Chapter 25 Lucy
LUCY
{When will my life begin?}
Two days later.
The morning that I left Brightfield, I signed paperwork relinquishing my claim on the trust fund. A small part of me wondered how my parents would react. The rest of me just didn’t care anymore—at least that’s what I kept telling myself to keep from crying.
The sky was cloudy, light rain misting down, as if the normally dry Moab climate wanted to ease me into Washington state.
Doctor Emerson’s face was also damp, though he didn’t actively cry in front of me. He held a large, black umbrella. I wanted to make a joke about him looking like he was going to a funeral—even his outfit without his normal white coat smacked of grieving.
But I knew I couldn’t laugh right now.
That part of me was switched off at the moment.
Numerous nurses gathered, all huddled beneath their own more colorful umbrellas, their faces blurs of smiles and tears swiped from eyes.
I was so overwhelmed, the visor of the protective suit I had to wear out of caution fogging, that I didn’t recognize most of them.
Hands squeezed my upper arm through the crinkling yellow fabric that kept my still healing body safe from the outside world.
Someone wanted to shake my hand, but I couldn’t seem to lift my arm in response. So, they just patted my shoulder.
After a goodbye that dragged on so long it became awkward, transport techs hustled me into the back of the vehicle. My legs felt like jelly, my body boneless, my brain mush.
Even Doc Emerson’s final goodbye was something that fogged into one ear and out the other.
I think it was kind though.
“I’ll miss you. If you need me, call Brightfield. I’ve been honored to be your physician all these years.”
He said something like that. My mind might have been filling in muddy blanks though.
He might have spoken fewer words or more than I registered.
They might have been warmer or more professional.
The only thing I was certain of in those last moments before the back doors to the transport vehicle shut was the sadness in his eyes.
“I’ll get better and come back to visit! I’ll walk in without a mask and be healthier than we ever imagined I could be!” I shouted just as the doors clicked into place. I don’t know if he heard me.
Then that slow motion goodbye shifted to fast forward.
The drive.
The airport.
The takeoff.
The nurse checking my vitals and adjusting my oxygen flow. Me, trying to sleep but being too nervous to close my eyes for more than two seconds. Turbulence that made my pulse jump. The movie playing on a screen that I barely watched.
The landing, bumpy enough that my heart leaped into my chest, and I found myself strangely thrilled by the idea of crashing down to Earth. What a new experience that would be? To risk death suddenly and without warning, rather than waiting for it patiently in a hospital bed.
Doctor Emerson had been right about the weather. Moab was the tropics compared to Seattle.
In another transport vehicle, I faced backwards in a wheelchair docked securely against the ground.
I watched the airport fall away, cars weaving in and out of traffic, and the suburbs melting into city.
I tried to shift, to turn around enough in the hammock seat beneath me, to see the Seattle skyline at a distance, but the suit was too bulky and the belt around my middle too tight.
The medical tech near me made no move to assist. He just kept reading a magazine and checking equipment every few minutes.
From the rear windows, I watched the lower floors of skyscrapers and businesses blur in and out of view as we drove past. All glass in different hues, bright signs, with modern lines.
The sidewalks were dotted with trees. Some bare of leaves and others evergreen, resisting the frigid weather.
The sky above was a wash of grey, so no reflective surface was kissed by bright sun.
I was desperate to see it all, and the city—as if it knew I was starved for its sights and sounds—obliged with rushing businessmen, elegant shoppers, numerous dogs led by posh owners.
A coffee shop smelled amazing as we passed it.
A bakery window made me drool. I wished the vehicle would stop.
I wanted to throw caution to the cold wind, rip off the stupid protective suit, and race out into the breathing, living city.
I wanted everything I’d never had before, despite knowing it was too soon.
If I acted wildly now, all the pain of the treatments would be wasted. But, God, it would feel so good.
I shook myself, sanity returning. For now, this city was no better than a movie. Not real. I couldn’t smell it or taste it or touch it.
I may have left my room at Brightfield, but the window was still there. Solid, real, and separating me oh-so-firmly from the outside world. The difference was that now, for the first time, the barrier felt temporary.
"First time in Seattle?" The driver's voice crackled through the intercom system that connected the sealed medical compartment to the front cab.
"First time anywhere," I replied, not taking my eyes off the city unfolding behind me.
So many people, all without protective gear, touching doorhandles and each other with casual disregard for the microscopic dangers such contact might trigger.
People laughed, breath fogging into the air.
They shouted. They pushed and shoved. A hotdog vendor prepped food without gloves, right there in the Seattle smog.
He handed it to a waiting patron, and she immediately shoved it into her mouth without thinking if the processed meat and sticky, sweet condiments would compromise her health.
Everything seemed so... reckless. So dangerous. So damn alive.
The van turned onto a wide avenue flanked by corporate towers, each one competing to reach higher into the cloudy sky.
"There it is. Eros," the transport tech said, as he stared toward the front of the vehicle.
The driver chimed in. "Home sweet home. For now, anyway.”
I tried to turn again, tried to see what monstrous city building was replacing the quaint, home-like Brightfield.
This time, I kept shifting and struggling until, from the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the building’s lower half and a sleek sign partially obscured by hunter green shrubs.
The Eros Institute. My stomach clenched, anxiety coursing through me.
This was more intimidating than I’d imagined.
I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my throat, as if somehow I’d carried Utah with me and the suit was only now notifying me that it was a thing of the desert. Dry, choking, full of sand. Fear wrapped around my heart like a vice.
“One cage for a new, shinier one,” I mumbled to myself, turning back from the sight of the building coming ever closer, my waist and neck aching from the strain.
After years of craving freedom from medical confinement, I now faced the prospect of a different kind of captivity—one bound by a contract rather than contamination protocols.
I closed my eyes, feeling the van’s path curve.
Not long later, the light past my eyelids dimmed.
I parted my lashes, finding only a blur until my vision adjusted.
We were in an underground parking garage.
The ceiling was low and made me nervous.
The vehicle curved again, then began reversing towards a discreet door marked "High Risk Medical Transport Only”.
My heart sank slightly at the reminder that I wasn't yet normal enough for the front door, despite the miraculous improvements in my condition.
I was still Lucy Graves, lifelong patient.
“I need to check your suit and vitals before we proceed," said the transport tech as he reached for a clipboard.
“I feel like one of those goldfish people buy at the store, sloshing around in a plastic bag with just enough water to stay temporarily alive.” I frowned down as best I could with the stupid helmet. It really was like seeing the world through a fishbowl.
“From what I’ve heard, you’re something of a miracle. Everyone who works for Eros knows your name now.” He stood up, having to crouch. I hadn’t realized he was so tall. He fiddled with some dials, depressed a valve that released a quick hiss of air, then wrote some things down on his clipboard.
“I’ve been called a lot of things over the years, but a miracle is new. I mean, it’s a miracle I reached my twenties I guess.” I shrugged, but the effect was lost in the confines of the bulky outfit.
“You’ll reach your thirties now. Your forties. Fifties and sixties. Sky’s the limit.” He unhooked my hoses from the tanks attached to the vehicle, and transferred me over to smaller, mobile tanks that were hanging on the back of the wheelchair.
“Old and gray. Can’t quite picture that,” I admitted.
When I thought about dying, I was always young.
Untested. Unloved by a partner. Unchanged from the trappings of youth.
Hair still rich in color. Face free of wrinkles.
Would I become an old woman someday now?
Would I sit on a porch watching grandchildren?
A derisive laugh came unbidden. I wasn’t going to believe I could die old until it actually happened. Ninety on my death bed. Finally convinced I could live long enough to pass away with gnarled hands and bad hips and false teeth.
“We’re ready back here,” the tech called to the driver, who almost immediately cut the engine and got out of the vehicle.
Moments later, the double back doors opened to reveal not only the driver, but a grouping of other people—some in white coats, others in scrubs, two in sharp suits.
One of the white-coated women, the tallest in the group with a runway model’s figure, stepped forward, her smile professional and holding enough forced warmth that I could almost pretend she cared about me as a person and not an experiment gone right.