A car accident? I stared at her for a moment and then shifted my gaze from her, back to the drop ceiling and the too-bright lights. A second passed and I turned my head slightly, wincing as stabbing pain ricocheted from one temple to the next. The walls were white, lined with boxes and containers marked as hazardous material.
The tugging feeling at the top of my hand made more sense. It was an IV. I was most definitely in a hospital, but a car accident? I searched my head, but it...it was full of shadows with memories cloaked behind them.
“I...I don’t remember a car...accident.”
“Jesus,” Lori murmured.
The door opened, and I saw Mom. A tall, thin man followed her, wearing a white lab coat. Mom halted almost immediately, clasping her hands together against her chest. She looked as bad as Lori.
“Oh, baby,” Mom cried, and then she was lurching forward, rushing to the bed.
A memory floated to the surface. Words—words that had been spoken to me. Do you love me enough to carry me inside my house, pass my mom and tuck me into bed?
Someone had said that to me—outside, in the driveway of Keith’s house. The voice came back out of the darkness, eerily familiar. But only after we stop at McDonald’s so I can get chicken nuggets.
Chicken nuggets?
The memory floated away as soon as it formed, and I couldn’t place the voice or tell if it was even real or just from a dream.
“Thank God.” Mom bent over, carefully kissing my forehead and then my nose and then my chin. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” She kissed my forehead again. “How are you feeling?”
“Confused,” I forced out. Really, extraordinarily confused.
“She doesn’t remember.” Lori rose, smoothing her hands over her hips. “She doesn’t remember the car accident at all.”
“That’s not uncommon with these types of injuries along with heavy sedation,” the man in the white lab coat said. “Her memory will most likely come back either completely or with a few patches once we get everything out of her system.”
Heavy sedation?
Mom took Lori’s place, sitting the closest to the bed. She picked up my hand, the one with the IV. “This is Dr. Arnold. He was the one who...” Lowering her chin, she shook her head as she drew in what sounded like a halted breath.
I knew whatever she couldn’t say was pretty serious, and as I stared at her, I saw her in my mind, sitting at the kitchen table, poring over contracts. She’d been wearing her reading glasses, and she’d told me that when my phone rang again, I had to answer it. And she’d said something else.
Be careful.
Always.
When had that been? Saturday. Saturday before—
Dr. Arnold sat on the edge of the bed, crossing one knee over the over. “You are a very lucky young lady.”
Focusing on him, I decided I was going to have to take his word for it, because I had no idea what was going on.
Mom squeezed my hand, and when I glanced at her, she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Her eyes were just as puffy and red rimmed as Lori’s.
The doctor reached to the front of the bed and lifted a chart up. “Other than tired, how are you feeling?”
I swallowed and it was like sandpaper rubbing together. “Tired. And I...I don’t feel good.”
“That’s probably the leftover effects of the sedation,” he said, running his fingers along the center of the chart. “We’ve got you on some strong pain relievers right now, so that can also make you feel a little sick. That said, how is the pain?”
“Um...my head hurts.” I glanced at Mom, and she smiled reassuringly. “My chest hurts. Everything...hurts.”
“You took quite a beating,” Dr. Arnold replied, and my eyes widened. A beating? I thought it had been a car accident. Before I could ask, he continued. “You suffered a concussion, but there’s been no evidence of swelling of the brain. As long as that remains true, we’re going to be out of the woods in that area.” He scanned the chart. “You might’ve figured out that your left arm is fractured. It’s going to be in a cast for anywhere from three to six weeks.”
I blinked slowly. A cast?
But my arm couldn’t be fractured. I had practice and games coming up.
I lifted my left arm and it throbbed dully. Yep. There was definitely a cast around my forearm. My gaze flickered back to the doctor. Nothing about this felt real.
“I...I can’t be in a cast. I play...volleyball.”
“Honey.” Mom squeezed my hand gently again. “There is no need to worry about volleyball right now. That is the last thing you should be stressing over.”
How could I not stress over it? It was my senior year. Coach thought I could catch the eye of a scout, and Megan would be so ticked off if I couldn’t play.
Dr. Arnold closed the chart. “You’ve had some very serious injuries, Lena, including trauma to your chest, which caused a bilateral pneumothorax.”
I stared at him blankly. Pneumo-what?
He smiled faintly, obviously reading my confusion. “It basically means you had air in your chest cavity, which put pressure on the lung and prevented it from expanding. Oftentimes it’s single sided and the puncture is so minor that all we need to do is get the air out.”
I had a feeling, based on how my sides felt like they were packed in Ace bandages, that wasn’t what had happened here.
“In your case, you broke ribs on both sides, puncturing your thorax on both sides, so both of your lungs collapsed and were unable to compensate. I cannot stress how serious of a situation that is. When we have two lungs down, we often aren’t having a conversation with the patient later.”
Mom lifted her other hand, smoothing it over her face. She stopped with her fingers covering her mouth.
The doctor draped one arm over his knee. “We had to go in and do surgery on both sides.” He gestured to the location on his body. “To remove the air and seal off the leaks.”
Holy.
Crap.
“We wanted to give your lungs time to recover, so we’ve had you heavily sedated and let the machines do the breathing for you, but we didn’t have to keep you under very long. You were ready to wake up yesterday.” Dr. Arnold smiled again.
I had a vague recollection of hearing people talk about me waking up, but there was something else existing on the fringes. Other people talking. Someone screaming—no, the screaming wasn’t from the hospital.
“As I said, you’re a very lucky young lady. We were able to remove the ventilation tube, but we’re going to hold you in the ICU for another day or two, since your blood pressure is a little low. We want to keep an eye on that.”
I understood what he was staying and it made sense, but a huge part of me couldn’t believe it.
“Once we think you’re ready, we’ll move you into recovery so we can monitor for infection and inflammation. We’ll get you started on breathing exercises later today, and by tomorrow we’ll have you out of this bed, walking for a little bit.”
I could barely process this.
“If all goes well, which I believe it will, you’ll be back home by the beginning of next week.”
Beginning of next week?
“You’re going to be bruised and sore for some time, and I think volleyball is going to be sidelined for quite some time.”