64 Stitches

When the cops arrived, I gave them my statement and they took pictures of my face. I told them that I did in fact want to press charges as I needed to go to the hospital and have my face stitched. That every time we attempted to try and clean the area, if would start to bleed and was not stopping. They advised that after I was done at the hospital to come by the station and they would help me get a temporary restraining order on her and point me in the right direction at the court house for the rest of the paperwork. I thanked them before both Dornells assured me that Anna would take Scotts place, while Scott handled my work. They told me to rest at home and they would see me next Monday, but to let them know if I needed anything.

I got a hold of David to come pick me up and take me to the hospital to get my face stitched. As soon as I was in the car, the last of the adrenaline left my system and I started to shake from the exhaustion.

"Ms. Xenos? Are you okay?" David inquires, looking into the rear view mirror in concern at me.

"No, I'll be fine." My tongue feels heavy and I can tell by his confusion that I must not have made sense.

He pulls over and grabs something out of a bag he has in the front seat and opens it.

"Here, Ms. Xenos. It's a granola bar. I think your blood sugar is low." 

I am able to grab it and take a bite, but have trouble chewing it. It's causing my wound to pull and open up again as I feel the warmth start coming through the gauze now. I get it down and start to feel better.

David starts driving again and within a few minutes, we're at the hospital. As David drops me off at the front desk, a familiar face calls out to me. 

"Melita? What happened to you?!" I look up and see the handsome face of Aman Patil, one of the friends from Lirael and Sarina's club.

"I was attacked at work and got snagged by a ring or nail, not sure. It just keeps opening up." I move the gauze away from my face as he takes a look. 

He looks at the waiting room nurse and says quickly, "I'm taking Ms. Xenos with me to my exam room. I'll take care of her."

I place the gauze back up on my face, "You don't have to do that, Aman. I'm sure you have other patients you need to see first." I say feeling guilty, looking at the amount of people in the waiting room. 

"Nonsense, I'm here on a call for a second opinion. It's not a problem. Besides, you'll be waiting for hours if I leave you here. When I can patch you up in less than thirty. Come on." He motions for me to follow him as makes his way through the doors, flashing a keycard at the lock. 

I follow behind him, through the maze of hallways and corridors, Aman flashing his keycard and saying hello to nurses and other doctors who recognize him. He finally stops in front of a door and opens it. It's a small waiting room that has a small office door and an exam room inside as well.

"Wow, you have your own office in this hospital?" I take note of this.

"Technically, yes. This is for me and three other doctors that do consultations at the moment. Go ahead and sit in the exam room, I'm just going to set up my bag and stuff in the office really quickly." Aman motions for me to take a seat in the exam room as he enter his office.

It's cool in the room but I take notice of all the different types of machines that are kept in the room. The blood pressure and normal equipment is there, but what I'm guessing to be a sonogram machine is present as well as others that I have no idea are for. A small refrigerator that states specimens only sits under a table on a shelf too, next to an glass faced one that's locked up, with a scanner that is holding vials and shots ready to go.

Aman comes in, wearing a doctors coat now and washes his hands and puts on some three pairs of gloves. "Alright, lets see. Would you prefer to lay down or I can sit you in a chair to do these?" 

"I'll lay down." I lay back on the exam table as he begins pulling out medical supplies from the cupboards and placing them on a metal tray he pulled out first. He opens the locked case and pulls out a syringe and scans it on the scanner along with his ID badge before locking it back up.

"So you got into a fight at work? You don't seem like the kind of person who fights, if you don't mind me saying." He turns to me and has me take the gauze down before he sets some napkins under my head and he begins to clean the area. 

"More like attacked. I had just arrived at my office and sat down when this stupid woman I work with comes barreling into my office, screaming and tries to hit me. I didn't think she had actually hit me, but I guess I was wrong."

Aman who's paying attention to what he's doing cleaning makes noises of affirmation, "Yeah, she got you alright. I'm guessing a ring is what did this. It's jagged but she didn't rip any skin off so I can get away with maybe two or three small stitches that should be good to keep it from opening up. I'll give you a shot to numb the area."

"Thank you. I appreciate it." I give him a tight smile, that has him lifting some more gauze to the wound. 

He chuckles, "And that's why it keeps opening. It's in an area that gets a lot of movement anytime you make a facial reaction of any sort. That's okay. We're going to take care of that." 

He readies the syringe, "Okay, little pinch..." barely felt it, "another little pinch," that one stung, "another little pinch," nope, "and I think right here should be good."

The last one made my eye socket feel weird. 

"So we need to give it a few minutes to numb the area." Aman scoots back and picks up all the gauze from cleaning up, and wraps them up in the first layer of gloves he has on.

"So Aman how did you meet Sarina, Lirael, and all the others?" I ask, just to make conversation.

Aman chuckles, "Well I met Lirael first at McKinney hospital. We worked there together before the new buildings were finished. Believe it or not, I asked her out on a date." 

My eyes widen at him in surprise. "But I thought you're.."

Aman's chocolate brown eyes crinkle in amusement, "I am. I know, what you're going to ask. Then why ask her out?" 

I nod for him to go on.

"My family is the arranged marriage type of family. Long story short, it would never work out so I asked Lirael to be my 'girlfriend' to get the other woman to leave me alone. Lirael was happy to help me out. She's a wonderful friend that I'm very grateful to have met. In fact, she left some jewelry in my car on accident from that 'date' and that's how I ended up meeting Vernon."

"Is that Big Daddy's real name?" I ask, surprised.

Aman nods, he gets a proud smile on his face as he says dreamily, "Yes. I never would have thought such a man like him existed, but thanks to Lirael we found each other."

I try not to smile to reopen my wound again, but it's hard to suppress, "Was it love at first sight?" 

Aman laughs, "Oh no! It was lust for him, but me? I was terrified."

We both share a chuckle at that admition.

He adds on, "But, I became intrigued after talking to him. I soon came to realize that he was exactly who I was looking for, I just had to be brave enough to accept it." We share a chuckle as the numbing starts taking effect and I could not tell if I was holding the gauze to it or not.

"I think it's numb now." I move the gauze down from my cheek.

"Alright, I'll make this as small as possible so you don't get a scar okay?"

"Thank you Aman. If I do get a scar, it won't be a problem. I'm used to those." I lift my hands up and show off the light colored scars that flash over the back of my hand.

"Where'd you get all those from?" Aman stares wide eyed, "Do you own a cat?" 

"Uh.. no." I hesitate, "I had a drunk for a father." These scars were all from defending my head.

Aman's eyes fill with understanding, "I'm sorry to hear that. Well, no worries, your pretty face will be fine. I promise you're in good hands with me." 

It's over before I realize it and Aman is cleaning up the area and placing the items for sterilization in a bin. He has me follow him to his office and he asks me some questions to fill out for paperwork and insurance purposes. 

"Will my insurance even cover this? I mean you're a specialist doctor are you not?" I ask him.

"They will. I just label it a special way and it's like a doctor who steps in for another due to circumstances beyond our control. It's no big deal." 

"Thank you Aman. I could have paid either way but thank you for having my insurance pay for it." 

He winks at me, "Why pay for it, if you can't use it right?" 

"Right." 

My phone starts ringing and I pull it out to see it's Jackson. 

"Are we done here, Aman? I need to take this." 

He waves me bye and I answer.

"Hey, Jackson."

"What happened today? Are you okay?"