Page 25 of In This Iron Ground
Still, he tried. He focused on the squeezing of her dry hands, his bones pressing together slightly. His breath stuttered and choked, lungs feeling small. The hand around his relaxed and he tried to relax his throat, tried to let out the air slowly past the stone lodged in there. Again, and again, and again, his hand squeezed and relaxed and so did his breath, until its quaking subsided to a tremble.
“That’s good,” the woman said. She was looking at him kindly, and he could hardly stand to look back. “My name is Dr. Wilson,” she said. “I’m glad to see you’re awake.”
Damien closed his eyes, the acidic taste of panic rising again. He didn’t want to be awake. Didn’t want to be sitting in that bed feeling an exhaustion that transcended any kind of natural sleep. He felt the tears falling down his face and covered his eyes. A hand fell on his shoulder but he curled away from it, losing his breath again, another one of the seemingly endless waves crashing over him.
Let it be over, he wished. He wanted to be normal, to be good, for his parents to be alive and here, breathing with him instead of this stranger.
“Breathe,” the doctor said, and the process started again.
When the tide calmed once more, Damien uncurled slowly, his eyes unfocused on his white hands over the white bedsheet.
“Can I take your hand?” Nicola asked, and Damien automatically twitched away, his hand slipping under the sheet. He glanced towards her and the shine in her eyes made the guilt tighten around his stomach, but he didn’t want to be touched. He didn’t want to be real.
“Sorry,” he croaked.
“It’s okay, Damien,” Nicola said. The doctor passed him some water, which he sipped slowly.
“Damien, I know you’re exhausted, but I need to run a few things by you, okay? I’m just here to tell you that you’re going to be okay—physically, at least. We caught it in time, so there won’t be any long-term damage to the kidneys, which is the part of the body that can get hurt if you take a lot of medication,” she explained unnecessarily. “I have to tell you, Damien, overdoses like that are more likely to cause long-term damage than kill you.”
Damien let out a long breath. What was there to say?
“Despite the fact that your body is going to recover, I think we can see that you’re hurting somewhere deeper than that. I’m good with kidneys and stomachs and that sort of thing, but there’s someone that will be over soon that knows what to do with the kind of hurt you have. They’re part of what we call the crisis team, which are the ones who help when people are going through a really tough time and need help really quickly. You can rest for now, but she’ll come over to have a chat and see how things are going. I know that can sound a little scary, and it’s probably pretty silly of me to say this, but you don’t have to worry—she’s lovely and will be here just to help you. Okay?”
Damien nodded automatically, reeling from the amount of information and the prospect of having to talk to someone new. He squeezed his hands together under the sheet.
Time warped. Nicola tried to make stilted conversation, but he could barely keep up with even simple questions. He felt weighed down and hyperaware at the same time, his eyes flicking to the doorway at every sound in the hall whilst his stone body felt impossible to move, a cage in and of itself.
Though it felt like an eternity, it was still too soon when the door opened again and a woman walked through. She was wearing moderately casual clothes, but the blue lanyard around her neck, a pictured card swinging from the end, marked her as staff. Her hair was tightly wound into intricate braids that hung around her dark face and back, swinging in the same rhythm as her lanyard. She smiled as she met Damien’s eyes. He looked away.
He listened to her settle into the chair beside his bed, his hands wringing on his lap. The skin between his fingers was dry, pulling uncomfortably as he made a beseeching gesture to himself.
“Hi, there. I’ve got Damien written down here. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Damien. My name is Sam.”
“Hi.”
“Hi. Okay, I just have to say, I love your bag,” she said.
Damien turned, and he saw someone had brought him his backpack. Its Spiderman design looked out of place in the sterile room.
“Are you into superhero stuff?” she asked.
Damien nodded.
“Oh my God, I know that some people are like,eurgh, it’s turning mainstream, but I’mloving it.Have you seen the new Marvel movies that have been coming out?”
“No,” Damien replied quietly. There had been no one to take him.
“Well, it’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?” she asked.
He tensed. His hands were shaking, he noticed. He didn’t want to think of the future. The silence stretched.
“So, as I said, my name is Sam. I’m a registered nurse, although my title now is Crisis Clinician. I think Dr. Wilson probably told you a little bit already, but I’m here to see how you’re doing. How you’re feeling. I know you’re tired, and the last thing you probably want is some stranger asking you a bunch of questions, so we’ll go as slowly as you want. If you want to take a break, tell me and we can, okay? Give yourself time to answer, and if you feel you can’t answer honestly just tell me and we can move onto something else, okay?
“I also want to say, Damien, that I’m not here for anybody else but you. I’m not here for your social worker, for your foster carers, for your school—I’m here for you. For this moment in time, you’ve got me completely at your back,” she said. Her voice was kind, calm but straightforward.
