54. Adrian
FIFTY-FOUR
ADRIAN
The birds have started to chirp. It’s less noisy than before, but also way more annoying because it’s just that same note over and over again with no variation.
Chirp-pause-chirp-pause-chirp-pause.
My eyes fly open, and I gasp.
I look around wildly.
Everything is white. The walls. The curtains. The sheets under me and on me.
I’m by no means an expert, but this place has a distinct death-y feel to it.
I think this is how they usually depict the beginning of the afterlife—a lot of white everywhere.
Soon enough somebody will appear from a beam of light from the ceiling to announce whether I drew heaven or hell from the death lottery. That’s how it works, right?
Only then do I realize that the chirping is still going on, and as I try to find the source, my eyes land on a bunch of monitors.
A hospital.
That realization is followed swiftly by: Dylan !
Immediate panic engulfs me, and I start to push myself up.
The monitors go crazy, and blinding pain shoots through my left hand. I lift it up and look at it numbly. It looks like a white boxing glove with all those bandages wrapped around it.
Something moves in my peripheral vision, and I turn to look.
Dylan is curled up in a chair on the other side of my bed. He stirs at all the noise I’m making, then slowly blinks his eyes open.
He’s out of his chair in a snap. He almost falls and ends up awkwardly hovering by the side of my bed, holding on to the IV pole by his side.
He opens his mouth just as a nurse rushes in. She’s short and has an impenetrable air of tolerating no nonsense surrounding her.
“Mr. Olsen,” she says. “Welcome back.”
From there it’s people rushing in and out of the hospital room, speaking to each other rapidly, firing off orders and asking me questions.
Everybody is busy and every time the door opens, noise from the outside comes in.
A loud mix of voices and more beeping, shouts, crying and running footsteps.
There’s some part of my brain that tells me it’s not that many people, but to me it feels like I’ve been plunked in the middle of a rush hour in the busiest interstate of the country.
This many people all at once is so overwhelming that after a little while, my heart is hammering in my chest and I can’t seem to breathe properly. I try to swallow, but I can’t. Somebody asks me something, but the questions become a jumbled mess in my ears.
An inch away from flat out panic, I instinctively seek out Dylan.
He has the kind of deer-in-the-headlights look on his face that I imagine is also on mine right now.
When did the world become so overwhelming?
I deliberately concentrate on Dylan, and the rest of the chaos around me becomes more manageable.
Hi , I mouth to him.
He blinks, silvery-gray eyes wide and startled, but then he takes a deep breath, and his shoulders start to relax.
Hi , he mouths back.
The room clears one person at a time until it’s just the two of us.
Dylan blows out a big breath in the relative quiet that falls around us. He takes a step closer to my bed, and I lift the sheet up. He climbs in, careful not to disturb any of the multiple needles and lines running in and out of me and him.
He carefully wraps his arm around my chest before he lets out a shaky breath that washes over the side of my neck.
“You’re here,” I murmur. I’m exhausted to the bone. I don’t think I’ve been awake for more than about twenty minutes, but my eyelids keep getting heavier and heavier, and with Dylan’s head on my chest, I eventually just give in.