Dying For A Chance (4 page)

            Thin, waxy looking legs under black sports shorts. The windows mist pulled back slowly and I could make out a well muscled chest with thick arms snugged into a black lycra shirt. His youthful face was mischievous and his smile was more so, but suddenly I saw what he held in his hand.

            A red and yellow cycling helmet. My eyes grew and grew until I felt they would burst out of my head. As I stared, he moved or...or floated away from the window in a kind of misty wheelchair. A nurse paused in mid stride right in the middle of his wispy chest. My mouth popped open and closed like a hooked fish.

            “I'm shorter than you imagined, right? I get that a lot.” He shrugged, as if seeing a dead man was the most natural thing in the world. I can't recall which made the biggest scene...my scream, the Dr. bolting off the bed or me fainting into a tray of gauze pads. Whichever it was, I felt certain that I would need a whole lot of therapy when I woke up.

            The single most important thought on my mind as I woke was this... “I need a cigarette.” I know it's a nasty habit, I've been told so many times and I know that I should quit. My foster mother, before she kicked me out of the house said, “If there was one thing I would change about you it would be the  smoking.” She should have been grateful, I could have been a pickpocket. I could have sold drugs to little kids on the street. But no, I smoked...occasionally.

            I opened my eyes cautiously and searched the room. No sign of Nic, the figment of my imagination.  I surreptitiously eased my legs out of the bed, they hadn't moved since the accident and were terribly thin but I was determined to find the packet of cigarettes that I kept stashed at the bottom of my bag. The med lines wouldn't let me get far, a long metal pole with my IV bag stood in between me and the only closet in the room. I stepped out of the bed gingerly and forgot to test the floor with my socked toes first. My right leg went ahead just fine, my left decided not to follow and I went sprawling across the cold vinyl flooring. That's when I noticed the thick layer of bandages wrapped around my upper thigh. Pain seared up and down my leg.

            I shouted for a nurse, no one came. I cried, I cursed, I prayed. I spent an entire lifetime laying there on the floor. What had I done to deserve this?

            My hands flopped across the floor looking for something to pull myself up with. They wrapped around something so cold it seemed to sear into my skin. I looked up and found that I had a hold of a misty shoe. Nic's shoe. My fingers shrunk back from the ethereal Sketchers and a few trails of mist followed my hand. For a moment I forgot about the pain in my leg.

            “Here, give me your hand. We'll get you back up.” his strong arms reached down for me. It didn't seem as though I had many other options and I figured he would take it poorly if I refused. Who was I to judge a person based entirely on the fact that they were either dead or imaginary? I nodded my head and gave him both my hands. Together we pulled and struggled but managed to get me back onto the bed. I stared at him covertly. He seemed to be solid when I touched him but he passed through anything else like he was made of colorful air. I didn't want to embarrass him by bringing up his condition (being dead would have to be awkward) but I had so many questions. He didn't give me a chance to ask them.

            “What were you after?” he looked around the room trying to determine what could have been so important. “I'll get it for you. Save me the trouble of picking you up off the floor again.” his handsome smile took the sting out of the words.

            “My bag.” I waved an arm at the closet. “I think they have it in there.”

            Nic drifted over to the closet and reached a hand inside. It disappeared completely and in just a few seconds reappeared with my faded brown backpack. He tossed it up onto the bed and I rummaged to the bottom. There it was, still crumpled with a lighter rubber banded to the pack. The last cigarette. I had promised myself I wouldn't smoke it. I held it up, considering.

            “Seriously?” Nic's voice was disappointed and that bothered me more than it should have. “You're telling me that you took a dive off that hospital bed for a damn cigarette?”

            “Aren't you a little young to be swearing?” I know it wasn't fair, he'd been nice enough to pick me up after all, but I wasn't feeling in the mood. He didn't seem perturbed in the least.

            “Sam, I've lived enough for the both of us...and I'm not the one trying to sublimate my feelings with a mind numbing self destructive habit.” For a 19 year old kid he sure did talk like he was an old man. I shifted in the bed so I could see him better. The light had a way of making him come in and out of view. He sat there, hands on hips sitting in a wheelchair and fuming for all the world like my last foster father. I decided to change the subject and stuffed the pack into my bag. I vowed not to bring it out again while he was around.

            “Are you?” I had no idea how to start. There wasn't a Jerry Springer, Geraldo or Oprah episode that dealt with this kind of thing. “Did you die in that crash?”

            “Yep,” he relaxed a bit and I could see a smile start to light up the corner of his mouth. He turned to the side and displayed his wheelchair, his arm swung out across it like a used car salesman trying to sell something. “But don't worry, this little baby was mine a long time before I ever met you.”

            My mind wasn't quite accepting this whole...seeing a ghost thing, so I tried to focus on avoiding the obvious.

            “What happened, how did you get stuck in that chair?”

            “Nothing real exciting. Childhood accident.” he spun the chair up and leaned back in it, balancing carefully on the two big back wheels. His strong arms flexed while his hands twisted and played with the chair, spinning it back and forth. “I was climbing a tree when I was about 8 years old, it was this really big walnut tree in the back yard. My best friend got our kit plane stuck and I was going to be the big hero and get it back down. I don't even remember falling.”

            “I'm sorry, did it hurt for a long time?” not focusing on Nic being a ghost seemed to help. He actually looked more solid, I could almost pretend that he was just another patient at the hospital.

            He shrugged his shoulders. A knock on the open door startled me and Nic was suddenly a hazy version of himself.

            “Samantha, I see you're awake.” Dr. Swaresh smoothed his coat and consulted his clipboard. He made his way into the room and I found that I couldn't take my eyes off him. He pulled a chair through a very irritated Nic and sat beside the bed. Nic made mocking faces as Dr. Swaresh spoke.

            “How are you feeling?” the concern in his eyes was very genuine and my heart went out to him. He had taken such care in making me well again that I felt like I owed him something. I mumbled something about being generally alright although it was a complete lie, my leg ached fiercely and I was afraid that my leap from the bed had caused some added injury. I didn't mention it because I didn't want him to feel like he was doing a bad job.

            “Tell him about your leg.” Nic motioned from behind Dr. Swaresh to get my attention. “He should look at your leg, don't be an idiot.” I pulled the covers farther over my leg to let Nic know I had no intention of being bullied by anyone, dead or alive. Honestly though, the pain was starting to get to me and I blame that on what happened next.

            “I'm glad things are going well.” Dr. Swaresh adjusted awkwardly in his seat. “Have you thought anymore about our decision to operate?”

            “What?” My mouth fell

            “I told you it looked bad.” Nic imitated my voice “Everything's fine Doctor Hot Pants...don't worry about me..blah blah blah” My face exploded with heat.

            “Shut up Nic!” My hand reached for the first thing I could grab, my purse, and I launched it with all my effort at him, still pantomiming me from his chair. The purse made a loud clatter across the floor and everything inside of it became instantly outside of it. Lipstick, tampons, five and a half dollars in change, a couple of burned cd's, a collection of colorful condoms, a notepad with embarrassing personal memos and the offending pack of cigarettes and lighter all exploded like treats out of a pinata. I was mortified.

            I dove under the covers of my bed and pretended that I'd just had some sort of vivid nightmare that would all be put right when I woke up. I knew it couldn't be a dream when I heard the Dr.'s kind voice call back from the door.

            “I'll get someone to help clean this up and we can talk more tomorrow.” He quietly shut the big door and I was left alone...well almost. Nic whistled his annoying tune, he sounded like a damn cowboy.

~~~

            With the covers drawn up over my eyes I couldn't see where he was but I knew he was still there.

            “Why are you still here?” I groaned behind my wall of cotton. “Did they kick you out of the afterlife for being annoying?” Before you go and decide that I'm a horrible person you have to understand that I was heavily medicated. I know that was completely rude and I probably shouldn't have said it. I remember seeing a comedian mimic the act of trying to physically catch your words and pull them back into your mouth. This was one of those times. His whistling stopped and for a tense moment I was really afraid that he might have left. I dropped the covers and saw that he hadn't. He sat by the window, barely visible inside the light of the late afternoon. It was the first time that I noticed how sad he really was. Behind all that cocky behavior he was just as scared and unsure as I was. I sat up and awkwardly adjusted the covers around myself. The pain in my leg was growing but I tried to ignore it.

            “Do you remember what happened when you died?” Nic's voice was soft and not at all mocking this time.

            “I didn't die, I'm right here.”

            “That's because you came back.” Nic looked back over his shoulder at me and there was something about his expression, I felt like it meant something important. It was a secret that I should know, something just between the two of us. I wracked my brain trying to think of the moments after the crash and later on in the hospital.

            It felt like a muddy expanse in my mind, a dark swampy area and I definitely did not want to stay there very long. My eyes snapped open after only a moment.

            “I don't remember anything, after. I can remember crossing West 7
^th
Street. I was late for my interview and my phone lit up, I looked down to check it and then I woke up in this bed. Nothing in between.” Nic looked down at his hands, he looked crushed. I had no idea why.

            “I'm sorry I asked why you're still here, it was really rude and I'm sorry.” I felt horrible, he was annoying but I didn't have the right to make his afterlife miserable. He glanced up from his lap and spun his chair around to face me. He came into focus suddenly as the mist pulled away from him. His smile was genuine and it made his eyes crinkle in a happy way.

            “Thanks,” he looked down at my scattered junk on the floor. “What do you think the nurses would do if this was all picked up before they got in here?” that mischievous smile came back and lit up his face. While he busied himself repacking my exploded purse he started that annoying cowboy whistling tune again.

            “What is that song you're always whistling?” I studied him, now that he was solid I could make out the lines of detail on his face. He was young, maybe 19 or 20 but he looked so serious. The lines of muscle on his jaw were like those generally reserved for older men, Nic didn't have any of that roundness that clung to some guys. His shirt flexed around the generous muscle of his bicep and I caught sight of a tattoo.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
He was swiftly becoming a very  intriguing person. He paused from picking up my things and smirked at me.

            “You mean you don't know?” his voice sounded scandalized, like it was shocking that I wouldn't know. I shook my head and gave him a lack luster shoulder shrug, I wasn't really interested in cowboy stuff. “I'll give you a hint, it was one of Clint's early films.”

            The sigh that escaped my lips was completely unintentional, I had never watched a Clint Eastwood film in my life. Frankly, I figured they were boring but I tried to play along anyway.