Seeing Stars
39: Better Than My Heart
"These whiskey worn lips can't muster up a smile, the soles on my boots have walked their last mile, but they're still doing better, better than my heart..."
November 13th will always be one of those defining days in life for Cassidy. What started out as a normal morning would end drastically different. Jamie was in LA with the team, and would be back in the early morning for a short one game home stand before heading back out on the road. All that meant was Cassidy was going to be seeing more of the apartment.
She stretched awake that morning, seeing a text message from Jamie from their conversation the night before. She had fallen asleep, as he was much better at staying up at odd hours of the morning. And although they hadn’t been talking about anything important, his message still made her smile as she read it.
Cassidy pulled one of her blankets around her and shuffled out of her room, tottering about as she spotted Kennedy at the kitchen counter with the phone pressed tightly to her ear.
“You’re the sexiest Frenchman I know,” she giggled, and then after a moment, “that’s not true. I know plenty of Frenchmen,”
Cassidy rolled her eyes and pulled open the refrigerator door, attempting to find something to eat, but failing, as she didn’t want to prepare anything. Kennedy and Antoine had kept in touch since the Halloween party. It seemed as though he had taken Tyler’s place, and Cassidy didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed by that.
“But you by far have the most delicious co…”
“Kennedy!” Cassidy interrupted. She pointed towards Kennedy’s room and then watched as her friend slunk off towards her room and shut the door behind her.
She didn’t want to hear about Antoine Roussel’s genitalia at all. Boy did she have to get on the mission of getting Kennedy a boyfriend. And preferably one not on a hockey team; and definitely not a frat boy from the university. It would be a challenge to find a boy that would stick, but at this point, the sleeping around was going to have to stop.
While that didn’t really seem like a normal start to the morning, it was the most normal she would get. By the afternoon, plans would be changing constantly.
With noon approaching, Cassidy picked up the phone and called Nashville, wanting to talk to her father. It had been awhile since they’d last spoken; about a week. Which considering the news he’d laid on her, a week was a long time. She wanted to be adamant about calling daily, seeing as though she just couldn’t up and leave Dallas at a moment’s notice.
The phone rang and rang, and finally the answering machine came on, asking that she leave her name and number so she could be called back at a later time. But instead of leaving a message, she hung up and called again. Maybe her father had been sleeping, or on the porch and didn’t hear the phone.
The phone rang once. Then twice. Then for a third time. And after the fourth ring, someone picked up, muffling a hurried and breathless hello. Cassidy knew it was her dad’s in-home nurse, but she had never answered the phone before.
“Hi, it’s Cassidy. Is my dad there?”
“Oh no, miss. I had to bring him to the hospital. He had a seizure last night; his doctor is running tests,”
Too stunned to talk, the nurse hung up the phone after not receiving another response from Cassidy. After a second of standing still, she made a dash for her room, pulling a duffle bag out of her closet and started throwing clothes into it, moving as quickly as possible.
“Kennedy! I’m going to Nashville!” She yelled, and Kennedy was running out of her room just a moment later. Cassidy handed her the car keys, “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call when I know more,”
On a certain level, Kennedy had to know this was all about her dad. Something had happened. But sensing Cassidy’s distressed emotional state, she didn’t ask questions, she just drove to the airport, and dropped her friend off, wishing her the best.
She bought a ticket for the next flight to Nashville, and then remembered that without a paying job, she’d need to figure out how to pay that one off. With the plane leaving within the next half hour, she rushed to the terminal, shaking and panting as she took out her cell phone and dialed Jamie’s number.
His phone rang and rang as well, and Cassidy couldn’t believe the sour luck she was having with technology. But finally his soft, husky voice greeted her on the other end of the line.
“Hey beautiful,”
“Jamie, my dad’s in the hospital,” she choked back sobs and brought her hand up to her mouth as she felt her eyes begin to sting. It was taking everything in her to not cause a scene in public.
In an instant, Jamie went from cool and composed, to protective and worried, “what happened?” Despite asking her one question, Cassidy could hear him calling to someone as he passed by, needing their attention.
“His nurse said he had a seizure last night so she brought him to the hospital… they’re doing tests or something.” Tears started spilling from her eyes and she moved her hand from her mouth to her eyes, “Jamie…”
“Alright, shh,” he mumbled trying to calm her to the best of his ability. There was really only so much he could do being on the other side of the country. “Okay, I’m gonna talk to the team’s physician, have him call your dad’s doctor and have the tests rushed. If they don’t have the results by the time you get to Nashville, call me immediately,”
“Jamie,” she cried again. But he stopped her midway through.
“Baby don’t worry about it, okay? I’m gonna take care of everything,”
Cassidy wiped her eyes and then looked down at her fingertips and saw that they were black. It took everything in her to keep from crying more as she knew her mascara was probably halfway down her cheeks. “But you have a game tonight,”
“I know but I’m gonna take care of it. Just let me know if they have the results, alright?” Now Jamie sounded just as frantic as Cassidy felt. And when he didn’t get a response from her, he continued, “Let me go talk to the physician. I love you, alright? Please try and stay calm.”
She could hear him yell after the team’s physician before he hung up the phone. And after Cassidy slid her cell phone back into her pocket, she made off for the bathroom, to clean up her makeup as it ran down her cheeks.
It wasn’t a pretty sight. The first thing she saw upon entering her father’s hospital room was that he was intubated and on sedatives to keep any further harm from happening. And the doctor hadn’t been much help; he still wasn’t able to pinpoint the cause of the seizure, or why it had happened at all.
Cassidy was left alone with her father while the doctor checked on his other patients, and she picked up her phone, dialing for Jamie. It’d be nearing the time for Jamie to get back to the stadium for the game against the Kings, but she figured she’d be able to catch him before he went phoneless for the next hours.
“They have the results?” It was the first thing out of his mouth, and despite wishing it was under different circumstances, she appreciated how seriously he was taking it.
“Yeah but they don’t know why he had the seizure. The CT scan and blood work came back normal with the exception of the cancer. And they haven’t gotten him into have an MRI yet.” As she kept talking, she got more and more worked up until finally everything burst, “and they’ve got him doped up with tubes down his throat; Jamie, I’m so scared,”
“I know… and I wish I could be there for you, Cassidy. I’m gonna have them rush the MRI. Call me if he’s not in there in a half hour,”
They exchanged goodbyes and I love you’s and when Cassidy hung up the phone, she had never felt more alone. Maybe it was the fact that her dad lie practically lifeless, or the fact that as the minutes ticked by, no one came in to check on her or him.
The system seemed so bureaucratic. Each test had hoops to jump through and each hoop got smaller and smaller for each progressive test. One nurse would come in to administer more sedatives, and then another would come in to check his blood pressure and heart rate. Even the doctor poked his head in, if only to make sure Lee was still breathing.
Five minutes turned into ten minutes. And ten turned into twenty. And instead of having someone come in to wheel her father for his MRI, twenty minutes turned into thirty.
Instead of complaining to one of the nurses about the situation, Cassidy went directly for the top. Her father’s doctor passed by his room quickly, and Cassidy jumped out of her chair and ran after him in the hallway.
“Excuse me!” She shouted, getting the doctor’s attention, “my father, Lee Knox, has been waiting to get his MRI for over a half hour now. Meanwhile, you just keep sedating him into oblivion,”
“Miss Knox, due to limited resources, we have to administer scans to patients who take precedence. Right now your father is stable, so we must take patients who are in more critical states. Now I know you’re frustrated, but we are doing everything we can to make sure your father is getting the care he needs,”
The doctor strode off, nodding pleasantries to a passing by nurse. By trying to handle the situation herself, Cassidy had lost the chance to call Jamie before his phone would be put away for the game. The best she could do now was leave a message and hope he got it in a timely fashion.
“My dad still hasn’t had an MRI. I talked to the doctor and he said my dad isn’t in a critical enough condition to be rushed for a scan. I don’t know what to do… I’m not getting any leeway with these people.”
Cassidy fell back into her chair, resting her head against her fist as she pulled her knees up to her chest. She stared at her father, wishing there was something more significant she could do for him; but she felt useless now.
“He has stage four pancreatic cancer, spreading to his liver and probably his stomach and kidneys. And now he had a seizure. If I find out he has a brain aneurysm and you didn’t get him an MRI scan in time, I will pin a malpractice suit against this hospital so fast, it’ll make your head spin. And I’ll target you,” Jamie growled from the hallway. When Cassidy finally opened her eyes all the way, she spotted him standing chest to chest with the doctor.
“Mr. Benn, I know you are frustrated. As I’ve told Miss Knox, Lee is stable for now. And while he’s stable, we must put more critical patients ahead of him,” the doctor murmured, trying to keep the situation from escalating any further, but Jamie wasn’t having any of it.
“Get him an MRI immediately and figure out what the fuck is wrong with him. If you do not have results in two hours, I assure you, you won’t be practicing medicine anywhere.”
The doctor took a deep breath in and stared at Jamie, ultimately losing that battle as well, as he ordered the nurse to get Lee to radiology as soon as possible.
When the doctor excused himself, Jamie ran a hand over his mouth and walked back into Lee’s hospital room, seeing Cassidy watching him from her chair. He set his hand down on the back of her neck and kissed the top of her head.
“Jamie Benn has a dark side that came out to play,” she whispered, tilting her head back to look up at him.
Jamie tilted his head to the side and looked at Lee quickly before returning his attention to Cassidy, “I don’t take it too well when someone screws with the people I love. Trust me, that doctor won’t be messing around with this family anytime soon.”
Two nurses entered the room, and mobilized Lee’s bed, taking him out of the room and presumably to radiology for his MRI like the doctor had ordered.
“This family?” Cassidy reached for his hand.
Jamie half smiled and nodded, squeezing Cassidy’s hand gently, “I’d like to stay with you, but I have to get back to Dallas. Call when you have the results, and stay in Nashville as long as you need.”
November 13th will always be one of those defining days in life for Cassidy. What started out as a normal morning would end drastically different. Jamie was in LA with the team, and would be back in the early morning for a short one game home stand before heading back out on the road. All that meant was Cassidy was going to be seeing more of the apartment.
She stretched awake that morning, seeing a text message from Jamie from their conversation the night before. She had fallen asleep, as he was much better at staying up at odd hours of the morning. And although they hadn’t been talking about anything important, his message still made her smile as she read it.
Cassidy pulled one of her blankets around her and shuffled out of her room, tottering about as she spotted Kennedy at the kitchen counter with the phone pressed tightly to her ear.
“You’re the sexiest Frenchman I know,” she giggled, and then after a moment, “that’s not true. I know plenty of Frenchmen,”
Cassidy rolled her eyes and pulled open the refrigerator door, attempting to find something to eat, but failing, as she didn’t want to prepare anything. Kennedy and Antoine had kept in touch since the Halloween party. It seemed as though he had taken Tyler’s place, and Cassidy didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed by that.
“But you by far have the most delicious co…”
“Kennedy!” Cassidy interrupted. She pointed towards Kennedy’s room and then watched as her friend slunk off towards her room and shut the door behind her.
She didn’t want to hear about Antoine Roussel’s genitalia at all. Boy did she have to get on the mission of getting Kennedy a boyfriend. And preferably one not on a hockey team; and definitely not a frat boy from the university. It would be a challenge to find a boy that would stick, but at this point, the sleeping around was going to have to stop.
While that didn’t really seem like a normal start to the morning, it was the most normal she would get. By the afternoon, plans would be changing constantly.
With noon approaching, Cassidy picked up the phone and called Nashville, wanting to talk to her father. It had been awhile since they’d last spoken; about a week. Which considering the news he’d laid on her, a week was a long time. She wanted to be adamant about calling daily, seeing as though she just couldn’t up and leave Dallas at a moment’s notice.
The phone rang and rang, and finally the answering machine came on, asking that she leave her name and number so she could be called back at a later time. But instead of leaving a message, she hung up and called again. Maybe her father had been sleeping, or on the porch and didn’t hear the phone.
The phone rang once. Then twice. Then for a third time. And after the fourth ring, someone picked up, muffling a hurried and breathless hello. Cassidy knew it was her dad’s in-home nurse, but she had never answered the phone before.
“Hi, it’s Cassidy. Is my dad there?”
“Oh no, miss. I had to bring him to the hospital. He had a seizure last night; his doctor is running tests,”
Too stunned to talk, the nurse hung up the phone after not receiving another response from Cassidy. After a second of standing still, she made a dash for her room, pulling a duffle bag out of her closet and started throwing clothes into it, moving as quickly as possible.
“Kennedy! I’m going to Nashville!” She yelled, and Kennedy was running out of her room just a moment later. Cassidy handed her the car keys, “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call when I know more,”
On a certain level, Kennedy had to know this was all about her dad. Something had happened. But sensing Cassidy’s distressed emotional state, she didn’t ask questions, she just drove to the airport, and dropped her friend off, wishing her the best.
She bought a ticket for the next flight to Nashville, and then remembered that without a paying job, she’d need to figure out how to pay that one off. With the plane leaving within the next half hour, she rushed to the terminal, shaking and panting as she took out her cell phone and dialed Jamie’s number.
His phone rang and rang as well, and Cassidy couldn’t believe the sour luck she was having with technology. But finally his soft, husky voice greeted her on the other end of the line.
“Hey beautiful,”
“Jamie, my dad’s in the hospital,” she choked back sobs and brought her hand up to her mouth as she felt her eyes begin to sting. It was taking everything in her to not cause a scene in public.
In an instant, Jamie went from cool and composed, to protective and worried, “what happened?” Despite asking her one question, Cassidy could hear him calling to someone as he passed by, needing their attention.
“His nurse said he had a seizure last night so she brought him to the hospital… they’re doing tests or something.” Tears started spilling from her eyes and she moved her hand from her mouth to her eyes, “Jamie…”
“Alright, shh,” he mumbled trying to calm her to the best of his ability. There was really only so much he could do being on the other side of the country. “Okay, I’m gonna talk to the team’s physician, have him call your dad’s doctor and have the tests rushed. If they don’t have the results by the time you get to Nashville, call me immediately,”
“Jamie,” she cried again. But he stopped her midway through.
“Baby don’t worry about it, okay? I’m gonna take care of everything,”
Cassidy wiped her eyes and then looked down at her fingertips and saw that they were black. It took everything in her to keep from crying more as she knew her mascara was probably halfway down her cheeks. “But you have a game tonight,”
“I know but I’m gonna take care of it. Just let me know if they have the results, alright?” Now Jamie sounded just as frantic as Cassidy felt. And when he didn’t get a response from her, he continued, “Let me go talk to the physician. I love you, alright? Please try and stay calm.”
She could hear him yell after the team’s physician before he hung up the phone. And after Cassidy slid her cell phone back into her pocket, she made off for the bathroom, to clean up her makeup as it ran down her cheeks.
It wasn’t a pretty sight. The first thing she saw upon entering her father’s hospital room was that he was intubated and on sedatives to keep any further harm from happening. And the doctor hadn’t been much help; he still wasn’t able to pinpoint the cause of the seizure, or why it had happened at all.
Cassidy was left alone with her father while the doctor checked on his other patients, and she picked up her phone, dialing for Jamie. It’d be nearing the time for Jamie to get back to the stadium for the game against the Kings, but she figured she’d be able to catch him before he went phoneless for the next hours.
“They have the results?” It was the first thing out of his mouth, and despite wishing it was under different circumstances, she appreciated how seriously he was taking it.
“Yeah but they don’t know why he had the seizure. The CT scan and blood work came back normal with the exception of the cancer. And they haven’t gotten him into have an MRI yet.” As she kept talking, she got more and more worked up until finally everything burst, “and they’ve got him doped up with tubes down his throat; Jamie, I’m so scared,”
“I know… and I wish I could be there for you, Cassidy. I’m gonna have them rush the MRI. Call me if he’s not in there in a half hour,”
They exchanged goodbyes and I love you’s and when Cassidy hung up the phone, she had never felt more alone. Maybe it was the fact that her dad lie practically lifeless, or the fact that as the minutes ticked by, no one came in to check on her or him.
The system seemed so bureaucratic. Each test had hoops to jump through and each hoop got smaller and smaller for each progressive test. One nurse would come in to administer more sedatives, and then another would come in to check his blood pressure and heart rate. Even the doctor poked his head in, if only to make sure Lee was still breathing.
Five minutes turned into ten minutes. And ten turned into twenty. And instead of having someone come in to wheel her father for his MRI, twenty minutes turned into thirty.
Instead of complaining to one of the nurses about the situation, Cassidy went directly for the top. Her father’s doctor passed by his room quickly, and Cassidy jumped out of her chair and ran after him in the hallway.
“Excuse me!” She shouted, getting the doctor’s attention, “my father, Lee Knox, has been waiting to get his MRI for over a half hour now. Meanwhile, you just keep sedating him into oblivion,”
“Miss Knox, due to limited resources, we have to administer scans to patients who take precedence. Right now your father is stable, so we must take patients who are in more critical states. Now I know you’re frustrated, but we are doing everything we can to make sure your father is getting the care he needs,”
The doctor strode off, nodding pleasantries to a passing by nurse. By trying to handle the situation herself, Cassidy had lost the chance to call Jamie before his phone would be put away for the game. The best she could do now was leave a message and hope he got it in a timely fashion.
“My dad still hasn’t had an MRI. I talked to the doctor and he said my dad isn’t in a critical enough condition to be rushed for a scan. I don’t know what to do… I’m not getting any leeway with these people.”
Cassidy fell back into her chair, resting her head against her fist as she pulled her knees up to her chest. She stared at her father, wishing there was something more significant she could do for him; but she felt useless now.
“He has stage four pancreatic cancer, spreading to his liver and probably his stomach and kidneys. And now he had a seizure. If I find out he has a brain aneurysm and you didn’t get him an MRI scan in time, I will pin a malpractice suit against this hospital so fast, it’ll make your head spin. And I’ll target you,” Jamie growled from the hallway. When Cassidy finally opened her eyes all the way, she spotted him standing chest to chest with the doctor.
“Mr. Benn, I know you are frustrated. As I’ve told Miss Knox, Lee is stable for now. And while he’s stable, we must put more critical patients ahead of him,” the doctor murmured, trying to keep the situation from escalating any further, but Jamie wasn’t having any of it.
“Get him an MRI immediately and figure out what the fuck is wrong with him. If you do not have results in two hours, I assure you, you won’t be practicing medicine anywhere.”
The doctor took a deep breath in and stared at Jamie, ultimately losing that battle as well, as he ordered the nurse to get Lee to radiology as soon as possible.
When the doctor excused himself, Jamie ran a hand over his mouth and walked back into Lee’s hospital room, seeing Cassidy watching him from her chair. He set his hand down on the back of her neck and kissed the top of her head.
“Jamie Benn has a dark side that came out to play,” she whispered, tilting her head back to look up at him.
Jamie tilted his head to the side and looked at Lee quickly before returning his attention to Cassidy, “I don’t take it too well when someone screws with the people I love. Trust me, that doctor won’t be messing around with this family anytime soon.”
Two nurses entered the room, and mobilized Lee’s bed, taking him out of the room and presumably to radiology for his MRI like the doctor had ordered.
“This family?” Cassidy reached for his hand.
Jamie half smiled and nodded, squeezing Cassidy’s hand gently, “I’d like to stay with you, but I have to get back to Dallas. Call when you have the results, and stay in Nashville as long as you need.”
Notes
This chapter is titled after "Better Than My Heart" by Luke Bryan.
<3
please update!!!!
5/2/16