Chapter 14
Lizette picked Emmett up from the hospital the morning after the procedure. The pain wasn’t too bad: a sore throat, some tenderness at the back of his hip. It smarted as she helped him up into the SUV, soda bottles and fast-food trash crunching under his feet.
The real damage was deeper down, a trauma that only distance from this place could heal. Why had no one told him it was going to be like that? Why hadn’t they stopped when they realized he was awake? His hands shook as they fumbled for the seat belt.
Terms like medical malpractice and punitive damages came to mind in Abby’s voice. No doubt he’d have a case. Yet the thought of going to court made him uneasy. Why would anyone trust his testimony, when he wasn’t even sure what had happened himself?
When Emmett had awoken from the procedure, he had found himself in an unfamiliar room. His head was woozy, his pain big and slippery. The sun’s position through the tinted window told him it was afternoon.
The nurse from before came in, grabbed a clipboard off the back of the door, and checked the readings on a beeping machine. “You’re awake.”
“What—what’s happening?” Emmett’s voice was a rasp, his throat shredded.
“Procedure’s over,” the nurse chirped. “Everything went good. We’re gonna keep you overnight just to be safe.”
“Lizette. I need to—”
“I just spoke with her. She’s gonna get you tomorrow. She was worried about you. You have a good friend there.” A smile sparkled at the corner of her eye.
Who was this woman? She seemed a mile apart from the one he’d met in the waiting room that morning, the one who sped him through pre-op checks. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going to happen?”
“Happen?” She lowered her clipboard.
“No one told me anything.”
“Mmmm.” She furrowed her brow, sympathetic but skeptical. “You don’t remember? We talked before the procedure. I took you through it step by step: the bone marrow extraction, collecting the stem cells—”
“Shoving a feeding tube down my throat?”
“Remember I said we needed to keep formula flowing through your GI to counteract the nutrient depletion from the EmaC-8?”
Emmett didn’t remember any of that.
“Must’ve forgot,” the nurse said. “I don’t blame you. That general anesthetic is no joke.”
“What anesthetic? I was awake the whole time.”
She hiccupped with accidental laughter, then swallowed it down. “Sorry. But no. We’d never do a bone marrow harvest without a general anesthetic.”
“It didn’t work. The anesthesiologist, she said—”
“She? Your anesthesiologist was Dr. Agarwal. Jason Agarwal.”
But Emmett could see her clearly: tall, dark-skinned, cheekbones sharp as razor blades. Had he imagined her? Imagined all of it?
“Don’t stress,” the nurse said. “Probably just a nightmare. If you like, I can try to get your friend on the phone? Might be nice to hear a familiar voice.”
Emmett decided he wanted to speak to Lizette more than he wanted to argue. “Please.”
The nurse was right. Lizette’s voice was a salve on the rash of his anxiety. “How’re you feeling?”
He was tempted to unload. If anyone would believe him, she would.
But something held him back. The nurse’s version of events had planted a seed of doubt in his mind; he could feel it unfurling, wrapping its tendrils around his memories and twisting.
It was for this reason that, even as they pulled out onto the road, and the oppressive influence of the hospital receded into the distance, Emmett still didn’t say a word.
If he mentioned his strange, nightmarish memory of the procedure, she wouldn’t be able to let it go.
She’d insist the nurse was lying, forbid him from moving forward with the trial, maybe even contact his family if he put up a fight.
He couldn’t let them interfere. He’d waited his whole life for an opportunity like this. He had too much at stake to let it slip away.
“So what happens now?” Lizette said, merging onto the freeway. “Are you supposed to start dropping weight right away?”
This he remembered: it would take two to four weeks for his new stem cells to start growing.
“Plus, it doesn’t really work without the injections,” he said.
He had an appointment scheduled at the Cronus Health office the following week to receive his first dose of EmaC-8.
After that he’d have to schlep down to Chula Vista weekly for check-ins, at least to start.
In the meantime Monstera had asked him to keep a health journal via their online participant portal. This part of the process he looked forward to, accepting it as a personal challenge. He couldn’t pour his heart out on his blog, but he’d write the best damn health journal Dr. Saito had ever seen.