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taking care of the paperwork, bringing in your things, stuff like that," Dwight said easily, and he didn't stop pushing my gurney.
    The night was just not going my way, but I perked up as much as possible at the news that Dwayne was bringing in my things. It's a measure of how much my head hurt that I hadn't given a single thought to my purchases, especially my new shoes, until now. "He has my shoes?"
    "You're wearing your shoes," Wyatt said, flashing a quick, questioning look at Dwight over my head, silently asking if I could have a brain injury.
    "I'm not going loopy, I mean my new shoes. The ones I bought tonight." As I explained, Dwight rolled me into a cubicle. Dwayne followed within thirty seconds, his hands full of clipboard, papers, my purse, and several plastic bags. I spied the bag from the store where I'd bought my shoes, and sighed in relief. They hadn't gone missing. Then an efficient team of nurses took over; Wyatt was evicted, Dwayne and Dwight gave their report on my condition, which was pretty much as I'd already figured out. Then they, too, were gone, the curtain was pulled, and my clothes were swiftly cut off me. I really hate the way emergency room personnel treat clothing, even though I understand the need for it. Even someone who is conscious might not be able to accurately gauge her own medical condition, and speed and efficiency are the name of the game.
    Regardless of that, I really, really hate when my bra is cut with one callous snip of those big scissors blades. I love my underwear sets. This particular bra was a gorgeous mocha color, with little flowers in the satin fabric, and tiny pearls sewn in the middle. Now it was ruined. I sighed when I saw it, because it was ruined anyway, from blood.
    Come to think of it, pretty much every stitch I had on was ruined, either from rips or blood, or both. Scalp wounds really bleed a lot. I sighed as I looked myself over, then surveyed the clothing that had been tossed aside, which I could do without moving my head much because the head of the gurney was raised and I was propped up. No, nothing was salvageable, except maybe my shoes. My black cargo pants were torn in several places, big, jagged tears that couldn't be repaired, never mind that the legs had been neatly cut lengthwise to allow the nurses to swiftly remove them. My bare legs were both dirty and bloody, confirming that my irrational fear of germs in the parking lot hadn't been all that irrational. Actually, most of me was dirty and bloody. I wasn't a pretty sight at all, which was depressing, because Wyatt had seen me like this.
    "I'm a mess," I said mournfully.
    "It isn't too bad," one of the nurses said. "It looks worse than it is. Though I suppose it feels bad enough to you, doesn't it?" Her voice was brisk, but comforting. Or rather, she meant it to be comforting, but what she said made me feel worse because looks were exactly what I was worrying about. Yes, I'm vain, but I'm also under a deadline for a wedding and I didn't want to look like a war refugee in my wedding pictures. My kids would be looking at them, you know; I didn't want them wondering what their father had ever seen in me.
    I'm also not of a "victim" mentality, and I'm tired of being shot, battered, and bruised. I didn't want Wyatt to think he had to take care of me. I want to take care of myself, thank you very much—unless I'm in the mood for pampering, in which case I want to be in good shape so I can enjoy it.
    I had just been sort of halfway stuffed into a hospital gown when a tired ER doc shuffled in. He checked me over, listened to the nurses, checked my pupils to see how they were responding, and sent me off for a head CT and what seemed like all-over X-rays. A few boring and painful hours later, I was admitted to the hospital for an overnight stay because the docs also agreed with my diagnosis of a concussion. All of my scrapes were cleaned and some of them bandaged, most of the blood was swabbed away—except out of