I grabbed the blanket, and threw it to the side. I was leaving. Getting the fuck out of here.
Unfortunately, the aftermath of my surgery wasn't going to allow that. I was groggy to the nth degree, my head was spinning like a top, and I felt like I was going to puke. And that busted leg of mine? Swathed in bandages, blankets, and inflatable splints.
The doctor gently put his hand on my arm. Gently, but firmly.
“Miss Sanchez, it's alright. You're not quite ready to leave, I'd say.”
“I don't… I don't have insurance.”
A puzzled look crossed his face. He flipped through my chart, zeroed in on the last paper. “No, you do. Full coverage. You could say you have a running tab, bought and paid for.”
Now the puzzled look went to my face. It must be a clerical error. But I wasn't going to say anything. I needed to lay down, that's what I needed.
“What kind of surgery?” I asked, handing the cup back to the good doctor.
“Compound fractures of the femur, compression ruptures of the adductor magnus and gracilis. Sort of like the muscles in your leg are the inside of a lemon, and you smashed the lemon on the concrete. Pretty wicked, Miss Sanchez. Do you remember how it happened?”
Langoustine lobsters. Crawling around the bottom of a tide pool. The bastards.
“I slipped.”
He nodded. Probably heard that a lot. He made a note on my chart.
“Do you remember what you were doing when you slipped?”
“Fishing,” I replied, and shut my eyes.
I didn't want to talk to him anymore, and it was way too bright in this room. This bought and paid for room.
“How's your pain level? On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst?”
Somewhere around a six and a half. “It's fabulous. Thanks for asking.”
Doctor Orizaga smiled again, tapped his clipboard on my mattress, and got up from his squeaky stool. He adjusted the drip level on one of three IV bags oozing into my system.
“I think you'll be alright, Miss Sanchez. It's going to take a while, but you'll be okay.”
“What are all the cocktails...?”
“Saline, sodium chlorine with a dash of dextrose, and a morphine chaser. Sorry, we're all out of little umbrellas.”
“No Rohypnol?”
“I'm sorry?”
“Nothing.”
Orizaga took a second, making a mental note of what I just said. Doctors were sneaky that way. You can't trust them. For instance, they'll tell you they'll do everything within their power to help, then end up not doing shit. So they're liars, too.
“The nurse will be in shortly to check on you, okay? And I'll see what I can do about some coffee.”
“Promises, promises,” I said.
The door closed behind him. I hated doctors. All of them.
Even though Orizaga appeared to have a decent bedside manner, he could go stuff himself.
I brought my hand to my head, clunking myself with the oximeter clamped onto my index finger. I never could understand how something that looked like a miniature stapler monitored oxygen levels.
Leslie had lots of these, I remembered. I'd customize them with stick-on googly eyes despite the disapproving looks of the nursing staff. She'd giggle when the eyeballs would roll, and Becca would make silly voices for 'Molly Monitor', as we called her.
Months later, Becca wouldn't need a Molly Monitor.
The fluids from my intravenous bar drip, drip, dripped down from the bags, into the tube, into my blood. Captivating. Fascinating, actually. In the final analysis, tranquilizing. I didn't know how I felt about being hooked up to the morphine, however. It was of the same pain killer family that killed Josh.
I had no precise idea of what Josh looked like – just a younger version of Maddox, from what I was led to believe and what I saw on the picture. A good looking Irish boy, red hair, an all-star stud quarterback, and dead as a doornail on one of the beautiful islands of Hawaii. That's what made it so strange, so surreal, when his image flashed across my mind before I squeezed the trigger.
Maddox was less than six feet away, looking just like an expendable cast member in a war movie right before enemy fire blows them apart. He never begged, or said 'please don't'. He never bargained for his life, or anything pussy like that. He was scared, yet resigned. As if he knew he had it coming. That he deserved it, and was in perfect range for me to do some serious, irreparable damage. Then, that vision of his brother. I shot the flare into the morning sky.
It was exactly like a firework launching on the Fourth of July, just without the end explosion. A crazy red comet fishtailing into the atmosphere.
I thought of Becca watching from above, seeing it blast from the barrel of the gun, and I swear I think she smiled. If there really was a heaven, my sister had a great view of what I'd just done. Or hadn't done. And Josh was up there, too.
I'd blame what happened next on pure exhaustion, the excruciating pain in my leg, and every varied, ruthless emotion I'd been running.
I cried.
No, shit on that. I bawled. Bawled my fucking eyes out, sobbing so hard my breath hitched, snot poured out of my nose like slimy beer on tap, and I didn't think I'd ever be able to stop.
I didn't know if I wanted to stop.
Or if I should.
Maddox never moved. Didn't make a single gesture that he was going to come over next to me, offer comfort, or give me a shoulder to lean on. The crazy, shitty, fucky part of all that was I needed him to. No, shit on that again. I wanted him to.
Granted, I'd not given him a real reason why he should. I'd held him at gun point (flare or otherwise) on several occasions. Tortured him sexually. But, in my defense, he was the one who started it.
I ran dry on tears, eventually. Grief is draining, and regret even more so. I
