Exit Wound (15 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Despite being raised Catholic and taught otherwise, I had never really believed there was an afterlife. I never believed in anything. My father had left us, and in the aftermath, my mother became a drunk. She allowed her alcoholism to escalate to the point of an alcohol-induced form of dementia. Despite this, she still had her good days.

On one particular day, she told me that as we die we remember every good thing that has ever happened to us, and the big stuff that changed our lives to make us the person we would become in death. For once, I could say she was right.

I was remembering everything backward. I remembered the last moment I shared with my brother, with Everett, with Mackynsie. I remembered everything I thought was stored in my memory box that used to be my brain. Then it started going farther back. I could see a man picking me up and spinning me around.

“Faster, Daddy! Faster!” I shouted. I didn’t think this was real, based on the fact I never knew my father. The memories slowed enough for me to see every part of them—whereas the ones with Ben, Mackynsie, and Everett were like flashes on the television screen. This was different. It was like I was living in the moment with them.

I could see myself as a toddler, maybe only two or three. My hair was just below my ears, and it was full of bouncy ringlets. Soon after this it was like a movie that was panning out from me and onto the whole scene. I saw Ben playing with his Tonka trucks in the grass, and then a man’s hands gripped me tightly, spinning me around.

“Brenna,” a deep voice, heavy with a foreign accent said to me. “I don’t want you to get sick. You had a lot of cotton candy today.”

“More, more!” I shouted.

***

A shock to my deadened heart sent me bursting into a place that was bright with lights. From above, I could see myself lying, intubated, on a surgical table. Someone was shaving my head.

“Come on, beautiful. This is nothing compared to what we’ve seen. You were brave, and you did something most wouldn’t do. Don’t die for this.” It was a nurse whispering into my ear, and though I tried to move closer to her, I felt like I was tethered down between where I was and where I had been.

“Your friends and your brother tell me you’re a fighter. Show me that fight you’ve got in you. You need all of it if you want to come out of this. Promise me you’ll come out of this.”

Everything went black again.

I was back where I was before I saw myself with the nurse. I was Brenna again, whoever she was, and I was wearing a pink ruffled dress along with a tiara.

“H-h-happy b-b-birthday, s-s-sis—siss-a!” Ben stuttered with a slight lisp. I never knew Ben had speech impediments as a child. There was my mother, and I wondered why she looked so happy. I had never seen my mother happy. The man from earlier came over. He was pale as snow, and he had raven black hair, much like mine. He placed a small chocolate cake on the edge of my high chair, and it had a little candle in the shape of the number one. It was my first birthday. I never saw pictures of this—though, I had seen pictures of me in that very dress with Ben.

“Make a wish, Brenna,” the man whispered to me. He got behind me, and that’s when I saw our likeness. I had his viridian green eyes, the same black hair, and even a similar facial structure. His cheeks were slightly flushed like mine, except they weren’t nearly as rosy. I smashed my hand down into the cake, and the man laughed with pure joy.

“Brennan! Don’t let her make a mess! That dress was expensive,” my mother shrieked.

Apparently she was still the same even before she began to drink: brash and critical. Ben joined me in the chocolate mess that I had created, and Brennan, the man that looked so much like me, took pictures.

***

I felt the shock to my heart again, and a warmth took over me as I traveled from my bank of memories to where my body lay on the table. My head had been wrapped with gauze, and I was hooked up to an IV, along with many cords and lines. I still had a tube down my throat, and when it whirred, my chest puffed up then went down. It was helping me breathe. I looked around and noticed all of the other dying people. Was this where we waited to meet our maker? When I looked up, I saw Ben sitting at my side with a man in a white lab coat next to him, placing his hand on my brother’s shoulder.

“These next few hours are critical. If she makes it through the night, it’ll be good. If she wakes up, we’ll know more. The bullet penetrated her brain in the side that affects memory and speech. Until she wakes up, if she wakes up, we won’t know if there was any real damage. Brain surgery is tough on one’s mind and soul as well, so we never know how they will be when they wake up.”

Ben was sniffling and holding my hand as he listened to the doctor.

“If I were you, I’d let her friends say a few words to her. It can help you and her.”

His words were trying to convey something other than what he was saying. He was saying that my friends should say goodbye in case I died in the morning. They should say their final goodbyes, just in case. The doctor left the room, leaving my brother alone in his sadness. I wanted nothing more than to be there and comfort him, and I was unable. I couldn’t hear what he was saying as I was being pulled back to the bank of memories.

The next thing I saw was my brother and me on a beach. He was teaching me to build a sand castle, but I was more interested in digging a hole in the sand. I kept hearing the click of a disposable camera.

“D-D-Daddy, s-s-top t-taking p-p-pictchas!” Ben stuttered.

The man he called “Daddy” giggled, and I saw myself stomp over to Ben and point toward the whole with my shovel.

“In,” I said.

“F-f-fine.” Ben got in and let me bury him with sand. I laughed with a happy lilt, and I sat next to him and put the shovel in my lap. I heard the clicking again and remembered a picture I had seen of this exact moment.

“I love you two with all of my heart,” Daddy said, and his voice sounded as if he was crying behind his words.

***

The invisible tether loosened on me, and I went back to the real world where the grown up Ben sat at my bedside, holding my hand. I swore I could feel his hands’ warmth against mine.

“There’s a lot I never got to tell you, Frances. I can’t bear to do it now. If you don’t have the fight in you, though, I’ll understand. If you don’t have the fight, I suppose I won’t need to explain much. If there’s a heaven, that’s where you’ll go, and someone will be waiting for you there. He will tell you everything I never could.” Ben swiped away the tears and wiped his nose with a tissue. “I’m going to let the guys come see you, and then we’ve got to wait outside. You need all the rest you can get. I love you, kid.” He kissed to my hand and brushed my hair out of my face then got up to leave.

Everything fast-forwarded itself then. Grayson came in. He was showing me pictures of his fiancé and his daughter. He told me he loved me the way he loved his little girl. I wanted to cry—although, nothing came out.

After Grayson told me how proud of me he was and how brave I was, he imparted some last-minute advice to me.

“You are such a bright light, Bea. It’d be a shame to see it go out like this. Don’t stop shining. The world hasn’t seen nearly enough of you yet, and you haven’t seen enough of the world. I know you are a fighter, and I understand if it’s too much, but…” He choked up. “…please fight like you would any other day. Promise me you’ll try. I want you to meet my daughter, and I want you to be at my wedding. I want to see you grow older and make good and bad decisions. Please stay.” He squeezed my hand and left.

After he left, Rian came in. He paced back and forth, whispering to himself, then sat down next to me and held my hand gingerly in his. He was trembling, and the look in his eyes made me know that this wasn’t something easy for him. He didn’t speak to me, and I could tell that he didn’t have enough words to express his feelings.

“Don’t stop living, Bea. Just…don’t.”

After a while, Splinter came in, and he had a guitar in his hands. I didn’t know how good of a guitar player he was, so I wasn’t sure if I was in for a treat or my entrance musical number for my trip to Hell. As he sat down, he said, “I’m sorry if I do an injustice by playing this to you during a time like this, but I feel I need to do this, so I’m sorry if it isn’t very good.” He strummed the guitar to check the tuning and started playing one of my songs. He sang the words I had yet to sing—it was exactly as it was in my head. The little shit had been spying in my song journals.

“Nothing ever hurt as much as this,

as much as this—as much as this.

Nothing ever hurt as much as losing you.

All these scars are from when I saw you fall for me.

These scars are from when you lost your light for me.

It’s my fault, and nothing ever hurt,

as much as this, as much as this. ”

When he was done playing, he propped the guitar up against the side table with the utmost care, and then he grabbed my hand, cradling it in his two warm hands.

“Bea—Frances, whatever the hell your name is…I know you’re probably going to hate me when you come out of this, if you come out of this, and found out I was putting your songs together for you.” He shook his head, squeezed my hand tightly. “Screw it; I know you better than you think, Bea. You are a fighter. That doctor underestimates your annoying stubbornness. He underestimates the love around you and how it fuels you.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath. “I hate that you can do this to me. You barely know me, you barely like me on a good day, you could be dying right now, and I’m crying over of it. You’re so cold, and yet you’re still filled with a sort of warmth I can’t un-see. I don’t want this to be my last memory of you. I understand why you felt so different after losing Everett. Just a little. It’s not a competition, but I think I’ve got a worse hand than you did then.” He laughed bitterly. He was wearing his hair in a loose bun, and pieces of hair fell to frame his face.

“Bea, I can’t lose you. I finally got to know you. Like, really know you. You’re so compassionate. You chose to die for your own brother when he was so willing to die for you. Who does that? I don’t know…I suppose that answers one question. Bea, you shine so bright it’s blinding on a good day. I don’t want to see you fade away like a shooting star. You’re not so fleeting, so don’t start that shit now. You need to do a lot still; there’s so much unfinished business for you. You need to go to Dartmouth and write music. You need to be the first in your family to go to college and finish.

“You need to make music, like really make it. Whether someone else’s voice is singing the lyrics or not, you need to spread your words out into the world. You need to fall in love with the right person. I don’t know who that’ll be for you—though, I would hope you live long enough to find them. You need to have children. I know not every woman wants children, and I don’t know if you’re one of them except I can’t help but imagine you with a daughter who raises as much Hell as you do on of your good days. I want you to relive your childhood through a mother’s eyes. I want you to have amazing experiences, I want you to travel and see every corner of this place we call earth.”

Splinter trembled harder, and I realized he was ready to say what he had been intending to say all along.

“Bea, I want you to live. If not for the things I want you to do, then do it for your brother and those guys that are like your family. I never thought anything could separate them, but you are the glue that kept them together. You need to live…they need you too. So don’t pussy out now—you’ve got a lot to do still, and someone has to watch out for those guys. Someone has to help Ben with his hair. Can you believe…never mind.” He was crying in earnest now, and he kissed my forehead gently. I felt it, and it brought warmth all over me.

“Just live, dammit. You need to.” He squeezed my hands and let go, wiping his tears and forcing himself to leave.

I could feel myself spinning in a room that wasn’t quite moving. Every memory, every ounce of love filled me from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. It filled me until there was no more room, and soon enough, there was a bright, blinding light and another shock to my heart. I went back to the memories, and I saw one I couldn’t believe. I saw a tombstone that read:

Brennan Morrison

Loving Son, Husband

and Father

Suddenly we were back in the place I had seen what little memories of Brennan I had. I was in my mother’s lap, and Ben’s face was red and puffy from crying. He was wearing black, and so was our mother. Even the two-year-old me was wearing a black dress.

“Mommy, why do you keep calling Brenna—?”

My mother harshly interrupted a stutter-less Ben from his question. “Her name is no longer Brenna, Ben. We’re going to call her Frances.”