Chapter 21
The hospital smelled clean and sterile, but with a slight hint of horse. Even here, the horse scent lingered. Reassuring beeps and boops from the adjoining rooms filled my hearing.
“Oh, thank god,” Mike said when I opened my eyes.
“Thank someone ,” I replied, but it felt like I had a bag of sand in my mouth and a balloon in my brain, so I’m not sure what it sounded like.
“I’m going to get the doctor,” said Mike. “Do not move!”
To Sage, he said, “Keep her here and do not let her die.”
“I don’t think I’m going to—”
Mike waved his arms. “You don’t get a vote!” He rushed out of the room, going one way down the hall, before turning and going the other way. His flannel shirt was tucked into his jeans, but only on one side, and his shoelaces were untied.
“What happened?” I asked Sage.
There was a series of triumphant beeps from the corner of the room and then a very sad-sounding series of beeps. Adam punched a button on his game console, then set it on his lap and looked up. “You almost died!”
Sage put their arms out. “No, you didn’t.
You just fell off Brian.” Sage’s face was sweaty and their hair was messy in a way that didn’t look planned.
Grimy green strands fell over one of their eyes, and they pushed it back, then crossed their arms. “It was an accident. And ...” They bit their lip, making the metal braces on their teeth dig into the flesh.
“I’m really sorry, Gibson. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. ”
My heart ached for so many reasons, both literally and metaphorically—what was one more?
“This isn’t your fault, Sage, it’s mine,” I said. “It’s me who should be sorry. Clearly, I wasn’t ready to ride by myself.”
“Clearly,” Adam added.
“Ouch. Accurate, but ouch.” To Sage, I said, “Tell me some more horse names, please, I could use a laugh.”
Sage cleared their throat and said, “Um, well, there’s Britney Spurs and Marvin Gelding.”
It hurt but I laughed anyway.
“Dad loves Sir Paul McHorseney. We had to sell Bayonce, unfortunately. And The Horse Formerly Known as Prince, but his name was too long to say and hard to abbreviate anyway.”
I closed my eyes. The smile stayed on my face. “Those are perfect names. Fifteen out of ten, no notes.”
I had almost faded back into hazy, drug-assisted sleep when Mike returned.
With him were Rebecca and Sara Johnson. Rebecca was wearing a low-cut black tank top and lime green high-waisted pants, the kind that would be extremely difficult to pull off but that looked fabulous on her.
For some reason, she looked happy to see me.
Dr. Johnson was wearing sky-blue scrubs and a professional, bland expression.
There was no trace of the Sara Johnson who’d belted out Journey songs in front of the drunken audience at Helga’s.
Dr. Johnson smiled warmly. “Well, Gibson, you are going to be in an absolute world of hurt tomorrow, but you’ll live.
” She checked my heart with her stethoscope and shined a bright light into my eyes.
“Most minor head injuries don’t need additional treatment, but we’ll need to keep you overnight for observation since you don’t have anyone to monitor you for signs of a worsening condition. ”
I sighed. “My insurance will definitely not cover that. Are you seriously going to make me stay here even though you know I’ll be fine?”
She frowned. “I don’t know that you’ll be fine.
And I do not trust you to be alone. It’s barely been a week since your last head injury.
Not allowing patients with head injuries to go home with serious painkillers is covered on day three of med school.
” Dr. Johnson clicked her pen and put it in her scrubs pocket.
“Days one and two are when they show you how to make balloon animals with your gloves and pass out rubber noses.”
“I’m not—” I was going to say that I wasn’t alone, but I was. If I went back to Abaddon, there would be no one waiting.
“You get off in an hour, right, babe?” Rebecca said. “Could Gibson stay with us?”
I shook my head, then had to close my eyes to stave off a wave of dizziness. “You don’t need to do that. Everyone on this island needs to stop being so nice to me, I swear to god.”
Mike said, “That’s a good idea.” He was hovering anxiously on the other side of the bed, keeping one eye on me and one eye on Adam, who had returned to his video games. “I’m not being nice,” he added. “I don’t want you to sue me. Or my idiot kids.”
“Hey!” Adam said.
At the same time, Sage said, “Fair.”
“Mike, I’m not going to sue you or your kids.”
“Let’s not talk about litigation in the hospital. I have enough paperwork in my life as it is.” Dr. Johnson checked her watch. “I do get off soon, and I could be comfortable discharging you if you stayed with a responsible adult.”
“We’ll have a sleepover!” Rebecca said, clapping her hands and sounding way too excited about bringing a damaged person home.
At the confused looks she received from Mike and Sara, she said, “Hey, I need to take the excitement where I can get it. You guys have your band to spice up your life, and I have the Gibson Cartwright reality show in my living room.”
To me, she said, “You’re basically my Survivor until the new season comes on.”
“Glad to be of service,” I said.
The Johnsons left to arrange my escape from the hospital, and there was a flurry of instructions, paperwork, and waiting for people to type things into computers.
Finally, Mike wheeled me out of the hospital and through the streets of Mackinac to the Johnson house.
Tourists stared at me and my little entourage.
I giggled, not feeling foolish even though the not-drugged Gibson of yesterday would have.
When we reached the barbershop slash family home, Rebecca led me up the stairs, holding me up by the waist and keeping me balanced. “You can rest in Tyler’s bedroom.”
“I don’t need to rest.”
“Okay.” She led me down the hall and opened the door, scooting me inside gently.
“I don’t need to ...” I sat down on the bed. My limbs were as heavy as rocks. My eyes closed and everything went still and dark.
***
Posters covered every inch of every wall.
I stared at the shapes and colors in the dim light drifting in from the hallway and the moonlight filtering through half-open blinds.
Without context, my brain couldn’t turn the images into meaningful patterns.
The room smelled like feet and adolescence.
The moon was high in the sky, meaning that somehow, I’d slept deeply for several hours.
“Is this hell?” I asked no one. “Is hell a teenager’s bedroom?”
The room didn’t answer.
Everything hurt. I wiggled my toes, then my fingers.
I drew in a deep breath, then winced at the pain in my chest. I could move all my limbs, but it wasn’t easy or pleasant.
What the fuck had happened? I remembered the smell of a horse, the damp forest, a light through the trees, then nothing.
A lump formed in my throat as my memories rewound.
Brooke had called me. “It’s not personal,” she had said.
The band couldn’t wait for me—I lost my chance at success.
If I had ever really had one. My chance at truly belonging with them was gone.
I had been playing fill-in gigs for over two decades, including two years with Call Me Kate Kane, and yet no one on the scene wanted me as a permanent member.
Pressure built behind my eyes as I realized what a fool I’d been.
Ever since I arrived in Michigan, I’d been sending Brooke snippets of my life and she hadn’t cared, not really.
She was committed to the band, not me. I could understand, but it hurt.
Going back even further, I remembered setting the sofa on fire in Agatha’s backyard. I closed my eyes and sighed, recalling how I’d yelled at Yasmin and forced her out of the house. She was my family, and I’d turned her out on her ass.
Annabelle’s mocking voice filled my ears. She had said, “And you know all about living, do you?”
How stupid I had been to hope that she would want to come back—for me .
Agatha had lived in the house for decades with Annabelle.
They were friends who watched soap operas together.
If she couldn’t convince Annabelle to come back, why did I think I could?
We had known each other for, what? A week?
This place was making me crazy. Even if I didn’t have much of a home to go back to in New York, that’s where I had made myself into the person I was today.
It was where I could lose myself in music and a crowd, and it was time for me to go back.
I groaned as I forced myself out of a bed that was too small for me.
My legs were covered by a Spider-Man blanket.
When I felt steady enough to stand, I smoothed the sheets back as best I could before creeping down the hall.
The hallway was dark, but the flickering light of a television filtered up from the ground floor.
I made my way carefully down the stairs and had to stop at the bottom to catch my breath.
My left ankle felt like it was three sizes too big, and my right hip didn’t want to move right.
It felt like everything, even the inside of my nose, was bruised.
To my right was the empty barbershop room. To my left, a dark living room lit by the flickering of a screen. I recognized the scene with the bridge made of marigolds from Coco.