A Heart Healed

There was something about that that reminded her about the situation she had when it came to her and Julian. Her brother used to be like Ezra before his son was born. Out every night with different kinds of people, doing all sorts of crazy things that made him stay up until the early hours of the morning. Until one day, he said he was going to settle down to get married to a girl who would become the birth mother to Naomi’s nephew, Nathaniel.

Of course, while the baby did happen, the wedding did not.

“Are you going to keep staring at me or do you just want a picture?” Marc snapped at her unexpectedly. Her cheeks flared with warmth before she jerked her gaze away from him and down to Ezra’s files once again. She pulled a pen from the pocket of her scrubs and scribbled in the new readings from the ECG machine.

“Goodnight then.” She nodded to him before making a quick escape from the room, slotting the file in its place and shutting the door behind her. Naomi needed to take a few minutes to calm herself after that as she walked towards the nurses’ station. What was this feeling that was broiling in her chest? Anger? Embarrassment?

Whatever it was, it just made her hot and bothered underneath her scrubs as the way he had snapped at her replayed in her memory. To think she was beginning to think they had something in common, but maybe she just wanted to believe it. Why would she even want to have anything in common with that crabby man anyway? Sure, he was hot, richer than most people in the world, and cared about his brother, but that didn’t make up for his attitude.

Gosh, he was the most infuriating individual she’d ever encountered!

*****

The next evening, Naomi had decided to just allow him to be his terrible self so that the two of them could just do whatever they needed to, and she could just leave the hospital for the day. After signing a few discharge forms for some of the patients who would leave the following day, she headed to Ezra Hewitt’s room on the first floor. The evening rush of visitors had died out already, leaving those with special permission, or those just leaving, as the only non-medical personnel left.

Speaking of the former, when she got to the room, Marc Hewitt was there in his chair as always, dressed in a tracksuit that made him look like he’d either just come from the gym or maybe some kind of sports game. He wasn’t glaring at her this time around, instead he was fast asleep in that chair, laying his head on the mattress of the hospital bed.

She silently grabbed the file and performed her checkup as routine, keeping her gaze on that mess of blonde hair on the end of the bed. What was his story? Did he not have a really expensive bed at home probably stuffed with something that could pay off her student debt? Dr. Adamson had given him special permission to be here at night, sure, but that was only for an extra couple of hours. He couldn’t stay like this.

It wasn’t good for anyone’s neck to be sleeping like that anyway. Not that she cared.

She moved towards him, bending over to look at his face. Naomi’s hard gaze softened when she saw what it actually looked like. Even though he was already pale when they had first met, the man looked like he’d never seen the sun in weeks, not to mention the dark circles that seemed to take up residence under his eyes. Those cheeks of his actually looked like they could fall inward if she touched them, not to mention the chapped lips.

He looked like whatever had been bothering him had been going on long before his brother’s accident. As a medical professional, her conscious couldn’t allow someone who clearly needed help to carry on like this. Whether it was calling a psychologist or something, something had to be done.

There was only one problem though.

How could she get him to even accept her help? After all, most of their interactions so far have been arguing or snappy comebacks. If she outright told him that he needed to see a doctor for himself, he’d probably think she was trying to insult him or something and then he’d really avoid getting help for himself.

She idly raised a hand and bit down on her knuckle as she tried to think of something, pacing back and forth at the foot of the hospital bed. No matter what she came up, however, her idea just collapsed as quickly as it came. There were too many things that could go wrong in this kind of situation, and Naomi didn’t know what to do about it.

Her hand came over her eyes as she left out a deep sigh. This was exactly what she was warned about. She had somehow gotten somewhat attached already and now she was thinking herself into a spiral. Great going. You were about to allow your own anxiety getting the upper hand again.

A second later, she heard a weak groan coming from the bed. Oh great, he woke up! She turned her head, expecting another harsh glance from Marc Hewitt.

What she didn’t expect, however, was that the person that was looking back at her wasn’t the older brother. It was Ezra.

What should she do now? Should she wake the other man up? As much as he looked like he really needed to hear some good news right now, Marc really looked like he needed to sleep more.

Naomi moved around the bed and stopped off by Ezra’s head. His watery eyes unfocused on anything even though they were open, a few tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Ezra, can you hear me?” she said softly into his ear. The young man tried to move his head to look at her but flinched back at the pain. “I wouldn’t suggest that right now. Just listen. My name is Dr. Naomi Bennett, you’ve been a car accident and were brought here to St. Joseph’s Hospital.”

The young man’s eyes looked in her direction. Pupils severely dilated and unfocused, she noticed, which meant the pain meds were at least at work. To be honest, he should have stayed asleep for another few days, because now the real battle began.

Especially going through physical therapy later.

A breathy croak escaped Ezra’s lips. “Hey now. It’s okay, your throat is still healing from the ventilator. It would probably be better to stick to yes or no questions for a bit. Blink once for yes, twice for no kind of deal.”

He blinked once. Those blue eyes of his focusing slowly on her as the medication flowing through his veins started wearing off. When he was fully awake, he was going to really feel the side effects of all those surgeries he had gone through.

Maybe it was best to start slow. “Were you asking about your family?”

He slowly blinked once again. Of course, he wanted to see his family.

“Well, your brother Marc is here. Although, I must say he looks terrible and should sleep more. He was really worried about you, so he’s been a real grump.”

Ezra’s eyes rolled instead.

“Maybe you should sleep a little more too. He’ll probably want to fuss over you more once he knows you’re awake.”

He didn’t move for a few seconds, staring at her as she turned to leave the room for the evening. Naomi didn’t see the moment where he just blinked twice before just closing his eyes with a painful sigh.

*****

The next morning, Naomi didn’t have it in her to rush to work. The two weeks following the accident had taken too much strain on her mind and body lately. She had been coming home later than usual, calling her friend who lived in the apartment next door to feed Iris before she came home to just collapse on top of her bed, sometimes still wearing her scrubs.