“I get the feeling I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”
His doctor, a large black man with a silver goatee, looked at his chart again. Steve closed his eyes, leaning back against the hospital bed. As soon as they stabilized him in the emergency room, they had moved him to a private room on the sixth floor. He could see the colorful sparks of Roman candles and bottle rockets occasionally light up the night sky from his window, but he could not hear the sounds through the double pane glass.
He hated hospitals. The squeak of shoes on the tile, the smell of disinfectant, the bright fluorescent lights—he hadn’t stepped inside a hospital since the day Gracie died. He took a deep breath and tried to think about the words the doctor said.
His head ached. His earlobe throbbed. N
