Wake (92 page)

I didn’t think it would be this hard, seeing him, but he has the tell tale signs of a lung problem and it brings back memories I wish I didn’t have. His lips are white and cracked, and I can hear his breathing from across the room. He has a weary look in his eye that is either exhaustion or slight oxygen deprivation.

Jem holds out his arms and I gather him up in a hug. I push his hat back because I want to feel that little bit of softness. His fingers tug at my sleeves and dig into my arms as I kiss his temple and whisper in his ear. “I missed you.”

“Take that off.” His voice is hoarse. Jem tugs my mask off and I indulge him with a kiss on the corner of his mouth before putting it back on. I promised his dad I would wear it.

It hurts Jem to talk, so we don’t. We touch and nuzzle, reacquainting ourselves with the scent and shape of each other. His collarbone seems to stick out more than it did last week. It feels like he’s lost weight, and his hands and the tip of his nose are cold. I hold his hands to my neck for warmth. He uses the hold on me to pull me in closer until I’m cuddled against his shoulder.

We entirely forget the fact that we’re not alone at this reunion until Elise’s feet shift softly against the floor. She looks a little shocked, and maybe even guilty at intruding, as she backs out of the room.

“I’ll uh, go now.”

Jem smiles at me as she shuts the door. “Good,” he whispers. “I want you all to myself.”

“Hush.” It obviously pains him to talk. It sounds like his throat is swollen and he has patchy bruises around his neck. When he breathes there’s a nasty sucking sound that I know all too well. There’s a plastic bowl set on his bedside table, presumably for this exact purpose. I grab it and a tissue and tell him, “Arms up and cough.” He looks at me like I just told him to pick up dog poop with his bare hand.

“Give me a minute?” he says. He’s making small gasps—reflexive coughs that he’s trying to suppress.

He takes the bowl and glances at the door.

“I’ve seen you puke at least five different colors and you want privacy for this?” I put an arm around Jem’s back and help him sit up a little farther. It only takes two cupped thumps on the back before the reflex to cough overpowers his self-consciousness, and the wet gob that caught in his throat comes up to say hello.

“Rinse.” I hand him water to cleanse his mouth and take the bowl away to dispose of the mess.

“You’re not a nurse,” he scolds me softly when I return from the washroom. “Come cuddle.” Jem just wants to be held. We negotiate a comfortable position that keeps him propped up and comfortable, with room for him to turn away and cough when he feels the need. He rests his head back on my shoulder, half-sitting, half-spooning, and dozes languidly.

I track the rise and fall of each fragile breath. Old habit has come back in full force, waiting for a hitch or a sign of distress. I have to keep reminding myself that Jem’s situation is different; he’s on the mend, not terminally il . He’s home, and he’s healing. His hands grip my little ones with living connection. So close and warm, I slip into that comfortable state of relaxation between sleeping and waking, only to be woken a short time later by the pounding in my chest. Something is wrong, and I know it even in my sleep.

Jem isn’t breathing.

Jem: June 10 to 11

Saturday

I’ve never slept so well or so deeply. I wake up with a soft set of lips pressed to mine, but not my girlfriend’s—my dad’s. I choke back the stale air he forces into my lungs, coughing painful y. The center of my chest is on fire.

“Jem?” He calls my name over and over again. Dad leans over and shines a pocket flashlight in my eyes. Thank you, I need to be blind on top of everything else.

He makes me squeeze his hands and tell him the date. I’m on the floor next to my bed and cold without a blanket. I need my blanket. Willa kneels opposite my dad with one hand on my wrist and the other on the phone.

“I got through.” She passes the phone over to Dad, who says he needs an ambulance at our address.

“I’m fine.”

He ignores me and starts rattling off the details of my condition. That can’t be right. Willa’s fingers adjust position on my wrist, looking for a better pulse point.

Dad hangs up the phone and Willa says that my fingers are turning blue. They are not. It’s really bright in here…

Suddenly I’m lurched upwards so Dad can set a pillow under my shoulders. He asks if I can breathe.

Of course I can. He asks me again, and again, and calls my name.

“I said yes.” Al I can manage is a whisper.

“You didn’t say anything.”

My head is splitting and my chest is heavy. It feels like I have to cough, but when I try barely anything happens. It’s like pushing against a solid concrete barrier. Willa’s hand leaves my wrist and a moment later I feel her tugging at my sock. “His feet are blue too.”

Both their hands are on me then, taking my socks off and pushing my pajamas up my calves. Their hands press along my legs and feet, looking for pulse points.

“Just a few more minutes,” Dad says to me. There’s a hysterical edge to his voice that unsettles me. If the doctor is worried, I know it’s bad. His fingers rest on my neck while Willa’s resume their place at my wrist. I close my eyes and listen to them compare counts on my heart rate.

I think I fall asleep, because the next thing I’m aware of is the smooth feel of sterile gloves against my skin. A plastic oxygen mask is fitted over my mouth and nose, and when I open my eyes a man I’ve never seen before is leaning over me.

“He’s been in and out of consciousness,” Dad says. No I wasn’t. I was sleeping.

I can’t see Willa anywhere. The EMT attaches a blood pressure cuff to my arm while his partner—a petite blond woman—asks me questions to check my level of consciousness. She presses a digital thermometer into my ear and announces that I’m running a fever. Again? Fuck me.

I close my eyes as they lift me onto a stretcher. The familiar straps close around my body. I watch languidly as the door and then the hall and stairs pass by, but I still don’t see Willa. I see Elise and Eric, both their faces strained with worry. I want to tell them not to be upset, but my body just wants to sleep.

The EMT asks Dad if he’s riding along with me. He says he will . Where’s Willa? She was just here a few minutes ago…

As I’m lifted into the back of the ambulance I see her standing next to Elise. Her face is pale and blank, like a ghost. She’s still here. She didn’t leave.

As Dad climbs in beside me Willa steps closer and raises a hand to wave. That’s when I see the blood. It’s all over her cheek and neck, running down her jaw. I try to point, to tell her she’s bleeding.

“Willa.”

“It’s okay,” she tells me. The whole col ar of her shirt is red. Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with her?

“Will —”

The doors close, cutting me off. I try to tell Dad that she was bleeding, but he doesn’t get it. He just keeps reassuring me that everything is okay. That’s not the point. I’m talking about
her.

“BP’s dropping.”

I think I’ll sleep. Whenever My mouth is dry. How’s that for a coherent thought? My chest hurts like hell and my head is pounding so hard I don’t even want to open my eyes. I’m cold, and I can tell by the smell that I’m in the hospital. I’m not in my own clothes, either, and the oxygen tube under my nose has dried out my airway.

I mumble ‘water’ and a moment later someone fits a straw between my lips. The water is warm but I don’t care.

“How you feeling?” It’s Elise’s voice, but the hand that squeezes mine feels like it belongs to Mom.

That writer’s bump is hard to mistake.

I grunt at them and Elise offers more water. “The lights are dimmed. Open your eyes?” she says hopefull y. Al they want is signs of life, so I crack an eyelid for them.

“You were in and out, yesterday. How are you feeling now?”

“Just kill me.”

Elise knows I’m not serious, just cranky, but she pouts anyway and whines my name.

“You’d get to see if Thestrals are real after all,” I croak. For a second she looks genuinely tempted.

Uh-oh.

Mom nudges Elise and tells her to go inform Dad and Eric that I’m awake. I tell her not to bother, I’m going right back to sleep. Mom nods to the door anyway and pets my head as Elise leaves. She sound of the door closing makes my ears ring.

“Just sleep,” she says.

“W’time is it?”

“Twelve.”

“At night?”

“No, noon. It’s Sunday, sweetie.” I cough and she makes me take another sip of water. Mom tells me my fever is back and that the infection in my lungs has developed into pneumonia. I burst a blood vessel in my throat, so I should be on alert for any more signs of pain or bleeding.

“What’d the doctor say?”

“You’re going to be fine.” Mom doesn’t usually bullshit me like that. Either she doesn’t know the prognosis yet or I’m so well and truly screwed that she doesn’t want to admit it. She adjusts my blanket around me for warmth and I wish I was at home, in my own bed, under my own blankets, and preferably with a certain someone to cuddle with.

My memory of last seeing her is vague. She was holding me, I think…and bleeding?

“Is Willa okay?”

“She’s fine. Eric drove her to work today.” Mom rubs my back and the gentle vibration makes me want to cough. I resist the urge, knowing it will hurt. “She spent the night.”

“At our house?”

“In the waiting room.”

I close my eyes and I can feel my pulse in my temples. I can’t believe she stayed, knowing that she probably wouldn’t be all owed to see me. She probably got very little sleep, and crappy sleep at that, before going to work. Why would she go to work? She should have gone home to sleep…or stayed with me. I wish she had.

“She’ll come again?” I don’t know why I’m asking Mom. It’s not like the woman has a crystal ball.

“Yes, sweetie,” Mom assures me anyway. I’ll take what I can get.

I think I’ll sleep.

When I wake up I can hear Dad behind me, talking lowly to someone whose voice I don’t recognize.

They’re talking about urine—output and protein content and traces of blood. So I try to doze off again, because I don’t need the humiliation of listening to people talk about my piss, and I don’t need to be reminded that I have a hard rubber tube in my dick.

The heart monitor gives away my waking state. Dad puts a hand on my shoulder and asks if I’m okay.

“What time is it?”

“Two.” Is it so hard to specify morning or afternoon?

“Can I get some painkillers?”

“What hurts?”

Everything. “My head.”

Dr. Harper uses his connections to get the medication order through quickly, and I get to crash on heavy painkillers. Now I can block out his unpleasant doctor conversations without even trying.

When is she going to get here?

And I sleep.

Willa: June 10 to 13

Saturday

A nurse gives me an oversized scrub shirt to wear in place of my bloodied one. She stays with me while I wash the blood off my face and neck over the designated sink, and I try not to be too disgusted with the smell of hospital soap.

“Any word on why he was coughing blood?” I ask as I dry my face. I don’t think Jem was even conscious when he started coughing red.

“I don’t know the details. He isn’t my patient,” the nurse says, and escorts me back to the waiting room.

One of Dr. Harper’s col eagues was good enough to see me. Some of Jem’s blood landed in my mouth, so he gave me a prescription for antibiotics and an order to stay away from Jem until it becomes clear I haven’t caught whatever infection he has.

I should really just go home, but instead I end up spending the night in the waiting room. I don’t know how
not
to be here.

“What happened to your hand?” Elise asks in the wee hours of the morning, tracing her thumb along my scar. We’re sharing the narrow couch, spooned together but failing to sleep.

“I was startled and the knife I was holding slipped.” That’s the most she’ll ever know of it, anyway.

Sunday

I get a ride home from Eric after work. My car is still in their driveway. I don’t want to, but I go home first. I spend about five minutes there—just long enough to brush my teeth and change out of the clothes I’ve been wearing since Saturday, and then I take off to the hospital.

I ride the elevator to the third floor with a guy carrying a flower arrangement. The plastic decoration in the bouquet says
Congratulations
and he has one of those foil balloons that says
It’s a boy!
It’s hard to believe people come to hospitals for happy reasons, but there you have it.

I took my temperature before coming and know that I’m not showing any symptoms of infection, but I won’t risk it. I take one of the masks from the nurses’ station, even though Jem will foolishly insist I take it off, and a pair of blue gloves. When I enter his room Ivy is sitting by the bed and Jem is asleep.

“He’s breathing better,” she tells me quietly. “His fever’s coming down.” I can’t get too close to Jem, so I sit in the spare chair across the room. Ivy and I talk quietly for a few minutes. So far the pneumonia has only affected the upper lobes of his lungs, so they’re trying to treat him before it can spread to the lower lobes.

Dr. Harper joins us after a few minutes. He’s in scrubs, but he’s missing his white coat and ID badge, like he just finished a shift.

“Dr. Burke wants to talk to us,” he says to Ivy. “Is he sleeping soundly?”

Ivy nods and Dr. Harper begins to check Jem’s monitors and IV drip, like an obsessive compulsive going through a ritual. It must be worse to watch Jem go through this knowing every little thing that can possibly go wrong.

Ivy excuses herself to use the washroom before meeting with Dr. Burke.

“I’m taking her to eat something, after,” Dr. Harper says to me when she’s out of the room. “She hasn’t been eating right. Will you be okay alone with Jem for a little while?”