Her eyes are red and swollen. Her face is blotchy, and her blonde hair’s a mess. I’ve never seen her look like this. And why is she in her work scrubs?
When I speak, I’m surprised by how weak and scratchy my voice sounds and by how much my throat hurts. “Hey, girlfriend. You look like shit.”
She grabs my hand and bursts into tears. “Shay. Oh God. Thank God.”
I look around the room. My parents stand together at the end of my bed. My father is gripping the metal guard rails that surround the mattress with both hands as if he’s hanging on to it for life.
“Hi, honey,” he says, his voice choked. His clothing is rumpled and his eyes are red, and I realize that, like Chelsea, he’s been crying too.
The beeping grows louder and faster as cold fear seizes me.
I’m in the hospital.
This is a hospital room, and my parents and Chelsea are here because I’ve been hurt.
Suddenly, I can’t catch my breath. It feels like a thousand pound weight is crushing my chest. I swallow, blinking against the harsh light of the room, and try to sit up.
I can’t move.
Panicking now, I look down at myself.
I’m covered by a thin blue blanket, but my arms and legs are where there should be. Slender plastic tubes are stuck in both arms and the back of my right hand. The tubes lead up to bags of clear liquid hanging from a silver pole beside the bed. Next to the pole is the heart rate monitor causing all the beeping.
A young doctor in a white jacket sweeps into the room, followed by a big male nurse in blue scrubs. He must’ve been who my mother ordered to call the doctor. Chelsea moves aside to make room for the doctor at the edge of the bed but doesn’t let go of my hand.
“Hello, Shay. I’m Dr. Dayan. How are you feeling?”
He has a gentle voice and a gentle smile, and now I’m even more afraid than I was before. My tongue doesn’t want to work, so I stare at him in terrified silence, waiting for him to speak again.
My expression must be pretty dire, because he starts to explain things to me slowly, as if I might not understand his words.
“You were in a car accident. You’re in the ICU. We gave you drugs to reduce the swelling in your brain, so you might feel disoriented and confused for a while. That’s normal.”
I’m in the ICU?
As if summoned by that thought, the pain in my body makes itself known.
It’s everywhere but worse in certain places. My head aches and my right hip throbs. My spine doesn’t feel right, as if it’s out of alignment, and all the nerves between the discs are pinched. And my throat is so raw and tender. Even my vocal cords are sore.
Everyone in the room is holding their breath. I can sense it without looking at them. The feeling of collective dread hangs in the air like an evil mist.
And I understand that I’ve been hurt very badly. That these people I love weren’t sure if I would live or die.
Cole.
My heartbeat goes haywire. My mouth, already dry, turns to dust and ashes. Cold descends over my entire body, making it feel as if I’ve been wrapped in sheets of ice.
I whisper, “Is Cole okay?”
Leaning over to shine a penlight in both my eyes, Dr. Dayan says, “You’ll be weak for a while. That’s normal too. Muscles atrophy quickly when they’re not used. Your throat will hurt as well. Your breathing tube was removed this morning when we stopped the paralytics.”
I don’t care about a stupid breathing tube right now. What I care about is the man who was in the car with me.
“Where’s Cole? Chelsea? Is he all right?”
Chelsea and the doctor share a glance. Then she squeezes my hand.
“Let him examine you, okay? Then we’ll talk.”
Her voice is soft. Too soft and tinged with sorrow. And I know what it means.
Cole isn’t okay.
Whatever’s wrong with me, it’s worse with him.
The sound of screeching tires and shattering glass fills my ears. The sensation of tumbling through empty space grips me. I suck in a breath that feels like fire and smells like smoke and burning fuel.
While the doctor taps my leg to see if I can feel it, I close my eyes and start to cry.
I wake to darkness.
It’s not total. Light from the hallway spills through the open door of the room. The curtain that surrounds the bed has been drawn to one side so I can see into the hallway to the nurses station beyond. Three people sit at the desk, an older woman in pink scrubs who’s typing on a computer keyboard and two younger women doing paperwork.
The only light inside my room comes from the hallway and the moonlight spilling through the window.
It must be very late, but I don’t know the time. If there’s a clock in this room, it’s not within sight.
I turn my head on the pillow and see my mother sleeping on the small sofa under the window, her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around herself. She’s pale and too thin. Dark smudges under her eyes belie her exhaustion.
In the moonlight, she doesn’t look like she’s sleeping.
She looks like she’s dead.
But then she inhales and mumbles something incoherently, and the band of pain around my chest eases.
It tightens again when I think of Cole.
I have to know how he is. I have to know what happened to him. I barely remember anything about the accident that put me here, only that quick glimpse of the oncoming truck and a few snatches of the collision, but I know it must’ve been devastating.
Lifting my head feels like being hit with a sledgehammer.
Sitting upright leaves me gasping in pain.
Dizzy and nauseated, I squeeze my eyes shut and stay still for a while, gathering the strength to swing my legs over the side of the bed. At some point, someone lowered the guard rails, so I’m not trapped anymore.
When I feel more steady, I slide one leg at a time around, then gingerly scoot to the edge of the mattress until I can set my feet on the floor. It’s icy cold, even through the ugly blue hospital socks I’m wearing.
I try not to think of how I got into those socks or this pale blue gown either. I don’t wonder who had to take me out of my other clothes, or about how they must’ve been cut off my body. I push all thoughts out of my head and concentrate on standing up.
The effort it takes leaves me panting and covered in sweat.
I grab onto the metal pole that holds the bag of liquid I’m hooked up to. It’s got wheels, thank God. As carefully and quietly as I can, I shuffle around the end of the bed toward the open door, praying my mother doesn’t wake up and stop me.
She doesn’t.
When I reach the door, the nurses are still occupied with their work.
Weak, shaking, and in pain, I slink past the nurses station, slowly making my way down the hallway. The doors to the patient rooms don’t have windows, so I can’t see inside, but as I’m passing a room with a door painted bright yellow and numbered nine, the door opens suddenly and a doctor stands there.
He’s startled to see me, but I don’t pay attention to him.
I’m looking at the person lying on the bed in the room beyond.
It’s Cole.
I only recognize him because of his hands, lying still on the bed, and his father, who’s seated in a chair beside him.
Cole’s head has been shaved. A ragged black line of stitches snakes down the left side of his face, temple to jaw. A tube is stuck down his throat and held in place by wide strips of white tape that stand out vividly against the mottled purple-and-blue bruising on his skin.
A machine is breathing for him.
I must make a cry of distress, because Konrad glances up and sees me standing out in the hallway staring in.
Our eyes meet.
His are hopeless and shining with tears.
My legs give out, but the doctor catches me before I fall. The last thing I see as the door swings closed behind him is Cole’s father as he drops his head into his hands and starts to cry.
Shay
The next morning, after my doctor has a quiet conversation with my parents outside in the hall, I’m moved out of critical care to a regular room on a different floor. I hold my mother’s hand as a nurse wheels my bed down the hallway and onto the elevator.