- 3 -
Recovery
When Mary woke the next morning, she was so stiff that she could barely get out of bed. Her side was one giant bruise, and everything ached. She didn't want to move, but her bladder finally forced her up and to the bathroom.
Mom took the day off to take care of her. She was also on the phone a lot, talking with police and insurance companies and such. It was a mess, and Mary had been given a citation for crossing the street when she wasn't supposed to. Carter apparently got one too, for running a red light.
Mary stared at the amount for the ticket. "I'm really sorry, Mom."
"Don't worry about it," Mom told her. "Just get better."
But that didn't help Mary feel better. She knew money was thin between the rent, private school fees, her grandmother's medical bills that the insurance didn't cover, and the tiny bit Mom tried to tuck away for Mary's college. A police ticket was the last thing they needed.
Mary sighed and let her forehead hit the kitchen table. "Ow."
"Here, take your meds." Mom opened a bottle of prescription painkillers and put two in front of Mary.
"I hate pills," Mary said.
"I know. But you hate pain more," Mom said as she filled a glass with water and put it on the table next to the pills.
Mary groaned, but she managed to choke down the medicine. Then, she stood and headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" Mom asked.
"My telescope is still on the roof," Mary said. "I need to get it."
"No you don't," Mom said. "You need to rest."
"But I don't want the wind to blow it over," Mary said. "And what if it starts raining?"
"Then I'll get it," Mom said as she got up. "But you rest."
As Mom went to get the scope, Mary sat on the couch and turned on the television. The only thing worth watching was a movie where a teenage boy died in a prank gone wrong, and a bunch of kids tried to cover it up. But the dead kid's vengeful ghost came back to haunt and kill each of them.
The pills must've kicked in some time after the second kid was killed, because the next thing Mary knew, she was waking up to video game explosions creeping down from the ceiling. Mom must've turned off the TV when Mary fell asleep, and she had left a note on the coffee table saying she was going to pay the electric bill and pick up some groceries.
Mary turned the TV back on, but it wasn't enough to drown out the explosions and zombies screaming from above. She finally turned off the TV and hiked up to the roof.
The telescope was gone, but the plastic lounge chair was still in the same place Mary had left it the day before. She lay down on it and watched as the sky turned deeper shades of blue and purple. The first stars started to come out. When she was younger, Mary used to think that each star was an angel assigned to watch over a human on Earth. But when Mom started working at the hospital and Mary saw all the suffering there, she wondered why the angels weren't doing their jobs. Then she learned in school that stars were actually massive balls of burning gas far away, and all the magic was gone by then.
Her mind turned to Carter, who had been moved to the intensive care unit not long after the doctors had successfully revived him. The stars had definitely not watched out for him yesterday. If Mary hadn't seen him crying, he probably would've been stuck in the morgue and died then. Before Mary and Mom left the hospital, Mr. Romero came to talk with them once more.
"Thank you," he had told Mary.
For what? Carter had been on that emergency table in the first place because of her. Pain started growing up her leg and her bruised side. But Mary didn't want to choke down more meds just yet, so she curled up on her good side. And in a way, she felt like she deserved to be in pain for what happened to Carter.
Why had he saved her, she wondered. Why had he risked his life doing it? How many bones had he broken? Would he be able to walk? Did he have brain damage? What if he was a vegetable? Or what if he never woke again?
She felt like crying again. But as usual, tears didn't come.
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