Blink Once (22 page)

“I didn’t really see any other patients,” I lied. “It was just the memory of being there, you know, being powerless and hopeless, like we talked about.”

“And last night—any dreams? Did that dream about the man attacking someone come back again?”

I shook my head. “Actually, I haven’t had that dream since I left Wilson. I guess I only had it there.” That was actually the truth, but now I knew why. The dream was connected to Olivia—to her attack, not to Wilson, and not to me. But I wasn’t about to tell the doctor that.

“I think you haven’t had that dream since your surgery, since you regained the control of your body. When you lost that sense of being powerless, the dream stopped at the same time.”

I could tell she was really pleased with herself, with her theory. And actually, I’m sure it was grounded in some psychology truths. But she didn’t know the whole story. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that,” I told her, trying to look thoughtful. “That really makes sense.” I watched her face to be sure I wasn’t laying it on too thick.

We talked a little bit about my mom and her reaction to being at the hospital, and about being with me out for the first time since my accident, and then wrapped up the
session. I was relieved she hadn’t asked about Olivia at all. “Next week I hear you’ll be an outpatient, so I’ll only be seeing you once a week, on Wednesday.” She watched my face.

“Yeah, I think that sounds good.”

“But West, I want you to know that I’m always here for you, and if you feel like you need to talk more than that, we can increase our sessions to twice a week. You can also call me if you find that the transition to home life is harder than you thought. Your mom has my card with my direct line on it. You use it if you need to, okay?”

I nodded and tried to look very serious, but inside I was celebrating. Only once a week, I could do that. I could hold it together.

When I had time to think over the next couple of days—on the treadmill or in bed at night—my mind kept returning to the conversation with Olivia’s mom. I would play it back like I was watching a movie; every word she said, every subtle thing, everything I said. That Olivia had been attacked was not actually a surprise to me, I found. It wasn’t startling. Somehow I knew it; from the moment she said it, the memory of the dream washed over me and I knew it. It felt like an old memory—like when you smell some type of food and it brings you back to the cafeteria in your kindergarten school. Suddenly you are there, really there; you remember everything—the tile on the floor, what the little
table was like, the milk carton in front of you. When her mom said the word
assaulted
, I knew. Yes. But I had always known, I just hadn’t wanted to know. Olivia had been hurt, that was clear. Something terrible had happened to her, but she didn’t want to talk about it, and I was happy to let it go. I didn’t want to think about someone doing that to her. But she showed me, and I saw it instead, in my dreams, even though my brain didn’t want to figure it out. Didn’t want to put the pieces together. But now that I had, there was no removing that knowledge. My room at Wilson was haunted, but not by a former patient. It was haunted by Olivia, by what had happened to her, by the girl that she was before. I wondered if she even knew. Did she know what had happened to her or was she like me, unwilling to examine it? Not ready to really know?

I wanted to know more about her attacker—had he been caught, did he look exactly like the man in my dreams? I had computer access at the center, and I had used it just a few times. Sometimes they had me practice my typing on the keyboard; I was still a little rusty with the fine motor skills. But I was too paranoid to look up anything about Olivia and her case. What if they could trace the things I was doing on the center’s computer? That would have to wait until I was home, where I knew how to clear the search memory quickly and easily, so my parents wouldn’t know what I was doing.

Something about knowing the truth made the pattern of my days at the center less of a struggle. I wasn’t constantly doubting myself, or worrying. I eased into my schedule and made more progress. I was happier. After weeks of constantly restraining my thoughts, of telling myself that Olivia wasn’t real, now I knew she was. When I thought of her, it made me smile. She was real, I knew where she was, and I knew that I could see her again. Maybe not the way I used to, but she was real. And that made all the difference. I had a secret, and something about that was exciting. Like when you have a crush on someone and you feel extra alive for no reason. I felt like that. I had something again—what had been taken away from me was returned. Not the way I thought it would be, but it was better than nothing, than being told the girl I was in love with didn’t exist. She did; I had seen her. That was enough to keep me going for now.

When Mike came to visit the day before my release, he noticed the difference. He brought some new tunes and they let us listen to his iPod in a corner of the physical therapy room, even though a few other patients were in there. No one seemed to mind. We played a few rounds of the card game Spit—something that my cognitive therapist had taught me. It was supposed to help with my mental agility, as he called it, and it seemed to be working. “Dang, for somebody with brain damage, you are kicking my ass,” Mike joked after I beat him a second time.

“I don’t really have brain damage,” I explained. “I just have to get used to using my mind again.”

“A three-month nap will do that to you.” Mike smiled.

“Yeah, it’s pretty pathetic that I’ve been in a coma and I’m still better than you at cards,” I pointed out.

“Oh it’s
on
, coma boy,” Mike said, dealing out the cards for a rematch. At the end of the afternoon, I had won nine times, he had seven, so we were pretty close, but still … I was feeling pretty good, and it must have been clear. When Mike was leaving he pulled me in for a bro hug and then hesitated at the door. “Look, not to get all romantic on you or anything, but I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad you’re like—
you
—again.” Mike looked embarrassed.

“Yeah, I am feeling pretty good. You can tell?”

Mike nodded. “When you first woke up, you were scary—like seriously scary—because you’d seem normal, but then you weren’t … I was worried.” His face was serious. “But now, I mean, they’re letting you go home, right?”

He looked like he doubted himself, so I had to reassure him. “Tomorrow. I think I’m ready. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt normal, so thanks for noticing.”

Mike smiled. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t warn you when you were acting loco?” He punched my arm as he turned to go. I was glad to see him slip back into his old self. When he got serious, it scared me. “Call me when you’re home, I’ll come over. I think Xbox will totally help you with that ‘fine motor skill’ shit you were talking about.”

I had to laugh, but he was probably right. The controls for some of those games were pretty complicated. As I watched Mike walk to his car, I realized that I wasn’t going to be doing a lot of anything else when I got home. I wasn’t going back to school this year, that had already been decided. I would start my junior year over in the fall, a total redo. I was bummed that Mike and Allie would be seniors without me, but the upside was that this would give me a chance to get my grades up. I’d been coasting on a C average, spending more time biking than studying. But that would all be different now.

The next morning, both Mom and Dad came to get me. My room was already packed up, and we went into the therapy room to say good-bye to everyone. I would be back tomorrow for an all-day appointment, so this wasn’t really good-bye. Still, it felt sort of significant. The stroke lady gave me a hug, even though she knew she would see me again, probably the next day. “I’m so happy for you,” she said, smiling in her lopsided way. I was happy for me too.

“Do you want to stop for lunch?” Dad offered, climbing behind the wheel of Mom’s car.

“I kind of just want to get home,” I admitted, and Mom gave me a quick smile.

“I can make us sandwiches when we get to the house,” she offered. We had my crutches in the trunk, but I didn’t really need them anymore. I was able to get by pretty well
with just the braces on, though I walked stiffly. They told me I would always be a little tight, because of the fusion in my spine.

When we reached the house, I was surprised to see how unchanged everything was. My room was cleaned up, things put away and the bed made, which I knew I hadn’t done, but otherwise the same as I remembered it. I looked over at my laptop sitting on my desk, happy to see it was there, and that I could use it when I got a minute away from my parents.

Mom made lunch and we all sat around the table talking until Dad said he had to go and take a meeting by phone. “I’ll just be at the hotel—this shouldn’t take long. I was thinking I’d like to take you two out to dinner tonight, if you’re up for it?”

Mom and I agreed it sounded good, and we would meet at our favorite Italian restaurant later. Another nice thing to come out of my accident was that Mom and Dad were getting along better than they had in years. Better than I’d ever seen them get along, actually. It was pretty awesome to see them hanging out, I had to admit.

After Dad left, Mom showed me the new equipment she had put in the den. A lot of it was stuff they had in physical therapy, and I was impressed. “This must have cost a bundle,” I said, looking at the Pilates Reformer that now took up one side of the room.

“You know what, though,” Mom explained, “I’m going to try to use this stuff too. Why not, right? I should get into shape as well.” I wondered when, between her job and schlepping me back and forth to physical therapy, she was going to have the time, but then I realized she was just trying to make me feel better about the expense she had gone to. “Do you want to watch some TV, or rest … ?”

“I think I’ll go lie down, if that’s okay,” I told her. “I feel okay; I just want to take a nap if we’re going out tonight.”

Mom smiled. “No headaches or anything though?”

I shook my head. This was something the doctor had told us both to be on the lookout for, but so far my head had been feeling fine. I went into my room and closed the door behind me. I couldn’t believe how good it felt to sit on my own bed, in my own room, with my laptop. I took a deep breath and started doing some research online, typing as quietly as I could so that Mom wouldn’t hear me.

It took a while to find the report of Olivia’s attack. I hadn’t realized that they don’t release the names of minors, so searching for her name got me nowhere. I finally found something about a fifteen-year-old female victim by searching with the key word “coma.” It had happened in the city, two years ago, downtown. “The victim, a fifteen-year-old female, remains comatose at St. Joseph’s Hospital,” one article said. This must have been before she was moved to Wilson. There weren’t many details available. A young girl
had been attacked; she was not breathing when she was discovered by a bus driver. The next day, a twenty-seven-year-old suspect had been arrested, but his name was not released. An article a few days later listed the victim as stabilized in a coma. This one had the attacker’s name because he had been charged with the crime: Thomas Mason. Once I found his name, it was easy to find his sentencing papers, and where he was serving his time.

So he was real, an actual person. Not just someone from my dreams. A real man, sitting in a prison. I tried to picture him, what he was doing right now.

“West, sweetie, you okay in there?” Mom knocked gently on the door. I glanced at the clock, surprised to see that I’d been in my room for two hours.

“Yup, fine, just waking up. I’ll be right out.” The sun was starting to set outside, and I knew we’d be meeting Dad soon for dinner. But I had what I needed. I hadn’t found any photos of this guy online, but I knew where he was, and that was a start.

My days fell into a pattern, with Mom dropping me off at the rehabilitation center before work and picking me up in the afternoon. She had arranged her work schedule so that she could make the half-hour drive there and back each day, but it meant that she had to do all her paperwork at home, sitting at the dining room table at night. It made me feel pretty crappy knowing how much I had already disrupted her life with everything that was going on with me. “You know, Mike said he could pick me up one of these days, save you the return trip,” I offered.

Mom laughed. “Are you kidding with me? You are not getting into a car with Mike, especially not to go to physical therapy. I mean, seriously …”

I wasn’t allowed to drive yet, which presented a real
problem. There was somewhere I wanted to go, someone I wanted to see, and I didn’t know how I was going to get there. Friday was my only day off from the center, and I was supposed to just rest at home. I knew if I asked, Mom would say no to hanging out with Mike if it meant going in his car anywhere. She felt I was still too fragile. I wondered if she would ever trust me to be out on my own again. I knew she came in to check on me two or three times a night sometimes, like she did when I was little and I had a fever.

The first Friday came and Mom actually stayed home from work. We went out to lunch, and then she insisted I get a haircut at her place. I had to agree—my hair had passed from long and sort of cool-looking to dirty and hippie. Mom told the stylist I wanted just a trim, but I actually wanted it shorter. I directed the lady as she moved around the chair, even having her buzz the back pretty short. I could tell Mom was happy with the results, and so was I. The haircut was perfect for something I had in mind for the next week.

That weekend, Mike and Allie came over for dinner on Saturday night—Mom ordered a pizza but generally stayed out of our way. We played some Xbox and then watched a DVD Mike brought over. “Really, who thought this was a good idea?” Allie asked, holding up the case. It showed two teenagers, a girl and boy, running down a dark street from some ominous shape behind them.

“What?” Mike said. “You don’t approve?”

“
Two teens get more than they bargained for when they accept a ride from a stranger,
” Allie read off the case. “
They soon find themselves in a real-life game of cat and mouse with an evil force
… forget it, I’m not watching this.”