Blink Once (2 page)

“There’s my boy.” At the sound of Mom’s voice, I woke up. Had I been sleeping? Was it still the same day—wasn’t that girl just here? My mom. I wanted to see her so badly.

“Hi, hon.” Mom came around the bed to where I could see her, and it was her. She was acting so normal, looking so normal in her same old clothes, her long navy-blue wool coat, it was like she had just come home and found me sitting on the couch watching TV. She pulled over the chair and sat right beside me, pushing my hair out of my face. “I know you’ll hate me for saying this, but I think we need to do something about this hair. It’s just going to drive you crazy.”

Her face was calm; she was smiling a little bit, looking me right in the eye. Why was everyone acting so normal? Didn’t they all get it—I was lost, I felt like I had amnesia or something. I tried to speak. “That tube is still bothering you, isn’t it?” She wiped the corner of my eyes. “I’m so sorry, I wish I could take it out but you need it in there to breathe, okay?” My hair fell across my eyes again and she pushed it back, stroking my forehead. “I’m so lucky to have you, you know that? You’re getting so much stronger every day, and pretty soon you’ll be able to go home, pretty soon.”

I made the only sound I could, a grunt, like a throat clearing. I saw my mom look up at the doorway. “That tube is giving him a hard time again—can you check it, please?” she said to someone behind her.

“Sure, Mrs. Spencer. It’s time to rotate his mattress
again,” said a female voice. It sounded like the nurse from before, the one who checked my blood pressure, and as she came into view, I saw that it was her—an older, round woman in a nursing uniform with her hair pulled back from her face. She loosened something at the foot of the bed and then pulled the mattress back to flat, so I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling. “He’ll need some eye drops, too.” The nurse held a tiny flashlight over my eyes for a second, making me squint. “You’re sure you don’t want us to tape his lids shut? It can help keep irritation down,” the nurse added, looking at my mom.

“Oh no, he’d hate that, please don’t,” Mom told her.

The nurse shrugged. “Your call.” She picked up something from a tray next to the bed and then dropped some liquid into my eyes that made my vision go all blurry and my eyes feel greasy. I felt the nurse touching my neck, my throat. She was tugging on something. “Do you mind if I flush this out while you’re here?” she asked my mom. “It can be a little messy.”

“Actually I have to leave early today, so I’ll just say good-bye and let you get to work,” she said. She leaned over me where I could see her face. “Sorry I can’t stay too long today. Bye, sweetie. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” She kissed my cheek and gave me a smile. She never even took off her coat.

The nurse waved to her as she left. “Your mom is a
good lady,” she said softly, leaning over me as she worked on the tube in my throat. “Not everyone is so lucky.” The nurse motioned with her head to the wall that separated my room from Olivia’s. “That one’s mother is a real piece of work,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Nothing’s ever good enough for her Olivia. Piece of work,” she said again, pulling up a clear plastic tube. “No wonder this is bothering you. Let’s see that chart,” she said, walking to the foot of my bed where I couldn’t see her. She was still talking, but now it was quietly, and mostly to herself. “Have to remember to talk to Cheryl… . Thinks you can’t feel it….” I could hear her writing something on the chart, scratching the paper with a pen.

Then she was back over me, her tight face bunched up as she worked on my throat. Her dark-brown eyes were focused on my neck. I felt cool water suddenly inside my throat. I tried to swallow, but it felt like it was too low to swallow so it just went down on its own. “Good job,” the nurse said, pushing something into my throat. “That’s better now, huh?” she asked me.

It did feel a lot better and I wanted to tell her, so I blinked once for yes. I hope she got the message. Was that what Olivia said, once for yes, twice for no? Or was it twice for yes? The nurse took my hand and held it at the wrist while looking at her watch for a few seconds. “Okay, doing great.” She tucked my hand and arm back under the belt
on the bed. “Get some rest now.” She winked at me and left the room. I stared at the ceiling, trying to soak in everything that was going on—or not going on—and listening to the noise of the machines next to my bed.

This can’t be happening, this is a dream. A bad dream
. I closed my eyes and tried to get myself to wake up. Wake up in my own bed, putting this behind me. I had learned my lesson. I would be more careful on the bike. I would not show off for Mike or anyone else. I could make this all go away.
This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

The winter sun is setting and the glare keeps getting in my eyes. I pull down the visor on my helmet and wipe my gloves on my jeans. “Let’s do this!” I hear Mike yell as he zooms by me, his legs pumping the pedals. He’s standing up on his bike and hits the wooden ramp going fast, almost too fast. He slides smoothly up the incline, yanking his bike to the right and his body to the left, jumping back on his wheel jacks hard and bouncing the tire up to the ramp ledge. “Whooooooooooo!” he yells, pulling his bike up on its rear wheel beside him, like a trophy fish. “Come on, hit it!”

With the sun behind him, he looks like a photo negative, a black cutout against the red and orange sky. I flip up my visor and turn to look at Allie. She’s sitting on that big
rock, watching us, but I know she must get bored with all this. She tilts her head and looks back at me, that little smile on her face. I snap the visor back down and wheel around, get far enough from the ramp to get some distance, some speed, some air.

I’m moving fast, standing on the pedals and pushing hard. I love it when the bike just feels like another part of me, an extra limb, connected. I hit the ramp but something’s wrong. The wheel pulls to the right so I pull left—too hard. I’m gonna spill, maybe even backward. I feel it coming, that loss of control, that idiot feeling. Damn, I hate giving Mike something to talk smack about. I yank my arms up to break my fall, but they won’t move. They’re stuck, strapped down. I keep pulling them up, but I can’t … I can’t …

And then I woke up, straining against the strap across my bed. I was still here, it was real. I was in a hospital, paralyzed, or at least that’s what the girl next door said.

“Hey there, mister, calm down, you’re okay,” the nurse said. “Where do you think you’re going?” She pulled my arm out from under the strap and held my wrist. “Heart’s racing; what kind of dream you having?” She was looking me right in the eye, as if I could answer her. I didn’t even know how long I’d been here, but for the past two days I’d seen this same nurse. She talked to me like she knew me, but maybe all the nurses did that.

She wiped my forehead with a small towel. “Getting your exercise in your sleep, huh? Wish I could do that,” she said. “Instead, they got me counting my points and walking on that treadmill every day. Huh!” She smiled at me. “Now how many points do you think there are in a chicken salad sandwich? Well, you’d be surprised. A whole lot, that’s how many.” She clicked the mattress at the top, then at the bottom, and rotated the bed ninety degrees. “There, now you can look outside.” Beyond her was a big window, winter sun streaming in.

“You have a good day now,” the nurse said, and left the room. At least I think she left; they all wore such quiet shoes, it was hard to tell.

I must have drifted off again, because the next thing I heard was someone talking. “You awake?” a voice said. Olivia. The room was getting dark now, dusk settling in.

She sniffled and rolled her IV pole around the bed so I could see her. There was no chair on that side, so she just sat on the other bed that was there, pulling her knees up to her chest. She looked like she’d been crying.

“Oh, thank God you’re awake,” she said, looking at my eyes. She was quiet for a moment, just looking down. “Do you know how long I’ve been here?” After waiting a beat or two for my answer, she laughed. “I’m so desperate, I’m having a conversation with a human vegetable!” I blinked twice. I’m not a vegetable.

“Okay, you’re not a vegetable,” she said, as if she could hear my thoughts. She lay on her side, tucking her robe carefully around her skinny legs. Her modesty made me sad—like I would really try to sneak a look up her hospital gown.

“I’m just so tired of being treated like a child, you know?”

I blinked yes.

“This is not what we’re supposed to be doing at sixteen. We’re supposed to be having fun.”

I blinked twice, no—also because I wasn’t sixteen; I had just turned seventeen.

“Let’s do something,” she said slowly. “No TV until free period tonight. You obviously are not up for a game of checkers, are you?” She grinned. “I mean, we could try it—I could move your pieces based on yes-or-no blinks, but … I think maybe not.” Her sense of humor was growing on me. Maybe she wasn’t so bad. “I’ll read to you. You like it when your mom does that.” I didn’t remember my mom reading to me. How could Olivia know about it when I didn’t? Had I been unconscious that long?

She opened the bedside table and took a book out of the drawer.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
. It looked like my copy of the book. But I hadn’t read that in years—it was so like my mom to bring in that book. She was always pulling out stuff from when I was little and trying to make
it relevant now, like she didn’t want to let go of me at age ten or twelve or something. When Olivia opened the book and started reading, I was surprised by how quickly I slipped into the story and forgot about what was going on. I liked her voice and her pale white face, her lips so red as she formed the words.

When I discovered Harry Potter, I ripped through the books at lightning speed. I was ten and I guess I was what you would call a nerd. Actually, I had no idea how nerdy I was until I met Mike. Mike was the person who saved me from a high school career of being a complete outsider. I had to give him total credit: he sought me out, made friends with me. Of course, he did it for totally selfish reasons—he wanted someone to bike with. But I was saved from nerdom, and got a best friend in the bargain, so I’m not about to complain.

I’m not sure if Mike and I ever talked about Harry Potter. If he knew that, at one time, I was obsessed with those books. It’s not the kind of thing he and I would ever talk about—books, reading. It only took Olivia about twenty-four hours to figure it out, and I’ve never actually spoken a word to the girl. As I watched her mouth move, I couldn’t help noticing her face was really pretty, and I was hardly hearing the words. Before I knew it, I was asleep again.

When I woke, it was dark and I was facing the floor. I’d been rotated again. I didn’t know how much time had
passed, or even whether it was the same day. But something woke me up. Someone was crying—Olivia, in her room?—but it was closer than that, and I could see, looking to the side, that the door to my room was now shut. Who was crying? It felt like a dream, like a dream I had had before.

That’s when I saw feet, beside my bed, by the small table. They were not in nurse’s shoes, but in sandals. Painted toenails. Little girl’s feet. She was sniffling and doing something in the drawer by my bed, pulling things out of it. Who was this person? She pushed the drawer shut and walked away, still sobbing, sniffling, but her sounds growing more distant as she left the room. I didn’t hear the door close behind her.

I tried to clear my throat, but I knew the sound wouldn’t be loud enough for Olivia or the nurses to hear. The next thing I knew, it was bright in the room, and the nurse was rotating my bed. I must have fallen asleep again.

“I heard from your mom today,” the nurse told me, dropping some liquid into my eyes. “She’s not going to be able to make it after work tonight and she wanted me to let you know. I told her that you wouldn’t be any trouble at all, so don’t make me out to be wrong, okay?” She smiled, and I noticed that she had a big space between her front teeth. Something about that made me instantly like her even more than I already did.