Skinned -1 (31 page)

“Has someone contacted his parents?” the doctor asked.

I nodded. “There’s just his father.” It was hard to get words out. Every time I spoke—every time I sent a blast of air through my throat, past my larynx, into and then out of my mouth, I remembered doing it for him, breathing for him, and I wondered if my air had been good enough, if
I
had been good enough or—

No. I am a machine,
I thought. I could control myself. I could control my emotions. They weren’t real anyway, right? Whatever happened, I could handle it. I would handle it.

“He’s on his way,” I said in my pathetic little voice. I didn’t know that for sure, because I’d had to leave the message for him, bad enough, since how do you leave that kind of message?
Hi, your son might be dead and if he is, it’s probably my fault. Have a nice day!

The doctor sighed. He had two thin scars in front of his ears and another set framing his nose, tel tale signs that he’d just finished his latest lift-tuck. It looked good. I hated myself for noticing. “I should real y wait for his guardian to arrive before I go into the specifics of his situation, but—”

“You have to tel me
something
,” I pleaded. “Please.”

“
But
, as I was about to say, I don’t think it would hurt to give you a general update.” He paused, and gave me a searching look like he was trying to figure out if I was prone to noisy and embarrassing breakdowns. I wondered if there was a private little room somewhere that they used for conversations like this, a wal ed-in space where you could shriek and throw things without inconveniencing al those people whose lives hadn’t just fal en apart.

But the waiting room was empty. We stayed where we were.

“Your boyfriend’s heart stopped.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said automatical y.

I have never hated myself more than I did in that silent moment after the words were out. There was nothing I could do to take them back.

“Okay, wel …” In that pause, I could tel . The doctor hated me too. “Your friend’s heart stopped. He was technical y dead for about two hours.”
Was.
I held tight to the verb tense.

“But we were lucky that the body temperature was already so low….” The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know how he managed to last as long as he did in water that cold, but it’s made our job a bit easier.”

The water was too cold,
I thought.

My fault,
I thought.

No one forced him to jump in after me,
I told myself.
No one forced him to stay.

But I knew better.

“We’l keep his temp down to slow his metabolism, and keep reperfusion as gradual as possible—resume oxygen supply too quickly and brain cel s start dying, but if we do it slowly, we should be able to preserve a substantial amount of brain function.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. “Substantial.”

“It means we’l know more when he wakes up.”

“But he
will
wake up? When?”

“That’s stil to be determined,” the doctor said slowly. “But, yes, in cases like this, we’re optimistic for a cognitive recovery.”

“You mean he’l be okay,” I said eagerly.

The doctor looked uncomfortable.

“You said recovery,” I reminded him. “You said optimistic.”

“I said
cognitive
recovery. We have every reason to hope that his brain might emerge from this intact. But his body…I’m told you were there, so you must know. The weight of the water crashing down on him, at the speed it was fal ing, and the rocks…There are impact injuries, crush injuries. He took quite a beating.” The doctor shook his head. “The extent of the damage…”

“You can fix it,” I said. “He has plenty of credit, enough for anything. You have to fix it.”

“There are a lot of things we can fix,” he agreed. “And in cases like this, there are of course”—he paused, then looked pointedly at me. No, not at me. At
the body
—“other options.”

“Oh.” I looked at the floor. “It’s that bad?”

“It’s bad,” he said. “But I’m afraid I can’t go into more detail until his father arrives. You’re not family, so…”

“Of course. I understand.”

I understood. I wasn’t his family. I wasn’t his girlfriend. I was nothing.

M. Hel er arrived an hour or so later, sans wife number two. He blew past me, pushed aside the nurse who tried to stop him from going through the white double doors, and disappeared behind them. When he emerged, a few minutes later, he looked different. He looked
old.
He slumped down on the closest chair and let himself fal forward, his head toppled over his knees. He was shaking.

But when he looked up to see me standing over him, his eyes were dry.

“M. Hel er, I just wanted to say, I don’t know if they told you that I was with Auden when—Wel , anyway, I just wanted to say I’m sorry, and I hope—”

“Get out,” he said flatly.

“What?”

“I don’t want you here. Get out.”

“M. Hel er, look, I’m not trying to upset you, but your son and I—”

“What?” he said fiercely, like he was daring me to keep going. “My son and you
what
?”

“Nothing,” I said quietly. I didn’t have any words.

“He’s my
son
,” M. Hel er’s voice trembled on the word. “And they’re tel ing me he might—” His face went very stil for a moment. “I can’t look at you right now. Please go.” He didn’t have to explain. I got it. They were tel ing him his son might die—or worse. Might become like me.

And didn’t I know? That kind of thing could ruin a father’s life.

I backed away. But I didn’t leave. I just sat down on the other side of the waiting room. M. Hel er didn’t object. He acted like he didn’t notice. So he sat on one side of the room, staring at the floor. I sat on the other side, staring at the wal . And we did what the room was meant for.

We waited.

A couple hours later they let M. Hel er see him. No one said anything to me.

The day passed. I left my parents a message, the obligatory assurance I was stil alive. They didn’t need to know any more than that. M. Hel er disappeared behind the white doors for hours. Stil no one told me anything. No one on the staff would speak to me. Until final y the doctor I recognized appeared again. I grabbed him as he passed. “What’s happening? Is he awake? Can I see him?”

The doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, but the patient’s father has insisted that he not have any visitors.” At least I knew he was stil alive.

“Can you at least tel me how he’s doing?”

“M. Hel er has also…” The doctor sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not al owed to give out any more information about the patient’s status.”

“Not to anyone?” I asked, already suspecting the answer. “Or…?”

“Not to you.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to break something. Like M. Hel er’s neck. Or even the doctor’s, since he was closer at hand. But instead I just sat down again, like a good little girl, fol owing the rules.

I waited.

I waited for M. Hel er to change his mind. It didn’t happen. So then I changed my strategy. I waited for him to leave or fal asleep or eat. Because he would have to do one of them eventual y. He had needs.

I didn’t.

A day passed, and a night, and it was nearly dawn again when a nurse escorted M. Hel er back into the waiting room. She stayed close, as if expecting him to stumble or to lose the ability to hold himself up.
Lean on me
, she projected, shoulders sturdy and ready to carry the burden. But he stayed upright. Separate and unruffled, like nothing could touch him.

His eyes skimmed over me as if I wasn’t there.

“I’l be back with his things,” I heard him say, hesitating in the doorway. “You’re sure it’s—”

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “Go home and get a little sleep. Save your strength. He’s going to need it.” M. Hel er nodded. It took him a moment too long to raise his head again. “And you’l let me know if anything…changes.”

“Immediately,” she said. “Go.”

He left. Which meant I just had to choose my moment. Wait until no one was watching. Then slip through the white doors. Find Auden’s room. Find Auden. See for myself, whatever it was. Even if it was something I didn’t want to see.

I waited.

He was asleep.

At least, he looked like he was asleep. His eyes were closed. That was almost al I could see of his face: his eyes. The rest was covered with bandages. It didn’t look like Auden. It barely looked like a human being, not with al the tubes feeding in and out of every orifice and the regenerative shielding stretching across his torso and definitely not with the metal scaffolding encasing his head like a birdcage. Four rigid metal rods sprouted from a padded leather halter that stretched around his shoulders and col arbone. They connected to a thin metal band that circled his skul . Slim silver bits dug into his forehead at evenly spaced points, pinching the skin and holding the contraption in place. A bloody smear spread over his left eyebrow, and I tried not to imagine someone dril ing the metal bit into his skul . I wondered if he’d been awake, if it had hurt; if it stil hurt. I didn’t want to know what it was for.

There was a metal folding chair to the left of his bed. I sat down. His right arm was in a cast. His legs were covered by a thin blue blanket. But his left arm lay exposed and, except for a few smal bandages and the IV needle jabbed into his wrist, feeding some clear fluid into his bloodstream, the arm looked normal. Healthy. So, very gently, careful not to jar any of the delicately assembled machinery that surrounded his body, I rested my hand on top of his.

I wondered where his glasses were, in case he needed them. No—
when
he needed them. Then I remembered they were probably floating downstream somewhere, miles away. Maybe they’d made it to the ocean. I didn’t even know if the river hit the ocean. But everything does eventual y, right?

He opened his eyes.

“Hi!” No, that was too loud, too fakely cheery. He’d see through it. “Hey,” I said, softer.

Nothing.

“Auden? Can you hear me?” I leaned over him, so that he could see me, even with his head pinned in place by the metal cage. “It’s me. Lia.” I wondered if he could understand what I was saying.

Substantial amount of brain function,
the doctor had said without ever clarifying what “substantial” meant. Something more than none; something less than
all
.

“You’re going to be okay,” I said, just like I’d said on the way to the hospital, just as uselessly. I remembered, then, how much I’d hated it when people had said it to me. How ridiculous, how
unacceptable
it had sounded coming from people who were whole and healthy.
Nothing
would be okay, I’d thought after the accident. And I’d hated them for lying. “The doctor says you’l be fine.”

“You must be talking to a different doctor,” he said. Wheezed, more like. His words were slow and raspy, like he hadn’t used his throat in a long time. And like they hurt coming out.

But stil , I smiled, and my smile was real. He was back.

“I was so—” I stopped myself. He didn’t need to hear how I’d been torturing myself in the waiting room, worrying. This wasn’t about me, I reminded myself. It was about him. “You look like crap,” I said, trying to laugh. “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

It figured. They had pretty good drugs these days, and he was no doubt getting the best.

“So, I guess we’ve got something in common now,” I said. “We’ve both been technical y dead, and come back to life.” Was it inappropriate to joke? Would it make him feel better, or would it make him think I didn’t care? “Better be careful, or the Faithers wil start worshipping us or something.”

“Uh-huh.”

Okay. Too soon to joke.

“I saw your father in the waiting room. He was real y worried about you. I guess he cares more than you…Wel . Anyway. He was worried.”

“Yeah.”

It probably hurt him to talk.

“Not that he has to be worried, because you’re going to be fine. Doctors can do anything these days, right? Just look at me.” Wrong thing to say.

Everything I said was the wrong thing to say.

I rubbed my palm lightly across his, wishing that he would grasp my hand, squeeze my fingers, do
something
to indicate that he wanted me there. But he didn’t. I held on anyway. His skin was warm, proof that he was stil alive.

“You were amazing, you know that?” I said. “When you jumped in to rescue me? They said the water was so cold you shouldn’t even have been able to—” I stopped. Neither of us needed the reminder. “It was real y heroic. To save me.”

“It was stupid.”

“No, Auden….”

He didn’t speak again, just stared at the ceiling.

“You’re tired,” I said. “I should probably go, let you sleep—”

“Don’t you want to know?”

“What?”

“What the doctors said.” His lips turned up at the corners, but it wasn’t a real smile, and not just because the bandages held most of his skin in place. “The prognosis. Al the thril ing details.”

“Of course I want to know.” I didn’t.

Especial y when he started reciting it in a dry, clinical tone, words out of a medical text that didn’t seem to have any connection to him, his body, his wounds. Punctured lung.

Internal bleeding. Bruised kidney. Lacerations. Fractures. The heart muscle weakened by multiple arrests. A cloned liver standing by for transplant, if necessary. They would wait and see. “And the grand finale,” he said, his voice like ice. He sounded like his father. “Severed spinal cord. At C5.” I didn’t understand how so much damage could have been done so quickly, in thirty seconds…and thirty feet.
Don’t forget the eighty thousand gallons of water
, I thought. And yet I was just fine.

“Auden, I’m so…I’m so sorry.” I threaded my hand through the metal cage and brushed my fingers against his cheek.

“Don’t touch me,” he said.
“Don’t
.”

I yanked my hand away. But my left hand stil rested on his. Out of his sight line, I realized. I squeezed his fingers, tight, waiting for him to tel me to let go.