Demanding Ransom

Chapter THREE



“Will you stop that?” He groans and chucks his pillow at me. I catch it easily in my lap since I’m seated in a wheelchair, and I lob it back at him with all my upper body strength, which honestly isn’t much. The pillow hits him upside the skull—probably not the best choice in landings based on the information we’ve just received.

“Stop what, dork?”

He folds the pillow behind his back and settles in, his thick neck craning upward and his broad shoulders relaxing slightly. He looks way too massive for the tiny hospital bed, like those circus clowns crammed into tiny cars. “Stop looking at me like I have some kind of disease or something.”

I cock my head to the side. “Well, you sorta do. You know, cancer and all.”

“Shut up, stupid.” He groans again. “They’re not even 100 percent sure it’s cancer. It could just be a tumor. A lot of times that’s all it is.”

“It’s not a toomah,” I imitate, channeling my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice possible.

Mikey cocks a brow. “Kindergarten Cop?”

I nod, fingering the edge of the bed sheet in front of me. There’s a loose thread that I wrap around my finger until it breaks off and creates a threadlike ring around my index knuckle. “Yep, that one’s a classic.”

“You realize that came out before we were born, right?” Mike seals his eyelids shut. I don’t think he’s slept at all in the last twenty-four hours. The purple bags hooked under his eyes clearly give that away.

“That’s what makes it a classic. You can’t call a movie a classic if it came out during your lifetime.”

“What about Titanic? That’s a classic and we were around for that one.”

I lift up the Diet Coke can from the bedside tray and take a swig. The fizz tickles my nose and I scrunch it up to bite back the tingling sensation that gathers at the bridge of it. “Okay—I take that back. Anything involving epic, historical disasters can be considered classics.” I take another gulp of the soda and my eyes burn from the carbonation. “So in that case, the footage from your game against Westmoore last week counts, too.”

Mike laughs a deep, pained chuckle. “That hurts, Sis, that hurts.” His hazel eyes stretch open, and then soften slightly. “How’s your leg?” Mike’s voice embodies an uneasy tenor that I’ve never heard out of him before. I don’t like it. And I don’t like that it sends shivers up my spine.

“My leg is fine.” For all I know, the injury could be the size of a splinter. I’ve yet to actually see—or feel—the real damage. They have me so hopped up on drugs and it so carefully wrapped that if it weren’t for the fact that I’m in a hospital wearing this ridiculous, backless frock, I’d think my leg had just temporarily fallen asleep.

“I wanna see it.”

I shake my head. “I have to keep it covered up until they come around to change the bandages later. But I’ll take a pic with my phone for you if you want.”

“You don’t have a phone anymore, Maggie.”

Damn. He’s right. Apparently, during the crash my cell, previously perched delicately on my thigh, was sent through the windshield and crushed into a million pieces under the tread of a passing semi. Better it than me though, I suppose.

“Let me borrow yours. I’ll take a pic and you can use it as your background wallpaper.”

“Gross.” Mikey crinkles his nose in disgust. “Did you not get the memo that you’re supposed to be a girl?”

I roll my eyes at him, deliberately slow so he can get the full effect of my annoyance. “I got the memo. There just were too many instructions so I decided not to follow too closely.”

“At some point you’ll have to turn into a woman, you know. Nineteen sounds like a good age, don’t you think?”

“I am a woman, Mikey. I’m just not a girly-girl. But I’m not a dude, make no mistake of that.”

Mikey shrugs. Seeing him sitting here is so ill fitting. Nothing about him looks remotely sick. He’s a tall, hulking, eighteen-year-old football player. His cheeks hold a healthy pink flush and a golden tan glows across his skin. And his near-shoulder length, sandy blond hair appears freshly washed. He’s the very picture of perfect health. At least on the outside. But apparently we have machines that can see past that outward picture—that can view what’s underneath, what’s growing and festering under the surface without our knowledge of its silent existence.

“Plus,” I continue, “you’ve got girl hair, so there’s no room to talk.”

“Sadie likes my hair,” Mikey defends, sweeping several strands from his face. He really could be the envy of every high school girl with those natural honey highlights and the slight wave that curls through the length of it. “Actually, all the chicks like my hair.”

“Well, the dudes like my quick wit and ability to deal with all things gross.”

“Really, Mags. And what dudes would those be?”

I bite back the sarcastic remark that wants to fly out to verbally slap Mikey in the face. “Brian liked it for three years. That’s gotta say something.”

“Yeah.” Mikey brings a hand up to his square jaw and drags his finger across the blond stubble forming there. “But he dropped you the second he rushed that frat. Your lack of girly-girl sorority status seemed to hurt you a bit in that department, Sis.”

“Whatever.” I stare into the opening of my soda can and rotate it side to side, sloshing the contents around just enough so they creep to the mouth of it, but don’t spill over. “Brian is a tool.”

“A colossal tool.”

A tool that I’d given every single part of myself to for the past three years. A tool that I’d willingly handed over my time, my social life, and my body to, over and over again, like some track stuck on repeat. Yeah, Brian was a tool, but I think I was the one who allowed myself to be used. Maybe we’re both tools. Whatever. There isn’t any “us” anymore to worry about, anyway.

“Want anything to eat? I was going to go down to the cafeteria to grab something.”

“On those wheels?” Mike shifts in the bed and looks down at my new mode of transportation. “That’s what they have these hot nurses for—to get you food and junk.”

“Hot nurses? We obviously don’t have the same ones.”

“All of mine have been hot. Like Halloween-nurse-costume-fantasy hot.”

I place the Diet Coke back onto the plastic food tray. “I think that tumor is expanding at an unreasonably fast rate and your vision is being affected. I have yet to see anyone in this hospital that is even remotely attractive.”

I take that back. Ran was attractive. Very attractive. But that was in the ambulance and technically outside of the hospital, so I don’t feel the need to retract my previous statement.

“Knock, knock.” I twist in my chair toward the door; five teenage guys all about Mikey’s size and age walk through its opening. “Care for a little company?”

Two girls dressed in cheerleading uniforms trail behind them, Sadie the last to enter.

“Mikey! Looks like you’ve got some babes taking care of you up in here! What do I have to do to get a room?” the tallest of them all, Eric, jokes raucously. He’s wearing a football jersey and blue jeans, the same attire as the other four boys that followed him in.

Eric and Mikey have been best friends since they were five. We lived next door to the Tomlinson’s until Dad’s money ran out and the mortgage became an impossible burden that his airplane mechanic job couldn’t bear, and we had to transition from expansive country living to cookie-cutter suburban life. It happened at the same time mom ran off with her much younger, much wealthier, new husband—the same time she also took her half of everything in my parents’ estate—everything, that is, except her children.

“Hey Maggie. How’s your leg?” Eric slides onto the empty space at the foot of Mike’s bed and gestures toward me. He pulls off his blue baseball cap and runs a hand through his ebony crew cut. The rest of the crowd files against the wall opposite us. They’re so still, so steady and unmoving, that they look like mannequins.

“Fine.” It’s all I have to say, because even though nothing about it appears fine, the fact that my little brother has a foreign growth taking up space inside his head pretty much makes anything less life-altering than that fall into the “fine” category.

“Is that dumbass behind bars?”

My hands feel unnaturally cold, and I twist them over one another in my lap. I shrug, not wanting to seem like I have no clue what he’s talking about. Everyone surveys me like the subject matter is obviously something I should be familiar with.

“Who has a blood alcohol level that high at 5:30 in the evening? Seriously—hope they lock him away for good.”

Is that what happened? I think it, but am pretty sure I don’t say it, because everyone continues their staring, waiting for something to fall from my lips.

“Yeah, I hope they put him away,” I finally get out.

Eric nods. “You’re lucky, Maggie. It could have ended up really bad.” He shifts his gaze to Mikey. “And you’re lucky, too, man. I heard that the initial sack is what messed with your tumor and made you black out. Like it aggravated it or something. I think this is one instance where coach can’t get mad at you for taking the hit.”

I look at Mikey and though he laughs faintly, I see the fear held in his eyes—that same look he’d get when we were young, awaiting our punishment for something stupid we’d done. The fear of the unknown.

“Hey Mikey, I’m gonna head back to my room. You okay here?”

He smiles warmly. “Yeah Sis.” Mikey reaches across his bed for something and tosses it my direction. “Take this. You owe me new wallpaper.”

I scoop up his cell phone and attempt to angle the wheelchair, pivoting the wheels with my hands, but the extra bodies in the room occupy the space I need to maneuver it without looking like a total amateur. With one hand I thrust the right wheel forward, with the other I grab ahold of my IV pole, and instead of moving the direction of the door, I slam into the window ledge directly behind me.

Eric hops off the bed and wraps his fingers around the two handles at my back. I want to decline his offer for help because Mikey is the one who truly needs the support right now, but the truth is, I know I won’t be able to make it down the hall without some assistance. I won’t even be able to make it to the doorway. “What room, Mags?”

“319.”

He throws a glance toward Mikey. “Don’t go anywhere, buddy. I’ll be right back.”

***

“What are these?” I pull myself up from the chair and collapse onto the bed, grateful for the opportunity to rest, even if the sheets are impossibly starchy and the pillows feel more plastic than cotton. A bouquet of five balloons flutters under the ceiling vent: four colored ones and a single, yellow Mylar balloon with an enormous smiley face printed across its front.

I’ve been in the hospital less than a day, and though I do have a few friends back at college, I definitely don’t have the entourage my little brother boasts. I’m not even sure anyone knows I’m here. And if I did have any visitors, I think I’d probably send them Mikey’s way, because it feels wrong to have any sort of attention given the circumstances.

The nurse (still not an attractive one) at the foot of my bed thumbs through my chart. “Not sure. They were left at the front desk for you.” She paces toward me and lifts a small card from the envelope that’s taped to a weight at the bottom of the balloon arrangement. “Here.” She deposits it in my lap. “Need anything else?”

I bite my lip and flip the card over in my hands. “No, thank you. I’m good for now.”

“Okay.” She leans across my body to point to a button on the side rail, and I have to hold my breath because she bathed in perfume this morning instead of water. My eyes burn from the floral stench. “Just push this if you need something and we’ll send someone in.”

“Thank you.” I say again, more as a “good-bye” than a real statement of appreciation. I’m ready for some solitude. And some breathable air.

The nurse slips into the hallway and the door swings shut behind her.

Lifting the card from the blankets, I rotate it over in my palm. Maggie, it reads on one side in a handwriting that is unfamiliar to me. I quickly flip it over, eager to see the rest of the inscription.



You said you like balloons, and that you like my face.

Though this obviously isn’t a picture of my face,

it’s pretty much how it looked when you said that you

also like my lips (right before you blacked out.)

Hope your leg heals quickly.

-Ran



My head goes dizzy and I have to re-read the note to make sure I got it right the first time. With tingling fingers, I trace each word with my nail, stopping at the end where he penned his name, Ran. The yellow smiley face above me sways side to side under the gusts of air from the vent, like it’s dancing with the other balloons.

I told him I liked his lips? Seriously, what did they give me in that ambulance? Truth serum?

“Found out it’s from one of the paramedics our hospital contracts with,” my nurse says as she bounds back into my room without any knock. It’s strange because she never looks at me when she speaks, like she’s too busy to be bothered with actually nursing me to health. But the fact that she came back to deliver this information makes me think she must be invested somehow. Maybe it’s just the paycheck that motivates her. “From one of the guys that delivered you to us last night.”

I nod my head, thumbing the paper card. I know who they’re from, I just don’t get why he would send them to me.

“Have you had anything to eat today?”

“Diet Coke.”

“Diet Coke is not a food. And it’s not something you should be consuming right now. I’ll send in a tray of liquids for you.”

She sashays out the room and the smiley balloon bobs against the wall from the added rush of air.

Ran.

I keep the notecard in my grip and slide further down under the covers. My head feels foggy with sleep and the deadened sensation in my leg slowly wanes, hints of pain rising just under the surface of my bandages. I clench my fist to endure it, but only my right one, careful not to crumple what’s wrapped in the opposite hand. As I slip into oblivion and try to situate myself comfortably on the hospital bed, I inadvertently drape my hand across my body, pressing the card to my chest, not entirely surprised when the accelerated cadence of my heart pulses through the paper.

When I wake up three hours later, the card is right where I left it, hovering just over my heart.