CHAPTER 42 (1)
When my eyes crack open, the world is black and empty. Maybe I’m not awake after all. Maybe I’m dead. But as I turn my head, something cool and soft glides across my cheek. Satiny sheets. They’re over me and under me, and my head is cushioned by a fat, fluffy pillow. The green numbers on the digital clock next to my bed read 11:51. I’ve woken up plenty and not known where I was, but as the hotel room comes back to me, I realize I’ve done it two mornings in a row. The blackness from the heavy curtains doesn’t help. My arm is numb. It’s an improvement over the first time I woke up this morning, when it felt as if each muscle was being peeled from my fingers to my elbow. Once when I was a kid, a brick from a construction site my friends and I were screwing around at fell on my hand from a stack a few feet high. I couldn’t feel my fingers for a couple hours. It sucked. I’d give anything for that feeling now. What I have instead alternates between pain and numbness. Hell’s see-saw. I shift out of bed, the rest of my muscles aching. I can’t shower because of the bandages, but I drag my body to the en-suite bathroom to take a bath. When the doctor told me what happened two nights ago, the mess of painkillers kept me in a dizzy state of denial. Lacerations. Severed tendons. Long-term damage. All of it means I can’t play guitar. The emotions blur together like the sensations. There’s panic, clawing at my throat. Disbelief, hammering in my head. And underneath it all, a grief I can’t look at too closely yet because it means something I’m not ready to accept... That no matter how long I sleep, in no world will I wake up and have everything be okay. When I get out of the bath, I go to the drawer of clothes Jacob brought over yesterday from our apartment. I grab boxer briefs and sweatpants and tug them on before heading out to the living room of the hotel suite. The smell of coffee is a small mercy, as is the shape of the girl in the kitchenette. “You’re back,” I croak. Emily turns and smiles, and the awful knot in my chest loosens a bit. “I went to class and picked up some supplies. Saw the nurse was here to change your bandage while I was gone.” I glance toward the table where a note the nurse left says just that. Without asking, Zeke hired her to check on me once a day in the hotel room he insisted on paying for “as long as I need.” The fact that he’s keeping such a close eye is unsettling, but calling Zeke to demand why he’s still treating me like an investment given how far my stock has plummeted in the last two days feels low on my priority list. Emily looks at home in tight jeans and bare feet, a sweater zipped up over her tank top because I cranked the air conditioning. Her hair is twisted up in a knot on her head, Emily’s method of keeping it out of her way when she’s got bigger things to worry about. She crosses to me, searching my face for signs of… I don’t know. Trauma. Depression. General fucked-up-ness. I wish she’d stop. “Nurse wanted to give me a sponge bath too.” I try for a joke. Emily’s gaze drags down my bare chest to where my sweatpants hang low on my hips. “I told you I’d change the bandages for you.” There’s concern in her voice but also a note of something that makes my dick twitch. “Nah. Then my girlfriend wouldn’t get all jealous.” “Do I look jealous?” She tilts her head, lips curving. “Yeah. You do.” I reach for her with my good hand. It still takes conscious effort not to move the other one, but I grab her waist and tug her against me. Her cool palms flatten against my chest. She’s a reminder not everything in this world is upside down. Emily tips her face up for a kiss, but I turn away at the last second. “Ah. Forgot to brush my teeth. Be right back.” I head into the bathroom and reach for my toothbrush. Last night was my first full night out of the hospital, and Emily refused to sleep next to me, afraid to risk grabbing my arm. But she wouldn’t sleep at the dorms, either, instead opting for the pull-out couch in my hotel room. She’s been glued to my side since I got out of the hospital, but I haven’t told her everything. Like the fact that I can’t stop thinking about that night. It happened so fast, but when I replay it, it’s slow. All the things I could’ve done. Should’ve done. All the different ways we could’ve gotten home. Shoving it away doesn’t work, so I’ve tried starting the memory earlier, at the musical I took her to or in the bar when I gave her that ring. The problem is it feels as if those memories are getting fuzzier and further away and the ones in the dark alley are getting sharper and closer. A knock on the suite door outside as I finish brushing my teeth has my ears perking up. “I’m here with reinforcements.” Jacob’s cheerful voice echoes from the other room, and I step toward the barely open bathroom door to listen. “Male strippers.” Emily laughs, the first time I’ve heard her laugh since the hospital. It makes my chest hurt. “How is he?” “The pain seems more manageable.” “That’s not what I mean.” She doesn’t answer. “I can hear you,” I taunt as I head back in to find Jacob seated on the couch. “Dammit. Even the part where I made out with your girl?” I narrow my gaze on him. “Try it and you’ll lose more than a hand.” He chuckles. “I talked to your profs about getting extensions on your term projects.” He runs me through the list of accommodations they’ve made for me. “Even printed out your study notes for finals.” “Thanks,” I say, and mean it. “I’ll get to it eventually.” I rise and go to the kitchen, where Emily’s looking over her shoulder at me. “You don’t want to take a look today?” she says. “You must be getting sick of watching Netflix.” “Doesn’t seem so urgent.”
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