Blink Once (6 page)

I felt myself soften to her. Besides, it wasn’t like I could kick her out.

“You excited? Your mom has been building this up since you got here. I heard her tell you one night that your parents paid for this guy to fly into town, so he’s a big deal.” Olivia undid her IV tube from her shunt again and pushed the pole to the side of the room. She curled up on the other bed.

“You’re lucky to have parents who care so much about you, you know that, right? My mom is here about once a week, if I’m lucky. And if she’s off with one of her new boyfriends, it can be more like two weeks. Last time she showed up, I wouldn’t even look at her.” She stopped for a second. “Your mom is here every day, and if she hears that you had a bad night, she’s here before she goes to work, too. So I guess you had some bad dreams last night, huh?”

I blinked yes. Then no.

“You did have one or not?” she asked me, sitting up on the bed.

I blinked yes.

“Really? So I wanted to ask you, but I think I already know the answer. Are these dreams about your accident, the bike accident?”

I blinked no, then yes. There was one dream like that, I think, but mostly they were about the street, the guy with
the bloody knuckles, the girl he was hurting. I could remember having it at least twice, but it seemed so familiar to me, I think I had it a few more times than that. When I’m walking on that street, I know I’ve been there before, seen what happens before.

“So you’re having dreams—nightmares—about something else?”

I blinked yes.

Olivia hopped off the bed and pulled open the drawer, grabbing the whiteboard. “I assume we’re talking again?” She smiled.

When I blinked yes, she quickly undid the strap on my right arm and slid the pen into my hand. “We don’t have a ton of time before the next check.”

She held the board close enough for me to write on, but I paused. How could I get this across in as few words as possible? I started with a
B
and moved on from there. It took about a minute. When Olivia looked at the board, she studied it carefully. I had never had neat handwriting, but trying to write when you’re lying down, strapped in, and using just one slightly paralyzed hand is not the way to good penmanship.

“Bad?” she finally said. “As in, you’re having
bad
dreams?” She looked puzzled.

I blinked no. “More?” She wiped the board and put it back by my hand. This time I wrote just one word.

“
Man
. You’re having dreams about a bad man?” I blinked yes and motioned for the board. I wrote
room
this time.

“You’re having bad dreams, about a bad man … in this room?” Olivia looked terrified. “You mean, like a ghost—in
here
? Oh my God, I knew it! I knew this room was haunted!”

I blinked no quickly. “What do you mean, I didn’t get it right?” She put the board back by my hand, but I was at a loss. The dreams weren’t happening in the room, but I knew the room or the hospital was somehow connected to the dreams. Hospital was too long a word, it would take forever to write. Instead I wrote
not in
. It took me a minute and I was feeling totally exhausted when I got done, I dropped the pen.

Olivia picked it up without saying a word and looked at the board.

“
Not in
. Not in … here? Not in the room.” I blinked yes.

“Why did you write
room
then? I don’t get it.
Bad, man, room, not in
. I’m just trying to figure out what you’re saying.” She sounded a little exasperated with me. She glanced at the clock and quickly slid the board into the drawer. “Oh crap. To be continued,” she said, grabbing her IV pole. As she went around my bed, she quickly kissed my cheek. “I’m glad we’re friends again,” she whispered, sliding the door shut.

About thirty seconds after she left, Nurse Norris walked in. Olivia knew the timing of the nursing checks down to the minute.

“Good evening, sir,” Nurse Norris said, and smiled. “Now, since your mom was here this morning, she is not going to make it back over tonight, but she wanted me to remind you that you’ve got a doctor coming tomorrow. Both your parents are gonna be here.” She looked into my face and then shined her flashlight in my eyes. “You heard me?” she asked, and I blinked yes. “I know you did,” she said softly. “Okay then, let’s give you a little spin so you look good for the doctor tomorrow. We don’t want you all full of fluid, do we?”

She pulled the strap over my forehead, something I was really starting to hate, and then rotated the bed so that I was facing the window. The sun was just setting and the sky was a salmon pink, the puffy clouds like cotton candy. It looked so cool, I caught myself wishing I could text Allie and tell her to look outside. My chest clenched up at the thought of her, and at the thought of using a phone again to text anyone. Where was my phone anyhow? Who would I call if I could hold it? Who were my friends now? I was praying this doctor tomorrow was going to have some good news for me.

“Would you look at that sunset?” Nurse Norris sighed deeply. “I’m always thinking about God when I see something like that. It’s just too beautiful to be an accident.” She clicked the bed into place and noticed again that my arm strap was undone—Olivia had completely forgotten to redo
it this time. “Your mom … got to talk to her about this,” she murmured as she redid the strap and secured my arm. “Well, I’ll be right back with your night-night cocktail, handsome.”

She left the room and I stared at the sunset for a long time. She was right, it was too beautiful to be an accident. Especially tonight. Maybe this meant I wouldn’t have the nightmare. Maybe it meant that the doctor tomorrow was going to tell me something encouraging. I could still feel the place on my cheek where Olivia had kissed me. It felt good. I stared hard at the pink sky and recited the Lord’s Prayer in my head.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.

Maybe.

When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see the sun pouring into the room. It was a new day. It was Friday. I hadn’t had the dream, I hadn’t had any dreams at all. The clock on the wall read 10:25. I hadn’t slept the whole day away in a fog. This was all good, things were looking up. I waited to see who was going to come in, what time my appointment was. When did Mom say? I couldn’t remember, or maybe she hadn’t told me.

The day nurse came in, the one who wasn’t Norris and also wasn’t nice. Not that she was mean, but she didn’t ever talk to me, or anyone. Just did her job and left. I made eye contact with her a few times, but she always looked away. She checked my chart, adjusted some tubes, pressed a few buttons on the ventilator, and walked out. Why
would someone who hates people so much go into nursing anyhow?

By the time the clock read 11:30 a.m., my eyelids were getting pretty heavy just listening to the rhythmic sound of the respirator pumping in and out. No visit from Olivia, no Mom, no Dad, no doctor. It was Friday, right? What if it was Saturday already and I just didn’t know it? I drifted off worrying and awoke with a start, feeling like I was falling backward down a staircase. I opened my eyes, suddenly terrified—something was wrong. I wasn’t in my bed. I was on my back, staring at something white and plastic right over my head. My heart started racing. Was I dead? I could see that there was light down by my feet, like I was inside a big tube. Must be an X-ray or something. Mom’s voice was talking to me through a speaker by my head. “West, you’re okay, we’re just doing an MRI for the doctor. You’ll be out of there soon, okay? They’re almost done.” Then Dad’s voice, quietly: “Jesus, Cath, he can’t even hear you; leave it alone, would you?”

“You don’t know that—how would you like to wake up in there, not knowing where the hell you are?”

Divorced five years and still at it.

“West, they are almost done, then you’ll be back in your room. Just hang tight,” Mom went on.

“It’s going to get a little loud again, so I’m going to switch this off,” I heard someone say. Something clicked
and the speaker she was talking over cut out. Then came a sound hammering all around me, a constant pounding and clicking around the tube I was in. It wasn’t hurting me, and I couldn’t feel it, but it sounded like someone was beating a hammer right over my head.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
No one could sleep through that.

The banging stopped for a minute, then started up again in a different place, over to the right of me. Then they stopped again, and started on the left.

“How ya doing in there?” I heard a male voice say, then some mumbling. The speaker clicked off again. Suddenly the bed I was on jerked a little and started to move forward, bringing me out of the tube. When I looked up, there were two guys standing over me, both in uniforms. Maybe they were male nurses.

“On my count,” one of them said. “One, two, and up.” They lifted me by a sheet and put me back onto my own bed but left the wrist and arm straps undone. They moved the respirator and IV tubes from outside the MRI machine back over to the poles on my bed.

“He’s first floor, room 201,” one of the guys said as the other one wheeled me out into the hallway. There was Mom and Dad and another guy in a suit, maybe the doctor Mom told me about. He looked older, with gray hair.

“As soon as we can get those other test results,” he was saying, “we’ll know more, but from what I’ve seen, I
suspect that he has a similar case to the one I described to you over the phone.” All of them were walking behind me as the two nurses wheeled my bed back down the hall. I couldn’t remember ever being outside of my room before. The nurses’ station on my right, then other rooms, some with open doors, some closed.

We stopped at the first door past the nurses’ station and went in through the wide doorway. My bed was pushed against the wall, headfirst like it usually was, and the nurse put his foot on something down by the wheels, locking it into place. “Home sweet home, buddy,” he said, and attached a chart back to the foot of the bed as my parents walked in behind him. The guy kind of reminded me of Mike—bright-red hair, superwhite skin. Except he kept his hair short, not shaggy like Mike. “The nurse will be in to make sure he’s settled,” he said as he left. I guess he wasn’t a nurse, but an orderly.

Behind my parents, the older man in the suit walked in—the famous doctor.

“How soon could you perform the surgery?” Dad asked him.

“I would have to consult my schedule, and of course, I will need to see his test results to be sure, but I think …”

Mom cut him off. “If we decide to go that route.”

“Yes, of course, you can consider other options, but I would encourage you to make a decision quickly. The longer
he remains in this condition, the more damage that is being done.”

“What does that mean?” Dad asked. “They told us that he was stabilized before we even moved him here.”

“Yes, stabilized, in this condition. But his immune system will continue to attack the foreign object pressuring his spinal column, and that can cause further damage.”

“We have to talk this over with West, too.” Mom looked over at me and moved to the side of the bed, taking my hand.

“He’s seventeen, we’re making this decision for him,” Dad said. “If it’s up to me, he’s having the surgery.”

“Well it isn’t up to you, it’s
our
decision,” Mom said forcefully. “As a family.” She squeezed my hand.

The doctor took in a deep breath and looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps we should take this conversation outside?”

My parents had always made an effort not to fight in front of me. Even when stuff got really bad with the divorce, they would always take it in another room, or Mom would say, “Let’s discuss this later,” and march off. I realized they were doing the same thing now—a fight was brewing, but they would have it in the hallway. I wished they would just keep talking here because I wanted to know if this doctor could fix me, and how fast. From what he was saying, I couldn’t really tell.

A few minutes later, Mom came back in and leaned
over me. “Well, I’ve got some really good news for you. The doctor says you can sit up now and be in a wheelchair, so we can go outside and go for walks and everything. Won’t that be nice?” Mom pushed the hair back from my forehead. I blinked yes, it would be nice to feel the sun on my face, to get outside. But being in a wheelchair didn’t sound like good news. That was his advice? It made me nervous. Once they got me in one, did that mean I would ever get out of it again? She wasn’t saying and I couldn’t ask. “And you’ll be in a different type of bed, you don’t need to be rotated around anymore. Just a regular bed.”

Dad walked into the room behind her. “Okay, big guy, I’ve got a flight to catch.” He took my other hand. It was sort of nice, having both of my parents there at once, each holding one hand. It was like I was a little kid again. I didn’t expect to see both of my parents in the same place at the same time until graduation.

Dad let go of my hand and glanced up at Mom. “Sorry about before; it’s just that I really can’t stand to see him like this a moment longer, it’s literally killing me. The risks are all worth it, you know that.”

“I’m not going to discuss this in front of him. I’ll call you tonight,” she said firmly.

Dad nodded, looking sad. “Fine. That will give us both a little time to think things over. I’ll talk to you then.” He reached over and touched the back of her hand, giving it a
squeeze. She looked as surprised as I was. Dad, being nice to Mom? Things were serious.

When the door closed behind him, Mom pulled over the chair and sat next to me. “I’m sure you heard enough to understand what’s going on. There’s a surgery Dr. Louis thinks could really help you. It’s risky. And to be honest with you, I’m not even over your accident yet. I’m so happy that you’re alive, I’m not sure I want to take another chance on losing you.” Tears were quietly flowing down her cheeks, but she didn’t let go of my hand to wipe them away. “All the doctors and nurses agree that you are young and so healthy and you have so much going for you, maybe the risks are not that great, considering … well, considering the alternative.” Mom sniffled. “No reason to get ahead of ourselves; he’ll call us tonight with the results of your MRI and we’ll know more.”