Shot

The police detective straightened her lapel before heading into the bullpen. She took pride in her looks. It used to be just because she enjoyed turning heads and using her good looks to get suspects to like her and manipulate them into incriminating themselves. But lately, she had noticed that her partner’s opinion mattered more than it should have. Partners are supposed to trust each other with their lives, but it was highly unethical (though not unheard of) for them to become romantically involved. She noticed him noticing her when she looked good. They’d saved one another’s lives multiple times, crashed on each other’s couches when necessary, and shared their deepest secrets and oldest traumas with one another. It had taken three years of partnership to grow from strangers into a deep friendship, and she considered him her best friend. He brought her coffee every morning, just how she liked it. It made her smile every time. There were shoulder punches, fist bumps, nudges in the side - all touches that could be seen as platonic. Yet when their fingers brushed accidentally, the unexpected contact brought unexpected heat.

Then there was that one time when they were tailing a suspect and he noticed them. Instead of getting made, her partner saved the op by turning, looking at her with a moment of hope and desire etched on his face, cupped the back of her head, and kissed her. Deeply. Soundly. Thoroughly. Her faint squeak of surprise was muffled by his lips, his tongue teasing her mouth open. When he released her, she gasped, overwhelmed, her gaze glued to his, both of their hearts racing. The suspect didn’t think it looked fake and turned to continue on his way. The op was saved. And the partners never spoke of that kiss.

---

But the day came when they rounded a corner, chasing a suspect into an alley, when the suspect turned and fired three wild shots in their direction. One caught her square in the chest. He lunged for her, immediately putting pressure on the wound, trying to radio in for an ambulance without releasing pressure. She was fading fast, too fast. Her fear-filled eyes became glassy while his became frantic. He begged. “Please. Hang on. Stay with me. Please. Stay with me. I love you, Jen. I love you. Stay with me.” She blacked out. There were flashes of coming to – strobing lights and screaming sirens, then black, corridor lights rolling overhead with an EMT on top of her, then black, surgeons in green scrubs, then black. It echoed in her head, swirled together – the blast of the gunfire, the sirens, the lights, and the “I love you, Jen.”

She awakened, groggy from morphine that didn’t fully erase the ache in her chest. Her mouth was dry. As she looked around the blurry room, she saw her father asleep in the recliner by the window, the sill filled with flowers. She tried to call out to him, but her throat was too sore from being intubated. The information on the white board across the room told her the nurse’s name, the doctor’s name, and the date. It had been four days since she was shot. Her eyelids were heavy, and no matter how much she tried to bring herself to full consciousness and remember what exactly had happened, it was too foggy, and too many memories were swimming together at once. Or were they dreams? Her eyelids betrayed her and seemed to become concrete curtains, forcing her back to sleep.

The next time she woke, her father and her partner were chatting quietly, each with a cup of coffee in hand. She had a vivid memory of the burning punch in the chest, the sound of gunfire echoing, and Mark pleading with her to stay with him, that he loved her… and she didn’t know what to do with that. Was it even real? She groaned as she shifted, and the two men were instantly at her side, asking if she was okay and if she needed anything. Christ Almighty, her entire chest and back hurt.

“How… how bad is it?” she murmured. Mark’s eyes welled with tears, but he blinked them back and took a deep breath. “It was bad. But you’re going to be okay. You’re out of the woods. Just rest.” She nodded. Her eyed drifted closed. About 15 minutes later, her eyes fluttered open, and she asked the same question, along with if it was her fault. “No. No, of course not. He got lucky.” She couldn’t remember the answers and kept rousing every few minutes, asking the same things over and over. When the nurse came in and told them that visitor’s hours were over, her father asked to stay since she was waking and still disoriented, but the nurse refused. Both men retreated to the waiting room, where her father convinced Mark to go home and shower and sleep in his own bed, that he’d call if there was any change. The call came in the morning, about an hour before visiting hours began: she was awake. He was already ready to go - freshly shaven, dressed nicely in a shirt she’d complimented before – so he hurried out to buy flowers on his way to the hospital.

“Heeyyyy, Marrkk.” She was still loopy, but she smiled, and the crushing weight that had been on his chest for five days finally lifted. She was awake. “Toolipss… my favorite… thank youuu.” Another smile. Oh, praise Jesus, Allah, and anyone else who might have helped. He pulled a chair to her bedside and took her hand, careful to not bump the IV. The relief he felt was overwhelming. She blinked slowly, with an adoring smile, and said, “They said… you saved me.…”

“Yeah. Wait. You – you don’t remember?” He’d finally confessed his feelings, and she doesn’t remember?

He stuttered and stammered; she studied his face to try and decipher his emotions. Was that disappointment? She couldn’t tell. The fog of the drugs coursing through her stole her confidence in her memory. What if he hadn’t said it? What if that was a dream?

“No… I… it’s probably better that I don’t remember.” She kept studying him.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I guess it is.” He didn’t want her to remember getting shot, but he desperately wanted her to remember what he’d said. He’d wanted her to smile her joyful, toothy grin and say it back; instead she winced in pain.

His agreement hurt her. She didn’t realize it but she was expecting him to say it again. She was expecting a grand gesture. A declaration of love in his go-big-or-go-home style. Something like, I almost lost you, Jen, and I can’t let that happen. I love you, and I’ll do anything to make you mine. Had he said that, it would have all been so easy.

But he didn’t. Instead, he agreed that it was better for her to forget. The pain in her heart ripped through her morphine, so through gritted teeth and in visible pain, she asked him to leave, to give her some space and time to heal. She thought it would only be a few days.

---

The bullet had ripped through her left lung, leaving her with stitches from the initial wound, the thoracotomy, and the chest tube. Her physical therapist said the recovery could take months. She decided to go to her father’s lake cabin to recuperate. It was the only place where she really felt like she could leave her troubles behind. She walked in the woods, short distances at first. She lifted small things. He father drove her back and forth for PT and checkups. She had zoom counseling sessions with the precinct-mandated therapist. She was unusually quiet and didn’t want visitors. She hated being weak. Once her stitches were out, her father started leaving her alone some. She texted her best girl friend to let her know she was okay. But she didn’t call Mark.

---

He was devastated. His calls and texts went unanswered. Thankfully, her father was gracious enough to update him on her progress. “Don’t take it too personally, son. She’s struggling. Just give her time.” It was excruciating. He longed to hold her, to help her heal, to do anything she needed. But he had a job to do. He and his new partner quickly found and arrested Jen’s shooter in a heroin flop house. He tried his hardest to push her from his mind, but he couldn’t stop his dreams – dreams of that single kiss on a dark sidewalk, the taste of her cherry lip gloss, her tongue touching his, the softness of her hair when he cupped her head, the lust and surprise in her eyes when he took that kiss without warning, then the blood pooling on her chest, the chaotic beeping changing to a steady flatline in the ambulance while he pleaded with her to come back, the flurry of movement of the EMTs doing everything they could to bring her back, the hot tears on his cheeks as the trauma room doors swung shut in his face – and he’d awake with a gasp every time, terror knotted in his stomach.

---

Her father brewed a pot of coffee. The cabin smelled of cedar and flowers and clean air and sounded of crickets and birds and life. She gratefully accepted the cup he passed to her by smiling but saying, “I could have gotten it myself.”

The ceramic warmed her fingers and she thought of the countless cups of coffee brought to her by other man who always made just right.

“I know you could, Sweetheart. Can’t you just let somebody love on you?” She flinched – her father was referring to himself, but it had never really connected for her that the coffee was a little tiny everyday gesture of love. The rare occasion that Mark didn’t walk in with two coffees in hand always threw her through a loop. And that one time that a hot, red-headed consultant took her cup of coffee right out of Mark’s hand? She saw red. It felt no different than if that woman had walked up and kissed him. Jen had pushed that jealousy aside and denied it existed at the time. If she’d acknowledged it, she’d have to admit why it made her so angry, and she hadn’t even been willing to admit it to herself.

So she sipped her coffee in silence with her father, watching the tree frog crawl on the window and the condensation trail down her mug. Oh, how she longed for a coffee from Mark. His little gestures. His kindness and chivalry, which somehow didn’t diminish her strength and professionalism. How he’d grab a sandwich for her what she hyperfocused and forgot to eat. How he had her back every day. None of these acts was a grand gesture. But it was consistent. Maybe he was showing her love after all, day after day. Maybe… maybe he’d really said it. “I love you, Jen. I love you. Stay with me.” It echoed both in her sweet dreams and nightmares.

Maybe he hoped she didn’t forget.

She wanted to pick up the phone and call him, ask him. But she was still so broken, and she was sure she’d break him, too.

---

She stopped calling the few people she was still keeping in touch with, save for checking in with her counselor as scheduled. For three more weeks, she tried to figure out how to make herself heal enough to believe that she should be loved by a man like him, that she wasn’t too broken. She made a plan. One step at a time. She’d come back to life. Back to work. She’d show him how important he was to her. She’d let him know how much she cared for him, that she had felt this way for a long time. She wouldn’t string him along, would let him know she was still healing, and was working on being ready for the real deal.

Without a word to anyone but her father, she left the cabin.

---

A knock at his door startled him from his book. It was early evening, yet already dark. A look through the peephole startled him. She was here. He opened the door, too stunned for manners, and blurted, “What are you doing here? Are you ok?” All his hurt from being ignored for two months was momentarily forgotten at the sight of her on his porch.

Daring to trust that it wasn’t all in her mind, she stepped forward, reached for his face, and drew him into a kiss that took his breath away. His gasp separated their lips, and she breathed, “I remember, Mark. I remember.” He searched her eyes and saw love, hope, fear, and vulnerability, and his eyes crinkled with his smile as he leaned in, pausing when their noses touched, entwining their fingers, then kissed her back with even more passion and truth than the kiss they’d both carried in their dreams.