I tell her I do, and she leaves, softly squeezing the top of my arm as she passes me.
I already know the girl is awake. She’s just playing dead at the moment, assessing her surroundings before she decides if it’s safe to be conscious. Kim doesn’t deal with patients emerging from anaesthesia every day like I do, and Carrie’s breathing is shallow, quiet and controlled instead of the deep, regular draw it should be if her lights were out. I shift the lounge chair from underneath the window to the bedside and sit myself in it. From there I watch Carrie, trying to figure out how best to proceed.
“So…I went and had coffee with my best friend this morning,” I tell her. “She’s a little prim and proper sometimes but she’s always been there for me. I’ve always been able to rely on her when I’ve needed to. This morning I told her something dark about me. It was a conversation I’d been considering having with her for a very long time, but I’d been waiting for the right time to broach it, y’know? I’m good at making excuses, though. I’ve always managed to put it off before.
“So like with everything else, I left it until the very last minute, until something happened and I didn’t feel like I had a choice anymore. She gave me some solid advice that made perfect sense, and I just kept thinking on my way to work, why the hell couldn’t you have just made that decision for yourself?” I lean back in the chair, watching Carrie’s eyelids flutter. She’s listening.
“I think it’s because we’re so entrenched by our problems that we often can’t see our way out of the maze we find ourselves in. Or we close our eyes and walk blindly because we’re too scared to acknowledge the mess we’re in. The darkness we create ourselves is better than the darkness waiting for us with our eyes open, because we’re in control of it that way at least.”
She doesn’t respond. I’m no psychiatrist. I’m not qualified to try and iron the creases out of this girl’s life. But I am so curious about her—why he cares so much for her, who she is to him. How it was that he came to be the person carrying her lifeless body into my E.R. “You know, if you’re scared…if you’re in a position you think there’s no escape from, let me tell you now…there is always an escape. A way out. If you need somewhere to go, if you need someone to talk to, all you need to do is say so now. I can make it all happen.”
Carrie’s eyelids flutter once more, and this time they open. The girl’s eyes are pale blue, the color of compacted ice. Like an iceberg. They’re filled with tears. Most people would have turned to look at me but she doesn’t; she stares up at the ceiling, her chest heaving as she battles against her emotions.
“I don’t need your help. I don’t need somewhere to go.” Tears streak from the corner of her eyes, chasing each other across her temples and running into her ears. “I just need Zeth.”
******
“I can’t wait another day. He wouldn’t leave me here if he knew I was awake.” Carrie is barely composed. She seems so anxious that I’m considering given her another sedative just to calm her down.
“Then give me his number. I’ll let him know.” Zeth. His name is Zeth. It feels strange having a name to put to his face, but then I only got to put a face to the voice yesterday so I guess this whole thing is strange.
Carrie gives me a look—nice try, bitch. “How about you wheel me out of this room and to a payphone so I can call him myself?”
“You’re not ready for that yet, Carrie. You’re too weak.”
She looks confused. “Carrie?”
“Yeah, Zeth said your name was—” I break off when I realize I’ve been stupid. Of course he didn’t give me her real name. Why would he? He paid in cash for her treatment ($17,000) and signed her paperwork off as K. Vonnegut, for fuck’s sake. “What’s your real name?” I sigh.
“If Zeth says it’s Carrie then it’s Carrie.” She crosses her arms over her chest, staring glumly down at her bandaged wrists.
“Well okay, Carrie, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but you’re not leaving this room. And they’re going to be asking a lot of questions when Dr Perez comes down here later on.”
“She the shrink?”
“Yep. She’s going to wanna know why you did this to yourself.”
“Who said I did it to myself?” She’s pouting like a petulant child, but my heart still starts thrumming in my chest.
“Why, did…did Zeth do it?”
“No. Of course he didn’t.”