This Crazy Rich Boy

Gabriel's mouth hangs open as he watches Claire offering herself to donate her blood. Suddenly he sees a different dimension of this woman. And if he'd known how Claire is so frightened of needles, he'd appreciate more the magnitude of this gesture.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks as they walk toward wherever the nurses are taking them.

"Are you serious, Gab? This is for Miguel. There's not even time for having second thoughts." Yet, even as she says this, her mouth, her face is pale, like she's just trying to steel her resolve and ignore the buŧŧerflies in her stomach.

"Yeah, but…" Gabriel shrugs. He's about to say something, but in the end he chooses to keep quiet. Give the floor to Claire. He's useless, anyway. And between Claire doing this grand gesture and his guilt for having had a direct hand in Miguel's accident, Gabriel is in a bad place; he's almost at the end of his tether. His mind is unspooling, and his emotions are not helping, either. But he wills himself to keep it all together; this is not a time to panic.

Gabriel is made to wait in a small waiting area right outside a holding room. But he couldn't help it; he's worried about her, about his brother, and how the walls seem closing in. There's a small glass panel that allows him to see what's happening in the room, and he could see her, by a desk filling out some form. The nurse watches by, ready for any clarification Claire might have. Yet, Claire continues writing, answering the questions, never looking up.

After she's done with the form, the nurse informs her that she's checking some of her vitals, her blood pressure, et cetera. She nods, determined to see this through. Outside, she sees him, his face long from worry. She shrugs and smiles, as though telling him to take it a bit easy. He smiles back.

The nurse takes a few more minutes to get things in order. Finally, she ȧssists Claire on the bed, with a tray of contraptions on one side. The nurse starts setting up what looks like a bag of plastic attached on a tripod. The nurse proceeds in closely examining Claire's arm, maybe looking for a good vein. Bravely, Claire looks at what the nurse is doing, but when the nurse swabs that small place in her arm with alcohol-soaked cotton and prepares the needle, she finally looks away, bracing up for the inevitable. She again sees Gabriel outside the window. Gabriel makes a little wave, like some parent watching his child on the first day of school. Claire smiles weakly; her eyes tell him the same confusion he has.

"I love you," Gabriel mouths out. She responds with the same. He nods, as though telling her it's alright. She smiles again. "I will wait here," he mouths again. She nods.

When Gabriel disappears from the window, Claire closes her eyes. She can feel that weird sensation, like her blood is flowing out. She turns to her side and sees the IV line running with her blood down to the bag, which is slowly filling up. In her mind, she tries to go to that special place: in her parents' farm somewhere in the north of the country, with its little fruit orchard, a barn full of animals, and its peaceful days. How many years has it been? Four? Five? She feels the ache of longing for how things were in her life, as the blood flows into the bag, ushering her to sleep.

Meanwhile, Gabriel is restless. He paces the floor outside the room. When the nurse comes out, he pounces on her with a question: "How long is the extraction going to take?"

The nurse blinks upon seeing him. She consults her chart. "Oh, Miss Monteverde? That should take about an hour, give or take."

Gabriel looks at her watch and makes mental calculations. "That long, huh?"

The nurse shrugs. "We have no choice. If it's up to us, we'd need that blood as soon as possible." A beat. "Did the doctor mention that we actually need two bags of blood? We can only take one bag from her. While that might suffice for the mean time, we'd need more."

"Jesus," Gabriel mutters. "And I can't donate my own blood."

"Maybe ask your people, Mr. Tan," a voice buŧŧs in, who turns out to be Miguel's doctor. "We'd need to be sure. We can't get more than a bag of blood from Miss Monteverde. Normally we need two, but for contingency, getting three more bags of blood would take care of our present need, while the extra can be stored just in case your brother needs more."

Gabriel gazes at the doctor and the nurse's faces. "And we need them now, right?"

The doctor nods. "Your brother's condition is stable, so far. We've run scans, and fortunately there are no contusions. He's not internally hemorrhaging. The only problem is the blood loss. We've also found elevated levels of alcohol in his blood, which worsened it."

Gabriel looks around. It's not even morning yet; the sun is yet to rise in about an hour. "Okay, Doc, please do what you can do. Give him the best possible care. I want nurses by his side at all times. One, no, I mean, two of your best nurses, for each of the three shifts every day."

The doctor starts to protest. "But that would be an unnecessary cost—"

"I don't care, Doc. Please keep him in your best equipped intensive care unit. I can't let anything bad happen to him, not on my watch."

The doctor and his nurse look at each other, then the doctor nods. He says nothing, not that he feels the need to, because Gabriel, with things on his mind, is already on the phone, dialing whoever he can contact.

Elsewhere in the city, Mrs. Gomez is dreaming of some tropical beach. There's the requisite refreshing ċȯċktail in her hand, while a man half her own age applies sunblock lotion on her thɨġhs. Then the man stops massaging her, and looks straight at her with those blue eyes."Why did you stop? Keep on going," she commands. But the man grins; then when he opens his mouth, an ear-shattering scream comes out, like the maddening horns of an oncoming train.

Mrs. Gomez bolts up; she discovers the phone on her bedside desk has been ringing. Beside her, her husband snores loudly; not even the shrill scream of the phone could wake him up. She sighs and yanks the phone from the cradle.

"Whoever the hell this is, you better have something good," she snarls into the phone.

"Mrs. Gomez," Gabriel says, "I need your help."

"Sir Gabriel?" Mrs. Gomez squints as she looks at the clock to make sure it's not actually nine in the morning. Outside, the world is still dark, although it's starting to wake up. "What made you call me at this ungodly hour? Anything happened? How's Claire?"

"She's fine, Mrs. Gomez," he says. A beat. "I need blood."

"A what?"

"Miguel was in some kind of accident. I'm now in the hospital. We need blood for him. For the transfusion."

"Jesus," Mrs. Gomez mutters as she hurries up, running out the door, her hands rifling through the wardrobe. "Jesus Henry Christ, Mr. Tan. What in hell happened? What kind of blood does he need? If he needs that, this means he needs it immediately."

"I only learned he's AB negative. I'm not sure what else, but Claire's in a room somewhere here having her blood extracted, which thankfully matches what Miguel needs. But we need a couple of bags more."

"Jesus," Mrs. Gomez exclaims in her raspy voice. "I don't even remember what my blood type is. But I will ask around. I'm going there right now. But I will call up your people at The Residence, maybe some of them can volunteer to donate."

Gabriel sighs. "Thank you."

"Don't think about that. Take care of yourself and Claire, over there. Where's Miguel now?"

"He's in the intensive care unit. He's fine, stable. But I'm getting this weird vibe from the doctor that he's not saying everything, like he's just managing my expectations."

"Let's not even go there and be full-on bleak, Mr. Tan. If the doctor says he's fine, let's hold on to that. Does the hospital know it is you, Sir?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Or maybe they don't. Maybe in the blur of panic, nobody recognized who you are. I'm calling up the president of that hospital, which I presume is the one on Downey Street, right? Where you had been confined previously? I'm calling him up. Just to make sure the doctor and nurses sent to care for Miguel are nothing but the best. I'm taking care of this."

Mrs. Gomez is a revelation, Gabriel realizes. Of course he could have done all of that. He sensed the doctor knew of him. But the old lady is right; never resort to ȧssumptions, especially in a critical time such as this. He's already weary from everything that has happened in the past few days; he could use a little help. So all he manages to say is "Thank you."

After Gabriel hangs up, Mrs. Gomez promptly begins working the phone: her first phone call: Dale, whose own actions in these critical hours would determine if whether or not Miguel gets what he needs, or not.