Blink Once (5 page)

Her friend slid down off the counter. “It’s too loud in here. I’m going outside, you coming?”

Allie shook her head, and her friend shrugged and walked off.

I looked back at Allie and just stood there. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Should I give her a compliment? Tell her she looked pretty tonight? No, that would come out wrong. Like she didn’t usually look pretty. The music suddenly seemed to be louder, more obnoxious.

“So … ,” I finally said. Then I just stood there, like an idiot, waiting for something cool to come out of my mouth.

“So, drama?” she asked when it was clear I was totally floundering.

“Oh, that.” I shook my head. “I built the bike ramp, the one at the park next to school. So Mrs. Herbert asked me to help out with the sets, just building and stuff, you know.” I tried to growl like a caveman and added, “Power tools.”

Allie smiled. “Don’t put yourself down. I saw the drawings you did for the sets, they’re amazing. You’re really talented. Have you had a lot of art classes?” She met my eyes in a serious way that made me wish I hadn’t had three beers already.

“Uh, no, I don’t know….” I looked across the room at Mike, who was now standing on one leg, using the beers to help him balance, doing a
Karate Kid
move. He had a crowd of admirers around him, the usual gang of idiots, cheering him on.

“How is it that you guys are friends?” Allie asked, and I was glad she changed the subject.

“That’s a long story.” I didn’t want to get into it. “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”

Now it was Allie’s turn to blush. “Do I?” Then she laughed.

I mocked her high voice, asking, “Do I?”

She kept laughing at my impression of her, which I took as a good sign that she wasn’t a bitch and didn’t take herself too seriously. “Okay, I guess I do. I’m sorry. Now it’s your turn—ask me anything.”

I stood next to her, so close I could touch her bare leg if I moved my hand an inch. I met her eyes and leaned in so I wouldn’t have to yell. “Do you have a boyfriend?” I only had the courage to ask because I already knew the answer. I’d done my homework.

“No.” She didn’t flinch.

“Can I get you a beer?”

“That’s two questions,” she said, smiling. “But okay.” The beer made her cheeks turn pink, which was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. After that, we never stopped talking. God, she was so beautiful, I couldn’t even believe she was speaking to me. That was the night when everything changed. Suddenly, I had a girlfriend. Allie. I wanted her, I went after her, and I got her. I almost couldn’t believe my good luck. I should have known it couldn’t last.

I walk into the school with Allie. It’s winter and it’s cold and she’s got her puffy coat on. I’m trying to squeeze her like a marshmallow and pick her up. “Stop it!” she squeals, slapping my hands away. We go to my locker first, and I see Mike. He’s got a skater hat pulled down over his rowdy red hair, the kind of hat you’re not supposed to wear in school. “Dude, I thought you were in the hospital,” he says, slapping me a high five.

“Didn’t you hear? The doctors were wrong, he’s totally fine,” Allie says quickly.

“That is excellent,” Mike says. “But are you ready for midterms?”

Then it hits me: I totally forgot to study. I open my backpack, but it’s full of hospital stuff: syringes, tubes, bandages,
the straps that held me on the bed. “Oh man, I think I brought the wrong bag.”

Mike’s laughing. “Uh, I hate to say this, but you are gonna fail big time.”

“Maybe you just go home and pretend you’re sick, you don’t have to take the tests today,” Allie says.

“Yeah, you’re not really dressed for school,” Mike points out. “Just go to the office. I’ll tell you what’s on the test later.”

“Mike!” Allie says. “That’s cheating.”

The bell sounds and they walk away together and leave me standing in the hallway alone. I look down and see that he’s right, I’m not dressed for school. I’m wearing my hospital gown. I still have an IV attached to my hand, there’s blood running down my arm, pooling on the floor.

I woke up to a nurse taping a new IV down on my hand. She didn’t talk to me or look at me, so I guess she didn’t notice that I was awake. She adjusted the IV bag and left before I was really awake. The drugs they were giving me at night were insane. I had also been rotated again, onto my back, but I didn’t remember who did that, or when. I didn’t mind—the faster time went by, the faster I could get to Friday and see this doctor and hear what was really going on with me.

By midmorning, I felt a little bit more normal. The
dream was still haunting me, but at least it wasn’t a creepy one, and at least I didn’t really have midterms today. I was wondering about Mike, and if he had ever come by to visit me, when Olivia rolled into the room with her IV stand.

“Hello, Prince Charming,” she said. “Good night last night, huh? I didn’t hear anything from over here, so I’m guessing you slept like a baby.”

I looked at her hands and was bummed to see that she didn’t have the whiteboard with her. How was I going to talk to her without it? “Don’t look so sad, I know what you’re looking for.” She opened the drawer by my bed and took out the board. “Wanna chat?” she joked.

She reached down to where her own IV went into her arm. It was attached to a piece of plastic that went under her skin and was there permanently. I’d heard the nurses call it a shunt. She capped the line and pulled it out of the needle, leaving the shunt in place, but cutting off the flow. Just like that, she wasn’t attached to her pole anymore. “Liquid nutrition has lots of calories. A lady has to watch her figure, you know.” She smiled and I noticed she had put on some lip gloss or something. Was that for me?

“Here we go.” She undid the strap on my right wrist and put the pen into my hand. I squeezed hard and set my mind to work. I had just one question for her. She held the board close to me and I started writing. After a few lines,
she took the board away. “
H,
and a … what is this letter? Did you write
Hi
again?”

I blinked no and she looked the board more closely. “Is this someone’s name?”

I blinked no and motioned with my hand that I wanted to write more. “Oh, is it
how
?”

I blinked yes. “Okay.” She wiped the board and put it back by my hand. This word was longer, but didn’t take me as long to write because I was getting the hang of this.

“Love?” Olivia asked and raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical. Without looking at me, she got it. “How long,” she said. “A question, how long—?”

I blinked yes.

“How long have we been here. Gosh, I don’t know.” She looked up at the ceiling like she was thinking hard. “A year or so, I guess.”

No, no, no.

I dropped the pen on the floor and felt vomit roll up my throat.

That wasn’t possible. My heart monitor started to go beep quickly.

“Okay, oh my God, calm down, don’t have a heart attack! I was kidding.” Olivia laughed, showing her little dark-white teeth. “I’ve been here forever. You? It’s been like a month, maybe. Or like three weeks. Not long. God, I thought you would appreciate a little joke! I guess you really didn’t know, huh?”

I could tell she felt bad, but I was also starting to realize that Olivia had a real dark streak. She could be super-sweet, but there was a hard side to her that reminded me of the girls at school I really couldn’t stand, the cheerleaders and their friends. “The Mean Girls,” Allie called them.

“I saw that your girlfriend was here yesterday. Pretty girl.” So that’s what this was about. That’s why she didn’t come to see me yesterday after Allie left.

Was Olivia jealous?

“Did you guys go out a long time?”

I blinked yes, realizing that she was putting our relationship in the past tense, probably because she had heard the whole conversation from her room. It pissed me off to think that she was sitting over there listening to Allie talk to me. It wasn’t any of her business.

“Well, you should know, when she was checking in yesterday, the nurse asked her if she was your girlfriend and you know what she said? That you were friends. She said, ‘Well, we’re
friend
s, we go to the same school.’ Sorry, but she seems kind of like a bitch to me. You’re better off without her.”

When Olivia tried to put the pen back into my hand, I wouldn’t take it, instead letting it drop to the floor.

“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re mad,” Olivia scolded. She tried again with the pen, pushing my fingers closed around it, but I wouldn’t play along. “Look, I’m
not the one who broke up with you. I’m just trying to help you.”

When she took her hand off mine, I let the pen drop to the floor again. I wasn’t about to cooperate.

“Fine.” She stood in a huff and shoved the board into the drawer, slamming it shut. “Call me when you get your period, okay?” She stormed out, sliding the wall shut between our rooms with a dramatic slam.

A second later, I heard it slide open again, and her footsteps around my bed. “I forgot this stupid thing.” She snatched her IV pole and tried to make another dramatic exit but the wheels caught on the side of my bed. “Dang it!” she stopped. “This is dumb. Let’s not be mad, okay? You’re the only person I can talk to here. I don’t want you to hate me.” She fiddled with her IV tubing and reattached the shunt. She was being too rough in her anger. I saw her face flinch in pain as she pushed the tubes together. “Ouch! This sucks. This whole place sucks. I’m sorry that I joked around like that, and I’m sorry about your girlfriend. I guess I’ve sort of forgotten how to be friends with someone, I’ve been in here so long.” I didn’t move, didn’t blink.

“Okay? See you tomorrow?” She stood defiantly in front of me, waiting for an answer. She was looking me right in the eye, not at her feet, not at the window. At me. Really looking at me. That was better than most of the other folks who came to see me in this state. Unlike Allie, Olivia only knew
me like this, she didn’t expect me to be anything else. And if she was willing to be friends, I wasn’t really in a position to be choosy.

Reluctantly I blinked yes. Olivia gave me a weak smile, then she went back to her room, closing the door softly behind her.

This time it’s snowing all around us. I’m watching them struggle on the ground. She’s pushing him. STOP IT PLEASE. I want to help her, but I can’t. I turn to run, but I can’t move, my legs are tied together. I see him pull his fist back to punch her. I know I should stop him, but I don’t. I can’t. I can’t move. I watch and feel so sick. The thud of his fist on her face, over and over. I’m throwing up, I feel it coming up my throat. “Don’t you scratch me!” he says, punching her again. She’s not screaming now. She’s quiet. He stands, looks at her, kicks her body. She doesn’t move. He spits, then turns to see me standing there. I’m right next to him. I see his face. He looks at me like he doesn’t care I’m seeing him, seeing what he has done. “Don’t worry about her,” he says. “She’s a waste of time.” He’s right in my face
now; I can see a tattoo on his hand as he brings it up. I feel his bloody fingers touching my cheek.
Oh God no.

When I woke up, the bright winter sun was pouring into the room. I was still having the dream, but I guess not having heart palpitations that would send a nurse into my room thanks to the heavy-duty bedtime drugs. As I lay there, something came to me. Why was I having this dream, the same dream, over and over again? I had never had dreams like this before I was in the hospital—I’d never even had the same dream twice. Now I couldn’t stop having this dream, about this guy. It just didn’t make sense. It must have something to do with being here, with the hospital or this room, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

I drifted back to sleep and when I awoke, the day was half-gone. I remembered the dream, a little bit, and remembered that I had a theory about it, but what was it? I was trying to sort it out, because when I had woken up earlier, it all made sense somehow, but now that I was really awake, it didn’t come together again like it had before.

“It’s Thursday!” I heard from the accordion wall. I could hear it sliding open. “Tomorrow’s Friday, you know,” Olivia said, waltzing into my room like yesterday had never happened. “Remember? Your mom is bringing an expert doctor guy to examine you. I’m curious to hear what he’s gonna say.”