Page 76 of The Secretary Volume II

“Recovery headphones, please,” the doctor says.

A pair of over-ear headphones clicks into place.

Ocean sounds.Wind.A faint chime.

It’s supposed to be calming.

It’s not.

The waves keep crashing.I hope they drown me.

They don’t.

When she’s done, I can’t close my mouth all the way.

She peels off her gloves.Drops them into the bin like she’s finished organizing her sock drawer.

“You did great,” she says.“Colonoscopy’s next.”

She smiles like she’s joking, but I can’t be sure.

43

Lena

Iwake up in a recliner that wasn’t made for recovery—it was made for appearances.Something between a spa lounge and a corporate nap pod.There’s a blanket over me.White.Weighted.My mouth tastes like metal and gauze and something else—something rotting.

I blink a few times until the room comes into focus.

Across from me, another patient shifts.A man.Mid-fifties.The one from the waiting room.He’s snoring lightly, mouth open.His chin and neck are crusted with dried blood.

A nurse walks by and gives me a bright, practiced smile.“You’re awake.That’s great.Just rest a bit longer.Everything’s on schedule.”

I try to respond.Regret it instantly.

Pain shoots through my jaw like a lightning bolt.

Jazz plays faintly from somewhere overhead.I think it’s jazz.It might just be the blood rushing behind my eyes.

There’s pressure all along my lower gumline.A dull, blistering throb like something foreign has been stitched inside me.When I shift, I feel blood pool in my cheek.I tilt my head and it drips—warm and slow—down my chin, soaking the blanket.

No one reacts.

Eventually, another nurse comes by.She pulls the gauze from my mouth like she’s wringing out a rag, then replaces it with something even thicker.“Don’t swallow if you can help it,” she says, without looking me in the eye.“We don’t want it to settle in the graft.”

The graft.My mouth spasms around the word.I should have done more research, should have been smarter.I should have said no.

I signed the thing, completed the intake forms, but I didn’t think they’d actually—do it.Not like this.Not with me awake.It’s not just my mouth; it’s like my whole body’s been…changed.

I can’t make sense of it.I can barely breathe without it hurting.

Across from me, the man stirs.He tries to sit up and fails.His face is pale.There’s a bucket by his chair he’s trying to reach, but he misses.Blood and bile spill across the floor.

He meets my eyes briefly—long enough to register something like an apology.

A nurse rushes over.“Oh no,” she says, like someone spilled wine on the carpet.“We’ll get this cleaned up.”

A new nurse replaces my gauze again.This time it sticks.When she pulls it out, something comes with it—a long, yellow-white strand of what might’ve been tissue.

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