Page 101 of True Sight
A car accident.
Just like my parents.
I try to swallow my anxiety as I follow Alex deeper into the hospital.
“Do you know what happened?” I ask her as we quickly pass room after room.
“Not really. Ellie called and told me she had gotten a phone call from a first responder. Someone picked up his wallet and found a note in it with her phone number so they called to tell her where he was going. I had just left the studio after we got done teaching and he was heading home. It must have happened then.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A few hours. He had to have emergency surgery but he’s out now and back in his room. They’re monitoring him for a million different things I didn’t understand when the doctors told me. All I know is that he’s reacting poorly to the anesthesia and hasn’t woken up yet. His breathing is shallow and they said if it doesn’t pick up they’re going to have to put him into a drug induced coma while his lungs heal and get stronger,” she explains frantically.
“How are they telling you anything? You’re not family,” I wonder aloud.
“Ellie lied and told them she’s his sister and yelled at the doctors loud enough over the phone about keeping me updated on him until she got here.” She laughs over her shoulder at me. We finally come to a stop at the end of the hall. Finally pausing, I realize how quiet this area of the hospital is. The hustle and bustle of the emergency room has been replaced by a low hum of concern and careful watching. Steady beeps and rolling carts can be heardlingering in and out of the various rooms that surround us. She glances nervously inside the room we’re standing outside of and chews her bottom lip. “You ready?”
I swallow hard. My brain is still trying to catch up on everything she told me but I know I want to see him. Unable to get my mouth to form words, I just nod and watch her head in.
“Henry, it’s me, Alex. I have someone who’s here to see you,” she calls out softly as she steps inside. I hesitate before following her through the threshold but know that if it were me in there, he’d be running to be by my side no matter how scared he was.
I’ll teach you how to be brave.
My stomach lurches as soon as I see him lying in the oversized bed and all the air in my lungs seems to disappear. Large cuts and gashes are stitched up across his face, a long one stretching from the center of his forehead to his ear. He has several bandages on his neck and arms while deep purple and yellow bruises are apparent along his jaw and neck. His nose looks broken and his right leg is propped up and wrapped in a type of soft cast. If it weren’t for all the tubes and wires that are connected to him, he would look like he was simply taking a nap. His eyes are closed and he’s breathing slowly. I stare at his chest, watching for each new breath to come and go. A tube is tucked over his ears and plugged into his nose, feeding him fresh oxygen as he rests. I force my feet to take a few steps closer to him, reaching out and smoothing his hair down for him, knowing he would hate to be seen with it rumpled and messy. My hand rests on his cheek and I swallow hard, trying to contain the cries that are begging to be let out.
“Hi, sweets. It’s me, it’s Conrad.” My voice breaks as I speak to his almost lifeless body. “I-I’m so sorry…” I choke out again, bending over at the waist and bringing my forehead to his. All the secret moments we’ve shared over the last few months flash in my brain like firecrackers, bright and full of energy, just like him. I wrap my lips around my teeth and bite down hard, trying to numb the pain that comes with the idea of those being the only memories I’ll have with him.
“Please,please wake up.” My voice is shaky as I whisper to him, not caring that Alex is on the other side of the bed watching me talk to him. “I can’t lose you too. I need you to wake up, for me, for Annie. You taught me how to be brave even when I’m scared and I’m ready to be brave now. I’m ready to say it now. But I need you to wake up so you can hear it.Please.” My hands grip the cheap, thin blanket that is draped over his lap when he doesn’t move or respond to my pleas. His breath slows even more and the monitor on the side of his bed starts to sound the alarms.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” My head whips to Alex who’s already halfway out of the room, calling for help. A team of nurses rushes in, pushing me out of the way so they can get to him.
“Conrad, he’s going to be okay. They’re going to make him better. Conrad? Are you…” Alex continues to talk but I can’t hear her. Panic has consumed my body, closing off my senses and making it impossible to hear or process anything else other than the overwhelming sense that I’m going to lose him too. Just like my parents, just like my grandmother. I’m going to lose the only other person I’ve ever loved just like I lost them. The room starts to close in around me and I have to get out before it crushes me completely.
Without even thinking, I run from the room. My feet carry me back the way we came and in the distance I can hear Alex calling out to me, trying to get me to come back.But I can’t. I have to get away before my lungs burst and my heart gives out. I run down the hallway and around the corner, making my way back to the emergency room, heading for my car.
“Conrad? Conrad, where are you going?” I hear a familiar voice call to me as I run from the hospital but I don’t stop to explain. Reaching my car, I throw open the door and floor it once I’m buckled in. Without thinking much about it, I go to the one place, to the one person I know I can go to with this. To the one person I know I can go to when I need to completely fall apart.
And right now, I can feel myself falling apart at the seams, quickly crumbling into a pile of nothingness.
40
CONRAD
“Hanna,” I call out, gasping for air as I push the door open to the lobby. “Hanna, are you here?”
Within seconds, the door to her personal office where she sees clients swings open and she walks out, dropping her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose from the top of her head. Behind her is the same man I’d seen before. I didn’t think she’d be seeing clients so late in the day but by the looks of him I don’t think she’s seeing him professionally.
“Conrad? Are you okay?” Her worried voice fills my ears as she comes closer, bringing her hands to my arms. “Breathe, slow down, breathe. You’re having a panic attack, you’re okay.”
“Hey, here, sit down,” the man suggests, pulling a chair from the wall and setting it behind me.
“Miles, can you go down the hall and get him water from the kitchen?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right back.” He hurries out of the office and turns down the hall.
“You know I don’t think it’s ethical to be sleeping withyour patients,” I say between breaths. The half joke is a welcome distraction from the tightness I feel in my chest.
“Well no one said I’m sleeping with him so…” She shrugs her shoulders and is about to say something else until he walks back in carrying a bottle of water.
