Chapter 24 Colt
Colt
Throbbing, aching, blinding pain like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I think I groan, and that makes my skull pound in a way that causes bile to rise up my throat.
I try to open my eyes, but the lights are brighter than the sun. I throw an arm over my head, trying to block out the glare.
“Colt?” a woman’s voice asks. “Can you hear me, honey?” Mom?
No. My mom is dead. This voice belongs to Mrs. Warren.
“Colt, please, son, I need you to say something so we know you’re okay.” This is Mr. Warren. Why are Beau’s parents here? And why wouldn’t I be okay?
“What happened?” I mumble, not even sure if it was audible to the human ear. My tongue is like sandpaper in my mouth.
“Nurse!” Mrs. Warren calls from farther away, but the sound still makes me grimace. “He’s awake. Please, someone, get Dr. Matthews.”
Awake? Doctor?
What the fuck is going on?
I crack one eye open, seeing Beau standing at the foot of a hospital bed. A hospital bed that I happen to be lying in.
“B, will you get my dad?” I close my eyes again, the light too painful.
The room falls into a tense hush, but I hear footsteps. People whispering on the other side of the room. Someone comes closer.
“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” a voice—a nurse, I presume—says.
“Where’s my dad?” I ask the room, but I don’t get a response. The whispering becomes more frantic, and I’m starting to get really pissed at the fact that they’re ignoring me.
“Can someone just tell me where the fuck my dad is?”
In the silence following my outburst, I hear an odd sound, like someone catching a breath, and then I hear footsteps—pounding, fast footsteps—running down the hall.
“Stella!” Beau shouts, sounding farther from the bed than he was moments before, and then I hear more heavy steps chasing after the first set.
Finally, someone has the sense to turn the lights off. I move my arm from my face and squint into the room.
“Colton, can you tell me how you’re feeling?” A middle-aged woman—Dr. Matthews—asks from my bedside.
“Like my head got bashed in with a baseball bat,” I reply.
She chuckles politely. “Not quite. Wrong sport. Do you remember what happened at your hockey game last night?”
I had a game last night? I don’t remember a game, let alone getting hurt.
I shake my head. “No, last thing I remember is…” I trail off. What do I remember? Why can’t I remember what day it is? What did I eat for breakfast yesterday?
I feel myself start to panic, evidenced by the uptick in beeps coming from the monitor behind me, telling the room that my heart rate is increasing.
“Colton, hey, take a deep breath. It’s okay. Short-term memory loss is not uncommon with head injuries. It should start coming back to you within a few days. There’s no need to panic right now.”
I try to do as she instructed, taking deep breaths. Memory loss? Head injury?
“Can you tell me what happened?” I ask, looking to Mr. Warren for the first time. He looks…older. Maybe it’s the stress of hospitals. He must’ve been here all night with me.
But where’s my dad? If I’ve been this severely injured, he should be here.
“During the game last night, you took a shoulder to the face mask.” Mr. Warren explains.
“Your chin strap ripped, and you lost your helmet.” I reach up, feeling where the underside of my jaw is tender.
It must be bruised. The amount of force it takes to tear off one of those straps is insane. I’m lucky I didn’t bite my tongue off.
“You fell back and cracked your head on the ice,” Dr. Matthews continues, explaining for him.
“You’ve got a few fractures in your skull, right on the back of your head, so be very careful with the way you lie down.
Don’t go jarring yourself around. You also have a severe concussion, based on the amount of time you were unconscious and the memory loss.
“Tell me, are you having any vision problems? Nausea?” She continues to ask me about my symptoms, but aside from the pain in my head and the memory thing, I feel alright.
I look down, cracking my knuckles—a nervous habit I have yet to break— and notice the most God-awful scars running vertically up the underside of both my forearms. What the actual fuck? I don’t remember getting those.
My hands start to shake, an unsettling, gnawing feeling taking over.
“Jill?” I whisper, getting her attention from where she was listening to the doctor talk about what I should do when we get home. “Jill, where is my dad?”
“Oh, honey,” her face falls, and I know everything I need to know. Blood rushes to my ears, but I faintly hear the words heart attack and two years ago.
I’m an orphan. I’ve been an orphan. My dad died, and I’ve forgotten his death. Bile crawls up my throat.
These scars…I tried to do something…terrible.
I lean my head back on the donut-shaped pillow meant to protect my skull and shut my eyes.
Orphan.
Orphan.
They’re dead.
Orphan.
The pounding in my head, the beating in my chest, the rolling of my stomach. The beeping monitors and the cacophony of voices. It’s too much. I feel too much. It’s too loud. Everything’s too loud.
I understand, in that moment, how people get to the point where they would take their own life. I never thought about it before—no, wait, I obviously had thought about it before, if the scars on my arm are anything to go by.
I would do anything to make this feeling, the noise, the pain, just go away. I’d do anything to make it stop.
A little while later, I’m lying in complete darkness, complete silence, when the door cracks open.
Jill and David told me they’d let me have some space, but that they would be right down in the cafeteria if I needed them.
Entering the room, Beau leaves the door cracked, so a small amount of light is still coming in from the hallway.
With him enters the most beautiful girl I think I’ve ever seen.
She’s tall, her dark hair is thrown in a messy pony, and her eyes are striking, even in the darkness.
She’s wearing a pair of jeans with little bows printed all over them and a Saint Augustine University hockey jersey.
My hockey jersey.
At least, it’s my number. Fourteen. I always pick fourteen. It was my mom’s lucky number.
“How you feeling, C?” Beau asks, making his way to the abandoned chair at my bedside.
“As bad as I look, probably,” I say, though it comes out without any inflection. There’s no humor, but there’s also no snark. I feel wrung out, and there’s no more room in my chest for any more feelings today.
Except when I look at the girl next to him. She makes me want to feel something, though I’m not sure how to identify what that feeling could be. Curiosity?
I must be staring at her pretty heavily, because she starts to shift from foot to foot, unsure what to say.
“So—um—this is Stella…your girlfriend,” Beau says awkwardly. Stella. The name he’d called earlier. The person he was chasing.
When the hell did I get into a relationship?
Why would I start dating someone if I tried to kill myself? Unless that means I found something to live for… Looking at the girl—Stella—I can see how I could’ve let myself fall for her.
“Hi,” she says, quietly. Her voice is soft, calming.
“Hey.” I’m not sure what to say in this situation. I say as much out loud, and she grins a little, a sad half smile.
“Do you want me to go…?” Beau asks, breaking the awkward silence. He looks at Stella, so I keep my mouth shut. I wonder if the silence will be more or less awkward if he’s gone.
“Do you think you could hunt down some breakfast?” she asks, and he nods, patting her shoulder before walking out of the room. I must’ve been with her for a long time if my best friend knew what kind of foods she likes without having to ask.
“I’m sorry I don’t…remember,” I say, dejectedly. I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to say to her.
It was bad enough finding out my dad was dead and I don’t remember it happening, but now, to top it off, I have a long-term girlfriend I don’t remember?
“Hey, no, don’t apologize.” She takes the chair Beau had been standing in front of and sits beside me. “Don’t pressure yourself to try to remember, and don’t force yourself to try to feel…anything for me. I just want you to feel better first. Everything else can wait.”
I nod gratefully. “Do you mind if we just…don’t talk right now?”
“Sure, whatever you want,” she replies. “Do you need anything?
I shake my head and close my eyes. I’m ready for today to be over.