58. Charlie
Charlie
College football plays on the small screen mounted in the corner, and the old man in the bed beside me is really into it.
It’s rubbing off on me that he's a die hard fan of football and I want to gag.
He yells at the referees like they can hear him, spits curses at a team called the Falcons every time they fumble.
“Throw the damn ball!” he hollers.
Each time a commercial comes on, he grumbles about how there are too many damn ads, and takes another sip of his Sprite.
When he leans forward, the back of his hospital gown slips open just enough to expose his flat, wrinkled ass.
There are even some moles there too, but I try to pretend I didn’t get a glimpse of them.
I’ve seen it half a dozen times now, and it never gets less horrifying.
I asked the nurses for a private room three days ago, and begged them, actually. But of course they keep telling me the same thing. There aren’t enough beds and since the seasons are starting to change, everyone has been getting sick. So I’m stuck here with him.
I try to focus on the ceiling, on the steady beep of the heart monitor, on anything but the sound of him losing his mind over a bunch of college kids chasing a football. Then, somewhere between plays, I hear it.
Music. It’s on the television. I didn’t think they showed anything other than the football stuff.
I figured some anchor men would go over all the plays and who sucks, and who is winning.
All the lingo I don’t understand. But no, this is something different, it’s like a cute little half time show. But with rock music.
The camera pans to the field, and my heart starts hammering before I even understand why. The first few notes echo from the speakers, and something inside me jolts awake. I know this song. I sit up straight in my bed.
“I don’t wanna watch this!” The man grabs the remote with his fat fingers, changing the channel.
“No go back!” I point at the television.
“I wanna see the other scores.”
I use my hands to scoot off the bed, snatching the remote from his hands. “I’ve been listening to you bitch all afternoon about football! I wanna hear the music!”
I press down on the buttons real hard, harder than I’m biting my tongue right now until I find the channel again.
There they are, playing on a stage. A guy with long hair.
Really long hair. Are those tattoos? He looks nice and he’s got a nice voice.
I know it, something about it I recognize.
The sound of the guitar, the rhythm, his voice – it all tugs at my heart strings.
My pulse races. I think real hard, my brain going into overdrive as I scream at it to remember, to tell me what it is that’s making me feel all warm and gooey.
It hits me without warning.
The singer on television. His mouth was on mine, and I can feel the way he breathed into our kiss.
His hands cradled over my cheeks as his lips brushed over mine.
His palms were warm, and rough, carving into my hair.
I’m not wearing anything, he’s underneath me.
I realize what I’m doing with him. I’m sleeping with him, and I can feel it in my legs, the burning desire running all over me, and into my chest. His eyes were so focused on me, so tangled into me as if I was the only one in the world he’d give that look to.
My brain snaps out of it. I stare as the screen flickers. The broadcast cuts out for half a second, and when it comes back, there’s a picture... It’s a picture of me.
“Oh...” The guy next to me says and the bed squeaks as he sits up. My stomach drops.
It’s quick, maybe a glitch or a flash of static, but I see my own face on the screen.
“I think that’s you...” he points. But I'm not bruised up or pale. It’s just a pretty little picture of me.
It’s one of those school pictures you take yearly that your mother wants to buy and give away to family at Christmas.
The old man grunts. “What the hell is going on?” He bangs his can of Sprite on the tray.
But I’m frozen, staring at the TV, my heart pounding so hard it hurts. I’m sure the damn thing is about to quit on me at any waking second.
I whisper without meaning to. “Noah.” My lips tremble. “It’s... it’s... It’s Noah.”
He’s on the screen now, standing on the field with a guitar, singing into the microphone like the world doesn’t exist around him. His voice is raw, the grunts, the screams, the pain etched into every lyric and it hits something deep inside me.
“I wrote that...” I whisper. “I’ll still find you in three days, burn me at the stake, I’ll make sure you suffocate,” I repeat the lyrics that he sings on the television.
“I wrote that... it’s him...” My breath catches, as it starts to flood back, rampaging through every nerve of my being.
“That’s Noah,” I say louder. “It’s Noah! ”
The old man turns to me with a frown. “What the hell are you yapping about?”
But I’m already halfway out of the room. The IV tugs at my arm as I drag the stand with me and I make it to the hallway, my feet cold from the floor.
“It’s him!” I shout, pointing at the screen.
“That’s him! That’s Noah!” Some of the nurses aren’t paying any attention to me.
They're just walking around with their charts when I'm about to have a full-blown panic attack. God, they must be used to me having episodes at least twice a day, but this isn’t one.
The old man stares at me like I’ve lost my mind, muttering, “What the hell, why did I get stuck with a crazy woman,” and then he goes back to yelling at the TV. “Where is the football game?”
But I can’t stop. My heart’s racing so fast it feels like it’s going to split in two. I drag my IV further out the doorway, shouting into the hall. “He’s on TV! Noah’s on TV!”
Nurses rush in, their faces all calm and professional, the kind of calm that makes me feel even more frantic. “Okay, we need you to sit down. You’re going to rip out your IV’s again.”
I shake my head. Tears start to form in my eyes as I don’t want them to make me sit back down, or for them to badger me into calming down.
Now I’m sobbing, chest heaving. “No, you don’t understand.
I know him! No... no...” I backed away from them.
“Don’t put me back to sleep please! That’s Noah!
The guy singing, that’s someone I know!”
One of the nurses reaches for me, but I keep pointing at the TV through tears. “He’s someone! My chest hurts, I want... I want Noah!”
My voice cracks. Everything inside me feels like it’s snapping loose all at once. The gears in my brain are starting to turn on. Then it hits me. My name. It slams into my chest with the force of a heartbeat.
I scream through the sobs. “My name is Charlotte!”
The nurses freeze for a moment, stunned. One of them grabs a clipboard, fumbling for the call button. “My name is Charlotte!”