOU ARE READING
𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙒𝙀 𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙎𝙃𝙀𝘿 ↣ 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝘿𝙄𝙍𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉
Fanfiction[this is the story of my happily ever after. and don't worry, it's definitely a fun one.] - ❝I will love you until the end of time, and then even longer after that.❞ - Mickey Horan finally got the happiness she wanted. She found it in her biologic...
