— Corey
On my way out of the room on Monday morning, I found a note that had been slid under our door. It was a folded piece of paper reading CALLAHAN on the outside. Inside, it read: I can’t come to econ today because I’m having two screws put in my knee this morning. Share your notes with me, pretty please? H.
I waited until after lunch to text him. Got your note. Surgery? So sorry.
A couple of hours later he replied: Don’t B sorry. Anesthesia rocks. You don’t have to visit, but if you do, bring food.
Me: What kind of food?
Hartley: OMG who cares? Hospital food is vomit.
I laughed, because it was true.
When I stuck my head into Hartley’s hospital room later, the first thing I saw was his bandaged knee, draped over a machine, which bent it and straightened it repeatedly. “That looks like fun.” At least his giant cast was gone, and there was a smaller one — a boot cast — on his lower leg.
“More fun than Disney World.” He turned his head and offered me a pale smile. He was wearing a hospital gown, and an IV dripped liquids into his arm.
I fought off a shudder at the familiarity of it all. “Sorry,” I said. “Why the surgery, anyway?”
He pressed his head back against the pillows. “The hockey coach wanted me to see his favorite ortho guy. And that guy said it would heal faster with screws in it.”
“Well…that’s good, right?”
He shrugged. “It’s good for my knee. But my ankle will heal at the same speed, no matter what. So I’m trying to figure out what’s changed, except for the fact that I now have steel body parts.”
“You’re going to set off metal detectors.” I rolled further into the room. “You don’t mind me visiting? I always hated visitors.”
Hartley picked his head up. “You hated visitors? What do you have against people who like you?”
“I didn’t want to be seen, that’s all. It was so humiliating to be flat on my back, unshowered, and basically naked except for the little cotton gown.”
“That’s where we’re different,” Hartley said with a tip of his head. “I’m cool with not showering. And nudity.”
I fished a white paper bag out of my pack.
“What did you bring me?”
“An Italian sub and a bag of chips. And Gatorade.”
“Have I ever told you that you’re beautiful?”
“Any time I offer you food.”
“Exactly. Gimme that.” He held out his hands, and I passed him the bag.
I looked up at the IV, and the drugs running into his arm. “Are you supposed to be eating?”
“Who cares? I’m hungry.” He unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. “Mmh,” he said. “Beautiful.”
“Me or the sandwich?”
“Both.” He took another bite. “Callahan? How long were you in the hospital?”
The question made my chest feel tight. The accident wasn’t something I liked to talk about. “Six weeks.”
His eyes widened. “That is a long time to eat really bad food.”
I nodded, even though the bad food wasn’t even in my top ten things to hate about the hospital.
“How much school did you miss?”
“Three months. I went back for the last few weeks. Luckily, I’d applied early action to Harkness. So my acceptance letter came before the accident.”
“But you graduated on time?”
“The school district sent me a tutor once I got into rehab.”
“That’s aggressive.”
“Is it?” I sighed. “There was nothing else to do with my free time. Better to learn a bunch of calculus equations than to just sit and think all day long.” I pointed at his knee. “Tell me you wouldn’t rather be at an economics lecture right now.”
He thought about it. “Sure, but only if I could keep the sandwich.” He opened the bag of chips and offered them to me. I took one and we crunched in silence for a minute. “What was it like going back to school in a wheelchair?”
I sighed. “Really? You’re going to make me talk about this?”
He spread his arms wide. “You don’t have to. But when in Rome…”
“It was just as dreadful as you’d think. People were very, very nice to me, of course. But that didn’t make it any less awful. I was a conversation stopper. When I’d roll by, nobody could stand to talk about the theme for prom, or whatever. They felt like they couldn’t.”
Hartley was quiet for a moment. “Well that sounds craptastic. Did you have to go back?”
“I didn’t have to — but being at home was even less fun. My parents were stressed out all the time. I thought if I went back off to school, they could, you know, back away from the ledge a little. I was sick of being under their microscope.” And now I was really sick of this topic. “Dana is out on her own ledge right now. Tomorrow is tap night.”
Hartley gave me another pale smile. “Yeah? If they spring me from this joint tomorrow, I’ll sit and wait up with you guys. We’ll have to play a few games of hockey, of course.”
“Naturally,” I agreed.