Nursing Professor Pompous

Nursing Professor Pompous. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Please wake up, Gary, please!" Misty gripped his shirt collar like a life-raft, digging into the fabric as though his mortality depended on her physical strength alone. "Don't you dare do this to me! WAKE UP!"

She shook him.

Hard.

Hard enough to jar the senses out of a conscious man and (hopefully) back into an unconscious one.

Hard enough that his glasses nearly fell from his face and Misty had to quickly secure them.

Tears blurred her eyes as Gary's head hung limply backward. He was too heavy for her to hold up much longer, she wasn't sure if she could even shake him again.

" . . . mmmm . . . "

Misty froze.

Gary's lips moved as he tried, and failed, to formulate a word. Dark lashes gave a glimpse of woozy blue.

Misty tightened her grasp on his shirt collar and rattled his frame once more. Gary's lashes fluttered again as though mocking her, not yet convinced that they should grant vitality to his eyes. He was trying to wake, but his consciousness was threatening to abandon him again. If jostling his body wasn't powerful enough to rouse him, then maybe zeroing-in on his eardrums would be!

"OOOAAAKKK!" Misty's sheer volume could've summoned Gary's ancestors from their graves!

"ARBOOOOKK!" And when the snake harmonized with her, they were loud enough to raise an army of Oak descendants!

Gary bolted upward like he'd been hit with a defibrillator in the groin! He gasped, the bewilderment within his eyes was magnified by his glasses.

"Are you alright?" Misty released his shirt collar and clutched his face between her hands. His fevered skin was slick as though he'd just washed with butter.

Gary shook his own head now, as if trying to fling the invisible butter from his face. "Medi-medication rea-ct-ion," he slurred, still processing reality.

"Medication reaction?" Misty repeated. Continuing to squeezing his face between her hands, she stilled him and forced eye contact. "I'll call an ambulance, okay? Just hang in there. I'm so sorry!"

"No," Gary stiffened, seeming to become suddenly very alert. Disorientation was replaced by obstinance. "No hospital. I'll be okay."

"You don't look okay."

"I'll be okay, dammit." He jerked his face from her grasp. "It's a just bad reaction to one of the medications. I probably shouldn't have taken them all together like that. Don't overreact."

"Don't overreact?! You blacked out. You're fevered and sweat through all of your clothes! Why didn't you yell out for me? Or call for help on your cellphone?"

"I did yell for you, but you obviously didn't hear me and my cellphone is still in the living room. I rang the bell for you to get it, but you ignored me."

"You were driving me crazy! Just ringing that stupid bell over and over. I thought you were just being an ass."

"I was being an ass. I liked watching yours walk out the door, okay? What's done is done. Just calm down, will ya?"

Emotion hijacked Misty's voice, she couldn't event register the (sort of) compliment he'd just dealt her. "You . . . you scared me, Gary."

"Don't start," he spat the words like a curse, but . . . paused, seeming to notice the genuine fear on her face for the first time. Gary's expression thawed. "Seriously, though, Waterflower," he reached for her trembling hand and laced his fingers with hers, squeezing gently. "I'm okay. It's run its course, alright?" his big fingers rolled hers over, as though trying to kneed reassurance into her skin. Gary summoned his bravado and smiled. "I'm sorry that I scared you."