These were all things that suggested she should return to the bed behind her. But then she looked down at the three words she had written on the cast the night before. She splashed water on her face (a mistake, this hurt), then shuffled over to the landline phone on the wheeled bedside table. She blinked, trying to recall the number she needed, then dialed.

“I need you,” she said when the person picked up. “And I need clothes.”

David turned up within the hour. Stevie had spent that hour wandering the halls, trying to find her nurse, and then bugging that nurse about when she would be allowed to go. The nurse asked her politely to return to bed, explaining that the doctor would be up in the early afternoon, and that she would likely be allowed to go then. But early afternoon was too far away.

So when David walked through the door with the bag of clothes, Stevie immediately pushed herself out of bed, took it, and disappeared into the bathroom.

“How are you feeling?” David asked through the door.

“Everything hurts,” she said. “Fine.”

He had come with a pair of sweatpants and a stretched-out T-shirt. She fumbled, trying to work out how to shimmy out of her hospital gown. She pulled on the ties, loosening it, and it fell off the one side of her body, but it got stuck on the side with the sling. She managed to get this off and shake the gown to the bathroom floor. They had taken all her clothes last night, cut them off her body (which felt excessive, but it turned out they had to do that if they thought you broke your neck or spine or something). She was wearing giant stretchy underpants and nothing else.

“So you’re being discharged?” David asked.

Stevie was too busy trying to figure out how to get the sweatpants on to answer. She dropped them onto the floor next to the gown and stepped into them, then dragged them up with her right hand, hoisting each side. She looped the shirt around her neck and got the right arm through, but the left was going to be difficult.

“Help,” she said, tapping the door open with her foot and presenting her back to him. He was her boyfriend, but this was a messy situation, and also a public one. She wanted to get the shirt on. He moved around, trying to work out the physics of the situation, was big enough not to make any side-boob comments, and guided the sleeve over her cast.

“Okay,” she said. “Time to go.”

“Go? Don’t they have to . . .”

She shook her head.

“Time to go,” she said more quietly.

“Is that a good idea? Forget that—I mean, is that a medically sound idea?”

“I’m fine,” she said, padding out into the room in her nonslip slippers and looking for wherever they had put her shoes and whatever else of hers was still intact. She found both the shoes and the remains of her clothes in a plastic bag marked PATIENT BELONGINGS in a chair by the window. She scooped it up and examined the contents. Her camp T-shirt had been cut open and there was condensation from the trapped moisture inside the bag. She tucked it under her good arm and went to the door to look out. Her nurse was not in the hall. If they hurried, they had a clear shot at getting to the turn to the elevator bank. Without waiting another moment, she slipped out of the room, David following behind.