Hollywood Remake (A Celebrity Love Story)

Chapter 12: Meet Dr. Parent

Aidan cracked his eyes open with a groan and squinted against harsh fluorescent lights above him. His head felt like someone was pounding on it with a large rubber mallet. He was just about to squeeze his eyes shut again when his gaze landed on a face. Pretty face. Kate’s face. Kate was here. Kate was looking at him. “Hey, little girl,” he said hoarsely.

“Hi.” She reached out and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” he replied, wincing as the rubber mallet gave the back of his head another wallop.

Katie was here, holding his hand. She stroked his arm now to soothe him. Things could be worse - a lot worse. He reluctantly tore his eyes away from her face and looked around the unfamiliar room. “Where are we?”

“You’re in the hospital,” she said. “You fell. Do you remember?”

He shook his head and looked back at her, but he was interrupted before he could speak again by a doctor and nurse entering the room.

“Oh good,” the doctor said, looking up from the chart he was reading and walking over to Aidan’s bed. He looked familiar somehow. Aidan could swear he'd seen that face before. On a movie studio soundstage? At that screen test he'd shot a few weeks back with Catherine Heigl and Robert—oh right, that's what it was. The guy was a dead ringer for Robert De Niro.

“You’re awake," the doctor said to him, holding out a hand to shake. "I’m Dr. Parent, chief of neurology here at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.”

“Chief of neurology?” Aidan asked. “What the hell happened?”

“Of course, you received the very best care possible from our Emergency Department this morning, but I will be personally overseeing your care from this point, given the—uh, visibility.”

“You mean because he’s famous,” Kate said, rolling her eyes.

The doctor ignored her and continued speaking to Aidan. “You’re a lucky man,” he said. “You sustained a grade three concussion and six-inch laceration to the lower occipital region.”

Aidan stared back at him. Was that in English? Was he brain damaged? He shot a sidelong look at Kate and she must have seen the confusion in his face.

“You bumped your head and got a cut,” she explained.

“Oh.” He lifted one hand and felt the thick bandage that was wrapped around his head. “Is it serious?”

“It's good you got here when you did,” the doctor said. “The blood loss was fairly significant.”  

“When can he go home?” Kate asked.

“We’d like to keep him under observation for a couple more hours as a precaution. Nurse?”

The nurse had been bustling about the room, setting up some medical equipment, while the doctor was speaking. She stepped forward now and began wrapping a black Velcro cuff around Aidan’s left bicep.

“We’ll be monitoring you for hypotensive episodes,” the doctor explained, as he flipped closed the medical chart and moved to leave the room.

“Shit,” Aidan muttered.

“Not to worry.” The nurse patted his arm to reassure him. “You lost a lot of blood. We just want to make sure your blood pressure doesn’t dip too low.” She smiled at him and then at Kate. “You’ll be staying here with him in the mean time?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. The machine will sound an alarm if there’s a problem. You just let us know if he starts to feel dizzy or faint.”