Page 35 of Go Find Less

Beep.Beep.Beep.

I have that dream a lot. It’s a frequent one when I’ve been thinking about the past, or worrying about the future.

But I've never had the sounds continue in my head after waking up.

I’m sure I’m awake. I flex my fingers, my eyes still closed. I can feel a rough blanket. I wiggle my toes. I have socks on - weird, I don’t normally sleep with socks.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I feel my heartbeat quicken as my eyes flutter open.

“Fuck, she’s awake,” I vaguely hear someone say, but my eyes are flying wildly around the room. I know this room. I’ve been in this room before.

And my brain whirs, flashing back to hours spent in this very hospital with Mickey, hearing bad news after bad news.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

What am I doing here? Why -

I look down, and instead of sitting in the chair I was so familiar with, perched at the side of the bed, I was in the bed. The rough blanket over my body is a hospital blanket, and the socks, I have no doubt, are yellow and grippy and ten sizes too big for me.

I try to take a deep, meditating breath - but instead, short, shallow ones come out as I stare at my hand. An IV is taped in place on the back, a clear liquid pumping in at a steady pace. I can feel the cold as it snakes through my veins. My eyes follow the IV line up, up to a bag on a stand.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Fuck. My head pounds, and I move my other hand to touch the side, where I feel a huge knot. One of my fingers is covered with a taped pulse oximeter, the cord leading to another machine on my side.

I try to take another breath, but it’s just as shallow as the first. My heart is pounding, and I feel the first beads of sweat on the back of my neck.

“Piper?” I try to follow Alex’s voice, but all it does is take my brain right back in a room floors above us, where she said my name over and over to check on me on the worst day of my life. “Piper.” It’s a statement this time, and a hand waves in front of my face, then stops.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Fuck,” I say to myself, and I move the hand with the IV to try and rip off the pulse oximeter taped to my finger.

I need to get out of here. I need to get away from that sound, from this familiar room, this familiar hospital. This hospital I spent months in, got married in, lost my husband in.

“Piper, no!” Before whoever is talking can get the words out, I have the tape off, and an alarm sounds, loud and familiar.

I keel over in the bed, my hands over my ears, and my breaths come out as gasping sobs.

“What are you doing in here?” I hear Alex say.

“Stop it, stop it!” I cry over the wailing alarm, and somewhere in my periferie I see bodies rushing into the room. Someone tries to pull one of my hands away from my ears, but I grip them harder and can barely hear someone say “Don’t, she’s panicking because of the sound.”

I feel a hand on my back as I nearly bend in half, burrowing my face in the blanket and pushing my hands further into my ears. People mill around the room, and I feel bile rising in my throat, my chest heaving.

Suddenly a bedpan slides onto the blanket next to my face, and there’s an eerie silence as the alarm stops and I hurl my guts out into the pink plastic bin, spluttering and coughing, my hands still over my ears.

All the while, a hand circles on my back, soothing me through the wave of panic and nausea as I slowly release the vice grip on my head, finally looking around the room.

They’ve pulled extra chairs into the ER suite - Carla and Penny stand in front of their low seats next to my bed, concern etched across both of their faces.

Beside me, one hand on my back, stands Alex, eyes wide with panic, holding the cord for the monitor next to my bedside.

And in the doorway stands a stunned looking Fitz.

Fitz

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