After I Wake (4 page)

I must admit that I am shocked and duly impressed with my mother's computer skills. I had no idea that she knew how to do that. I don't really know all that much about my mother, I suppose.

“That was incredibly comprehensive. What about all the homework I have to make up? I missed the majority of February and part of March, and then May and now it's July and school ended already, which I can't go back for.” My begging excuse is nothing less than absolutely pathetic, but I need to move on. “There's going to be summer work too,” I add, a touch too smugly.

But my mother is prepared, and not to be outdone. “I only disconnected the Internet. You still have your document creators and whatnot. And you can learn from textbooks, which are in your backpack in the closet, where I put them after I picked them up from school. And, I did state before, I have Internet, because I need it. You can send an e-mail if you ask nicely.” And, with that, I am defeated. My mother, despite the fact that I don't mention it nearly enough, is one hell of an evil genius mastermind when she needs to be. Like right now. I love her for it. She's fantastic, and she really knows what she's doing.

It takes me several minutes after she puts Sarah back onto my stomach and leaves to realize I had actively counted time. Those sixteen and a half seconds were seconds that I counted and noted in my brain. Keeping time feels so foreign.

When I start to sit up, Sarah makes an indignant sound at being disturbed and shoves her snout into my face, licking it and demanding I pet her. I comply before gently moving her to the bed. But something is wrong. The comforter is different. This one is blue and simple, the old flowery one I grew up with, gone. I look to the floor. There is a matching blue throw rug on top of the hardwood. That's new.

I sit up fully, and Sarah yawns at my face grumpily. I flop back down, onto my stomach now, and reach down, to pick up the corner of the rug. There is a large stain on the hardwood, faded to a brownish color. But it is obviously the remnants of a lot of blood. I let the corner of the rug thump softly back down and look at the bedspread.

The moment is hazy and tinged with the light-headedness of blood loss in my memory, but I was definitely on this bed. I guess that means I ruined the comforter too. I feel the sudden loss of the blanket in my gut, throbbing vaguely as if I've just been punched. I never imagined the lost feeling of a warm blanket. Maybe this one is warmer.

 

 

A
FTER
MY
mom leaves, gloating from her lecture and leaving me feeling small but strangely enough really loved, I meander to my desk and unceremoniously seat myself in the chair. I decide moments later that I am not ready to sit at my desk, though I am not sure why.

Instead, I get up again, cross my small room to the door, and close it gently, looking at my reflection in the long mirror that hangs over the back of my door. I look at my face, searching for zits. It's mundane enough and will take some time before I move on to anything else. I find a few small bumps forming under my skin after my close inspection. I poke at them, aggravated at my pores and whatever biological thing thought it necessary to invade my face, which was totally rude and utterly uncalled for.

Satisfied with my facial exploration, I walk back to my desk, open a drawer, and retrieve a notebook. It's empty. There are no new poems. There haven't been any poems written, actually. I'm drained, completely empty. There are no poems to be found coming from me.

I hate this feeling, this worthlessness. But I can't write. I am barely able to grasp a pen or any writing utensil for that matter, or anything at all really, with my nonexistent dominant hand. I'm supposed to be getting better, but I can't even write properly. And thus, I am reduced to technology. I am forced to change.

Charles Darwin came up with the theory that animals adapt to survive. Those with favorable traits survive to adulthood and reproduce. Those with unfavorable traits are unable to survive or reproduce.

But where do I fall on that scale? I have to embrace the change, and it's not very fun. In fact, it sucks. And, apparently now, according to Darwin, I'm screwed.

The fear of change is classified as metathesiophobia. I checked in the hospital, and it looms over me, bigger than any monster or tidal wave or something really huge and terrifying of that nature. I want life to go back to the way it used to be, or curl up and sleep it away instead. But of course, I cannot. I'll be sent back to the hospital, and I'd really rather not.

So, I have to do school work then, instead. Oh, the unrequited joy and its accompanying abundance of sarcasm. Naturally, I find my phone and text Emmett. It takes some digging, and then the location of a charger and powering it up, but soon enough the situation is resolved, and I begin the long process of procrastination.

Me:
So, how is your solitary coffee?

Emmett calls a moment later, but judging by the echoes, he's in a public bathroom. He's panting only slightly, a suggestion of the speed in which he ran to the bathroom.

“This is the cuddly ninja, how may I help you?”

“Emmett, you're calling me.”

“Still, how may I help you?”

“Where are you?”

“My dear Carter, I have returned to the school where I am volunteering and doing things. I was perfectly willing to ditch for the rest of the day, but according to your mother, I should be enjoying a solitary caffeine, which I did. But you know, during lunch. Because I can.”

“You left volunteer work? Why?”

“I did. And do you even have to ask? And now I am missing stuff because of you, so I do encourage you to keep on talking because this will be the death of me.”

“Remind me later to hug you for, well, being you. Then to punch you for ditching to be with me because that is wrong.”

“Says you, who has not been in this school since…?” He is teasing, but it strikes a very deep nerve.

“Emmett, don't you start with that shit. Do not even dare,” I am suddenly growling at him.

“I respect your wishes and will rescind.”

“Did you learn that in English?” There is a pregnant pause while there are vague shaking noises, and I tell him not to nod on the phone.

“There is a slight possibility.”

“Go learn more beautiful words, Emmett.”

“I will find a way even though school is out, but wait—there is a thing I must ask. I sent you maybe fifty-seven messages via that infernal blog thing you're so proud of, give or take about another seventy-two. Did you not get any of them? The messenger said they were going to your phone.” I briefly explain my Internet situation to him.

“Well, then,” he hisses, “social media has deceived me. It's uprooted the fantasies of utter perfection and loyalty I've placed in it.”

“It tends to do that, yes,” I reply dully.

“You're breaking my heart, Carter,” Emmett whispers into the receiver as a toilet flushes in the not-too-distant background.

“What, by pointing out one of the most common faults of the basic Internet?”

“Carter, I am being incredibly sarcastic. Have you no feelings?” I warn him that he is again venturing into dangerous territory, and Emmett kindly backs off, promising to go learn more of those beautiful words, because he knows I love them and wants me to feel better, then to call me later. And then I am left in an almost complete silence, save for Sarah, who has started to snore softly on the bed. I stare beyond her at the different comforter, wondering how quickly Mom threw it out. I lean back in the chair and close my eyes.

When I was at my lowest point, I had trouble experiencing emotion. Now that they're flooding back again, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing with myself.

 

 

I
COULD
feel my heart pounding, the rippling, unsteady flutters making me vaguely uncomfortable. My breathing seemed ragged, and I struggled to draw in fresh breaths. The stale air provided no relief. I had no clue where I was. Then my mom's voice helpfully filtered into my ears, pleading with me gently to not panic.

So naturally, and given that was the only thing to do since the idea was freshly planted in my brain, I panicked. My heart rate spiked, and my pores filled with a fresh sheen of sweat. I stared at the ceiling and breathed through my nose, trying to slow everything down. To regain any semblance of normalcy. Unfortunately, that still hasn't really happened.

I struggled to sit up, but flopped back down onto the bed,
exhausted. The fluorescent lights burned my eyes, and I squeezed them shut, feeling only the tiniest bit calmer in the pitch black. I'm pretty sure there was more sweat. My mom was talking to me, trying to soothe me, but I couldn't hear past the sudden buzzing in my ears as my head began to feel like it could defy gravity and float away.

Then there was the shivering. I shook like a wet Chihuahua. I was cold, indescribably cold—unless you've had hypothermia, then I'm sure it's easily imaginable. That was the kind of cold I felt, a numbing, chill to the bone, painful cold. Well, then, I suppose it can be described.

A doctor and some nurses rushed in shortly afterward, really only seconds later, when I vomited. There is no humiliation that can match one like that, where you cannot control yourself because you are hungover for the very first time and also suffering from severe hypothermia.

One woman distinguished herself from the others as my personal doctor, Dr. Mae. She told me everything I needed to know.

In short, I had hypothermia, a rather severe case, actually. To paraphrase, hypothermia occurs in a person when their body loses heat faster than they can produce it. Had they found me earlier, I would have a less severe case. But instead, I was out in a river all night. And I was drunk. People lose body heat faster when they're drunk.

I mumbled under my breath that if I had done a lot of things differently, I wouldn't have it at all. The team of people chose to ignore that statement after they heard it, if they heard it at all.

They also told me that I was lucky to be alive. When someone has hypothermia, the body temperature drops below ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. I was at eighty-nine. I opened myself up to it. Your internal organs shut down. I flatlined twice in the ambulance. You cease to live. I should have died. Yet somehow, I'm still here. Why, I don't know. Probably some miracle of science or something. I wanted to go back to sleep then and there but that was a certain impossibility.

Then they started asking questions. I was clearly still suffering from the beer I consumed the night before, which started it all. I told everyone I was pressured into it, which was the truth.

I recounted what little of my tale that I could remember before it got to the fuzziness and then total lack of consciousness. I drank, got drunk, and decided to party. A few of us decided to go for a walk in the woods that were a short distance from the backyard. We all forgot coats, but we felt warm (which was something Dr. Mae explained had to do with cells expanding, but since I was hungover and she was speaking science, I didn't follow).

Anyway, we felt warm but were getting colder and colder. We stumbled upon a river, and I got the crazy notion to drink from it like our ancestors did. Never mind that it was the middle of February and the surface of the river was frozen. I wanted to drink the water flowing underneath. It seemed totally and utterly plausible in my strange and not fully functioning mind.

So I broke the ice by punching it. Another thing that seemed completely plausible. I had to hit it a few times before it actually broke. The ice didn't feel too thick, but I guess it was a few inches. My knuckles bled, and I put my hand in the river to clean it off. My friends, well maybe not friends so much as the only people at the party who I could actively stand who wanted to party with me, wanted to go back inside, and I told them I would meet them shortly.

Then I sat on the frosted ground and got mildly comfortable so that all the blood would wash away. Instead, I started shivering. But I wasn't convinced that my hand was clean, so I stayed. Shortly after, I got light-headed, so I lay down on the ground and passed out, my hand still trapped in the water while the ice reformed as the minutes breezed into hours. Nobody thought anything that I was gone. I liked to take walks during parties to escape the insanity, and they were all drunk too.

It was a recipe for disaster. When I was done, the doctor looked appropriately contemplative. I asked what time they found me. It was approximately five thirty in the morning, after I failed to arrive home for my curfew. I was out there for nearly seven hours in the thirty-eight-degree cold. My mom called the party house when I didn't come home, and they found me. Or something vaguely along those lines. Honestly, I was starting to fall asleep.

Dr. Mae noticed and ordered everyone else out so that I could rest. But as my eyes flickered closed, she quickly fiddled with the IV I didn't know I had and adjusted my blankets, assuring my comfort after the initial stuff they did to warm me up. I don't want to talk about that, though. It's gross.

When I woke up again, still feeling that unbearable cold but to a lesser extent, my mom was whispering with Dr. Mae, asking all sorts of rapid-fire questions and looking extremely concerned. It was not a comforting sight.

I started making little waking up noises so that someone would notice and tell me what was going on. A pair of heads immediately swiveled toward me. I felt an absurd sense of pleasure at the fact that it had worked and I now had their attention.

“Dr. Mae,” I slurred the tiniest bit, but to be fair, it is a symptom of hypothermia, “why don't I have to go to the bathroom?” My mom turned beet red, but Dr. Mae only sighed. “We inserted a catheter.” To which I could only reply with a simple “Grody.”