47
AMANDA
Amanda’s eyes fluttered open. First, there was a thin shaft of light, like the far-off mouth of a tunnel.
This pinprick grew wider and longer until it burned, and she had to pinch her eyes shut again.
Open them slowly. When she finally managed, she caught the far corner of the room.
There was no longer one black bag resting there, but two.
Kidney.
Liver.
“We had a minor complication, but you’re doing well now. Nothing to worry about.”
The doctor’s voice came from her right side.
He was standing slightly behind her, near the various machines beeping and humming along.
Amanda couldn’t quite get her head turned around enough to get a good look at him, but from what little she did see, it looked like he was injecting something into her IV line.
“What . . . kind of complication?”
The words didn’t want to come out. Amanda found herself licking at her dry, cracked lips, but it did little good; her mouth and throat were dry, too.
The doctor stepped around the bed and came into view.
His white coat was rumpled, and his hair was a tangled mess.
Like he’d just gotten out of bed and hadn’t had time to comb it.
“About an hour into the procedure, you suffered a blood clot. We call this portal vein thrombosis, or PVT. It’s rare but does occur.
Relieving the clot caused a significant loss of blood and you required a transfusion.
” He massaged his arm, just below the elbow.
“Luckily, you and I are both A Positive. I tapped a vein and gave you a little loaner blood.” The doctor winked.
“I’ll want that back when you’re feeling better. ”
“You gave me . . .” Amanda tried to wrap her head around that, but her brain was horribly sluggish.
Like trying to swim through a vat of molasses or tar.
If she needed a transfusion, why would they take blood from her doctor?
Wasn’t he busy performing the operation?
Her blood type wasn’t exactly rare; surely the hospital had some on hand.
Why would it come up at all? Maybe it was a joke.
Some attempt at dry doctor humor. If it was, Amanda didn’t get it. And why was he still rubbing his arm?
“I want to see it,” Amanda managed. “What you did to me.”
At this, the doctor pursed his lips. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Perhaps later, after you’ve regained some of your strength.”
“Now.”
“There’s really nothing to see. Perhaps when we change your bandages?”
“Now,” Amanda insisted.
He looked at her for a drawn-out moment, then finally relented with a sigh. “Very well.”
Amanda’s arms and legs were still fastened to the bed; she couldn’t move on her own.
All she could do was watch as the doctor rounded her bed and tugged her sheets down to her ankles.
Then, like before, he raised her thin gown until it was bunched under her neck, exposing her entire body.
He then twisted around, retrieved a handheld mirror from a table near the wall, and held it over her.
Amanda let out a soft gasp.
Her torso was a patchwork of bandages. There was the one from earlier on her left flank, where her kidney was removed.
And now there were several new ones. They started in the center of her chest, just below her breasts, then snaked down and to the right, like some perverse version of the letter “J.” Six new bandages in all—some crisp white, others dotted with crimson, all held in place by strips of white tape.
“Take them off,” she told him. “I want to see.”
“That’s not a good idea. It’s best to leave the bandages in place at least twenty-four hours to minimize bleeding and—”
“Take them off!”
The words came out of her like a thunderclap.
The doctor jerked back, nearly dropping the mirror. “Perhaps it would be better if you rest.”
“I need to see,” she said again, pleading now. “Please.”
His lips pursed. This thin line. Finally, he nodded and went to work, gently peeling back the bandages.
Even with a scar, with two, she could still have a career in Hollywood, Amanda told herself.
Plenty of actresses go a lifetime without showing skin on camera.
She’d have to be careful in public—at the beach, on yachts, when traveling abroad in places like the French Riviera.
She knew the paparazzi were relentless. Once she was famous, they’d go out of their way to get a shot of her in a bikini.
Those long lens shots they loved to get.
She’d always have to be mindful because she didn’t want images of this ending up in the tabloids.
Grocery store checkout lines and newsstands.
TMZ and Entertainment Tonight. No way. She could never give them the chance.
Amanda could do that. She could keep it hidden.
Her looks would get her through the casting doors; she would just have to woo them with her acting.
She could do that, too. She’d made the front page of the entertainment section in The Midbo Gazette when she appeared as Seamstress Number Two in the Midbo Playhouse’s production of Our Town.
She was good. She was talented. She wasn’t all about looks.
When the doctor removed the final bandage and raised the mirror again, when Amanda saw the angry red incision, saw how she’d been stitched up like a torn rag doll, her eyes teared up.
She wanted to wipe those tears away, but she couldn’t, not with her arms and hands restrained. All she could do was look through them.
I’m still pretty.
She told herself.
I’m still gorgeous.
She told herself.
And I can act.
She repeated this in her head like a mantra and began to feel better.
Amanda almost smiled.
She would have smiled if the doctor hadn’t twisted the mirror.
Not much, only an inch or so. Just enough for Amanda to catch a quick glimpse of her face.
Her left eye was puffy and black. A horrible bruise covered her forehead, cheek, nose, and the side of her mouth.
A deep, dark line running down the center of it like a twisty river on a map.
Most on her forehead, though. A round dark patch there.
Then Amanda remembered.
She remembered walking up to the man with the SUV.
She remembered him asking where the nearest gas station was.
She remembered telling him.
When the doctor lowered the mirror and grinned at her, she remembered him, too.
Amanda remembered how he grabbed the back of her head and slammed it into the vehicle’s frame. That was the last thing she remembered before waking here.