8-Zach - Nine Years Ago
(August fourth, twenty-sixteen)
I blink up at the ceiling tiles and try not to fall apart.
They’re off-white, speckled, and as irregular as my heartbeat.
It smells like antiseptic and plastic tubing.
The sheets are stiff and scratchy, soaked in unrinsed bleach.
My body hurts, but some places pulse with a deeper, heavier kind of pain.
Carter begged me to take him back, then brought a whole new meaning to loving someone to death.
“Important thing is that you made it out.” The doctor frowns, the lines around her plush lips creasing. “I want to go over your injuries with you.” She drags a small stool closer, her beige shoes squeaking on the linoleum. “Slowly.”
I nod, though the movement sends a penetrating ache through my ribs. I peer at her name tag: Dr. Olakudli. Her fingers tighten around mine like she’s trying to anchor me to a body I’m not entirely convinced belongs to me. Our hands shake, but I can’t tell if the tremor is from me or her.
“You’ve got a couple of fractures,” she says gently, though her fervent onyx glower simmers with a fury any woman can spot.
“Some facial bruising. A lot of soft-tissue trauma. And—” She hesitates, squeezing my hand harder.
“Your throat took a significant impact. You’re fortunate your airway stayed open. ”
Fortunate.
With a protest from my ribs, I’m painfully aware of my body. My swollen cheek throbs from where Carter struck me with the gun barrel. Even shifting on the pillow sends a jolt through my slackened jaw.
Disinfectant suffocates my next breath. I swallow and wince, my fuzzy tongue like a foreign object. The room’s too small. The EKG beeps steadily beside me, each continuous chirp reminding me that I’m still here.
Still here.
I shift slightly, the paper sheet crackling beneath me like brittle leaves.
My mind drifts sideways to the place I found myself before. It was too vivid to be a dream, too textured. I felt the long silver swaying branches of the willow tree, and springy moss too downy to be anything but real. The honey air and bubbling spring.
And the figures: a tall blond man, and the shorter brunette beside him.
Both were blurred as though seeing them through fogged glass.
They stood talking across the narrow river, and when I tried to call out, nothing came.
I screamed until my vocal cords frayed. Panic rose in me like a flash flood, fearing I’d be stuck there alone forever.
I stay half in that dream, half in this room, caught between two realities. A place suspended between life and whatever comes after. I blink hard, trying to steady the tilt of the room.
The ceiling swims, its tiles blurring at the edges. A cold draft slips under my hospital gown, raising goosebumps along my spine. The doctor squeezes my hand again, and the monitor steadies, each beep tugging me back into my body.
“Is there anyone you’d like me to call? Any family? Your parents—”
“No.”
It comes out fast, too jagged, my voice hoarse and weak. I swallow, lowering my gaze.
“No,” I repeat, quieter.
“The police are outside waiting to speak with you.”
She leans closer, her presence suffocating. Her gold wedding band digs into my skin. A spike of fear shoots through me, and the monitor goes into a frenzy.
“Hey,” she murmurs, her full black brows climbing to the hem of her hijab, “it’s okay. They assured me that the man who did this is in custody.”
A half sob escapes me. The ‘man’ is my whole world.
“I can ask the police to come back later,” she offers, wearing a soft smile as she assesses me. “You need rest.”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “I just want to get it over with.”
“We found this in your jacket,” she says, setting my phone on the bedside table. “The rest of your belongings are in the drawer. I’ll give you a few minutes. Call for the nurse when you’re ready.”
Then she slips out, and the door clicks shut with a finality that rings louder than it should. I’m alone with the weight of everything I don’t want to feel. The room is colder without her, like she took the last bit of warmth.
I let my head fall back against the pillow.
My cheek pulses in a deep, rhythmic sting.
Freezing air seeps through the thin gown, raising goosebumps along my arms. Voices drift through the walls like phantoms. The racket is the worst; incessant beeping, oxygen tanks hissing, and footsteps clobbering down the hallway.
I close my lids, but the darkness churns with fragments of the dream. A place that felt more real than this one. Staring back up at the speckled ceiling tiles, tears form against my will, hot and stinging. My ribs ache with the effort of holding them back.
“Is there anyone you’d like me to call?” the doctor asked.
Liver failure took Dad a year ago, and his parents are long dead. I barely know my mom’s family up north, since she died when I was so young.
I. Have. No. Family.
A sob tears out of me, taking all my pent-up grief and rage with this stupid life with it. I’m worse than an orphan; I’m twenty-four and completely alone. I press my forearm to my mouth to stifle the cries, not wanting to alert the nurses.
No, that isn’t true—I have someone.
With trembling fingers, I grab my phone. Even that small movement aches through my ribs. The screen lights up, and I blink until the wallpaper comes into focus. Me and Carter six months ago, smiling like idiots.
The memory hits like a punch; we visited Nicole and Jeremy in LA and got into an argument. He shoved me so hard that it knocked the wind out of me. Carter cheated on me when I went to London, and I forgave him, but he got worse after I took him back. More paranoid, always angry. Violent.
I scroll through my contacts, each swipe sending a dull ache through my wrist. My thumb hovers, trembling over the screen. I press call.
One ring.
Two. Three. Four. My heart hammers faster with each. Getting her voicemail will kill me. I don’t want to say this twice. I don’t want to say it at all. A soft click, then her breathing fills the line.
“Zach?” Nicole asks, voice heavy with sleep. I wipe my nose and sniffle. “What’s wrong?”
A brittle laugh escapes me. “Why does something always have to be wrong? Can’t I just say hi?”
“Babes, it’s the middle of the night and you sound like a chain smoker.” Her voice cracks, and something inside me cracks with it. “What’s going on?”
I pick at my thumbnail. “I—I was just wondering if that invitation to LA was still valid?”
A long silence stretches between us, filling my lungs until I’m drowning. For half a second, I think she might say no, that she’s changed her mind.
I waited too long.
“Of course,” she blubbers in a whisper, “you know you’re always welcome here.”
The relief hits so hard it hurts.
“Look, I’m gonna need a bit of context here though,” she continues, the sound of shuffling sheets as she no doubt sneaks out of bed. “Where are you? What happened?”
“Carter,” I say, only to lose my composure as my chin quivers uncontrollably, like it can’t force itself to speak this into reality, “he, he got drunk and attacked me. I’m in the hospital. They arrested him and, and I don’t know what to do! I don’t—"
Silent sobs shake my torso as tears blur my sight. Heat blooms across my cheek like its being broken all over again. My chest aches with the force of my breath as the monitor beeps frantically.
“It’s okay.” Nicole’s voice softens. “I’m calling Simone. It’s gonna be okay.”
“No,” I choke out, the confession clawing its way up before I can stop it. “Nothing’s ever going to be okay.”
And that’s the truth, a bitter realization.