Chapter 6
When I opened my eyes again, it was night-time, and Frida was peering down at me. I mean, really staring, like I was some homeless guy passed out in a subway car, covered in my own vomit. When she saw I was awake, she jumped about a mile back and stared at me with wide, terrified eyes. I mean it. She looked completely freaked. emong ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her. My voice still sounded weird – all high-pitched and sort of . . . I don’t know. Girlie, or something. But whatever. ‘Have I got something on my face?’ I lifted my hand to feel my face. But all I felt was smooth skin. Which was . . . well, unusual. I do the best I can, of course, but let’s just say I couldn’t imagine after however long I’d been in the hospital, my complexion was looking its best. But I didn’t feel a single bump. Which was a miracle in itself. ‘What –’ I broke off. Man, my voice sounded strange. It had been a while, I realized, since I’d had anything to drink. In fact, I was drying up with thirst. Maybe that was it. Maybe I just needed to drink something. ‘Is there water in here or anything?’ ‘W-water?’ Frida stammered. ‘You want s-some water?’ ‘Um, yeah,’ I said. I actually felt awake enough to try to sit up. Big mistake. The machines next to me started pinging like crazy. Also, all the wires connected to me pulled me back down against the pillows. Not to mention, my head kind of throbbed when I tried to lift it. ‘I don’t think –’ Frida looked horrified – ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to try to get up yet. ’ ‘I kind of got the message,’ I said. I reached up to touch one of the wires and found that it was only attached to my head by a sticker. Using my new, long press-on nails, I peeled the sticker off, along with the wire. No pinging. Hmmm. ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to be doing that,’ Frida said, her gaze owlish. ‘It’s fine,’ I said, pulling off more stickers. Of course, I had no idea whether or not it was fine. I just didn’t want to be attached to machines any more. Why should I be, when I felt fine? I mean, except for the throbbing head. Oh, and the parched throat. ‘Is there any water around here?’ I asked Frida. ‘Does my voice sound weird to you?’ But Frida just stood there, looking like she was about to cry. And for the first time I noticed she hadn’t bothered with her morning blow-dry. Her hair was a mass of staticky tangles threatening to engulf her pale, tear-stained face. She didn’t have any make-up on either, and instead of being dressed at the height of Teen Chic, she had on one of Mom’s old sweaters and a pair of her most faded jeans. This, more than anything else – including the roses from Gabriel Luna, which I saw were still on the window-sill, though they were a lot droopier than before, and that extremely odd visit from Lulu Collins – disturbed me. I mean, Frida has been scrupulous about her appearance since . . . well, her whole life. I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t freaking out over a blackhead, much less when she last left the house without mascara. And here she was, cosmetic free, and looking like death warmed up. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter with you? You look like somebody just told you American Idol is fixed. Which I’m pretty sure it is, by the way. ’ ‘I . . . ’ Frida blinked a few times. And an actual tear slid out from beneath one eyelid. ‘I just can’t believe . . . it’s you. ’ ‘Well, of course it’s me,’ I said. Seriously, what was wrong with my little sister? I’ve always thought she spent way too much time obsessing about how she looks, and not enough time reading books . . . even comic books. But still. This was ridiculous. She looked like . . . well, as Lulu would put it, crap. ‘Who else would it be?’ Something about that question made Frida’s face crumple. And suddenly, she was crying. Really crying. ‘Hey,’ I said, concerned. ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Well, well, well, look who’s up,’ boomed a voice from the doorway, startling both of us. I turned my head, and saw Dr Holcombe coming into the room, followed by my parents. Both of them smiled when they saw I was awake. ‘She . . . she wants some water,’ Frida squeaked, still looking wide-eyed as a rat caught in the headlight of a Number 6 train. ‘I think we can safely accommodate that request,’ Dr Holcombe said in a cheerful tone. ‘Go and ask the nurses for a pitcher and a glass, will you, Frida?’ Frida, looking relieved to have an excuse to get out of my room, skittered away. Meanwhile, Dr Holcombe found some of the stickers – the wires still attached – that I’d pulled off. He made a tsk-tsking noise. ‘Now now,’ he said, lifting one and placing it gently back on my forehead. ‘I’m glad you’re feeling better, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You’re still a very sick girl. ’ ‘I don’t feel sick,’ I said. ‘Except for my head. My head hurts. But just a little. ’ ‘That’s to be expected,’ the doctor said, still messing with my wires. ‘You’ve got to rest. ’ I looked at my parents for some sign they disagreed with the doctor. Because he had to be exaggerating. Since I felt relatively all right. I mean, if I was sick, wouldn’t I feel worse? But Mom and Dad both looked pretty worried. ‘You should do what Dr Holcombe says, honey,’ Mom said, patting my hand. ‘He knows what he’s doing. ’ That was probably true. But still. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with me? What happened?’ ‘They’ve got you on some pretty heavy duty medications,’ Dad said in this weirdly cheerful tone. Kind of like he didn’t actually feel cheerful, but someone had told him to act that way. Around me, anyway. I don’t know what made me think of that, but once the idea occurred to me, I couldn’t shake it. ‘That’s right,’ Dr Holcombe said, sounding pretty cheerful himself. ‘And with luck, we’ll be weaning you off some of those medications soon. But not quite yet. ’ So I was on drugs. Well, that made sense. I’d been pretty sure I had to be, considering how much I’d been sleeping . . . not to mention the hallucinations. But a glance at the windowsill told me not all of it had been in my head. Also, the droopy state of the roses told me something else. ‘How long?’ I asked. ‘Until we can start cutting back on your medications?’ Dr Holcombe was checking the machines next to my bed. ‘Well, that’s hard to say—’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean how long have I been in the hospital? How much school have I missed?’ ‘You don’t need to worry about that, Em,’ Dad said, in his fake-cheerful voice. ‘We’ve talked to all your teachers, and –’ They’d talked to all my teachers? They’d been to my school? Oh my God. Why couldn’t this part be a hallucination, and not the part where Lulu Collins thought she was my best friend? ‘How long?’ I repeated, my weird voice – what was up with that anyway – trembling a little. ‘Not long at all,’ Dr Holcombe replied. ‘Just a little over a month. ’ ‘A month!’ I tried to sit up, but of course all that happened was that the machines on either side of my bed started going nuts – especially the heart monitor, because I was having a panic attack thinking about all the work I was going to have to make up. Plus, I felt dizzy. And not just at the prospect of all the homework awaiting me. It was of course at this point that Frida decided to walk back into the room, holding a water pitcher and glass she’d snagged from somewhere. Hearing all the commotion, she froze in the doorway, apparently thinking I was having some kind of attack. ‘Is she – is she –’ Frida stood there, bug-eyed and stammering. ‘She’s fine,’ Mom said emphatically, pressing down on my shoulder to keep me from sitting up. ‘Em, stop it. You have a lot more important things to worry about than school right now. ’ Was she kidding? What could be more important than school? ‘I’m gonna be held back!’ I insisted. ‘I’m going to have to repeat eleventh grade!’ ‘No, you aren’t,’ Mom said. ‘Please, Em. Calm down. Doctor, can you give her something—’ ‘Oh no,’ I yelled. ‘You are not putting me to sleep again! I need my laptop! Somebody needs to go home and get my laptop so I can start catching up. Does this room have Wi-Fi?’ ‘Now now,’ Dr Holcombe said, chuckling a little. ‘Let’s take it one step at a time, young lady. Frida, come here with that water. ’ Frida, still looking at me like I was some creature who’d crawled from the deep, came forward, holding the glass of water she’d poured with a trembling hand. ‘H-here,’ she said. I lifted my hand and took the glass from her – noticing again, as I did so, the g
lamorous long fingernails she’d glued over my bitten ones. ‘Thanks – and for the manicure too,’ I added. ‘I . . . I didn’t give you a manicure,’ Frida said in a voice that shook. ‘Right,’ I said. I took the glass . . . But because I wasn’t allowed to sit up, it wasn’t easy to drink from it. Also, somehow I missed my mouth, so the ice-cold water went pouring down my neck and into my hospital gown. Which just made me madder than ever. ‘What the—’ ‘Now now,’ Dr Holcombe said, mopping up the worst of it with his own handkerchief. ‘See what I mean? Let’s take things one day at a time, shall we? Homework can wait. Want to try that again?’ I really was parched. I nodded, and this time Mom helped me get the cup to my lips, and the water – the coolest, most delicious water I had ever tasted – made it into my mouth instead of all down my gown. ‘There now,’ Dr Holcombe said. ‘That’s better. Do you think you’ll be wanting to tackle some food soon?’ Just the word food made my stomach rumble. I nodded eagerly, and Dr Holcombe looked pleased. ‘Frida,’ he said to my sister. ‘Why don’t you run down to the cafeteria and get something your sister might like. What do you feel like eating, Emerson?’ ‘I know what she’ll feel like eating,’ Mom said, her nose wrinkling a little, the way it always does when she’s about to say something she thinks is funny. ‘Ice-cream sundae. Right, Em?’ ‘With a chocolate-chip cookie on the side,’ Dad said, looking a little more like his normal self, and not Fake Cheerful Guy. ‘Is that what you want . . . Em?’ Frida asked. Except, weirdly . . . it wasn’t. ‘Sure,’ I said. Because I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t wanted ice cream and a cookie. Until now. Oddly though, that ‘Sure’ turned out to be the right thing to say. Because for the first time since I’d woken up and seen her, Frida smiled. Tentatively, but still. It was a smile. Then she said, ‘Be right back,’ and took off. Which was pretty strange in itself. I mean, when was the last time my little sister had ever been eager to bring me food . . . in bed? The fact that Frida was so willing to fetch and carry for me told me way more about how hurt I must be than my dad’s fake cheer or my mom’s teariness. ‘So what happened?’ I asked when Frida was safely out of earshot. ‘Why am I here? Was there an accident? A subway accident?’ Mom frowned. ‘You don’t remember? Going to Stark’s? Anything?’ Going to Stark’s? Gabriel had mentioned something about Stark’s, too. A grand opening. Something about those words seemed to tickle my memory, but when I tried to remember, it was like it was just out of my grasp . . . ‘We don’t have to talk about that now,’ Dr Holcombe said hastily. ‘Let’s concentrate on getting you better. ’ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I mean . . . I’ve been out of school for a month? What, have I been in a coma or something?’ ‘The, er, accident didn’t cause the coma,’ Mom said gently. ‘Dr Holcombe placed you in a chemical coma, so that you could heal more comfortably. He’s been bringing you slowly out of it over the past few days, to see how you were doing. ’ ‘Well,’ I said. ‘What part of me is hurt, exactly? Because I feel pretty good. Except for my head. And my voice. Do you hear how weird my voice sounds?’ My mom and dad looked at Dr Holcombe, who said to me, ‘Well, Emerson, the truth is, your injuries were, in fact, extremely severe. We used a special technique we’ve developed in order to save your life, since the type of injury you suffered is, in fact, fatal. ’ I blinked at him. ‘But I’m alive. ’ ‘Because the procedure worked,’ Dad explained. ‘Worked isn’t the word for it,’ Dr Holcombe enthused, his eyes glittering excitedly behind his plastic-framed glasses. ‘Your recovery up until now has far, far surpassed our expectations. We certainly didn’t expect you to be speaking, much less for you to possess any sort of motor skills, until many days from now, if not weeks. But like with any risky medical procedure, no one can be one hundred per cent certain of the outcome. And you’re going to notice that some things – like your voice, for instance, which you already mentioned – might not seem the same as they did before your accident—’ ‘That’s why it’s very important that you do what the doctors and nurses here tell you,’ Dad said. ‘Such as, don’t take off your sensors,’ Dr Holcombe said, picking up one he’d missed before and attaching it to my temple. ‘And no homework,’ Mom said. She’d recovered herself and wiped the tears from her eyes. Now she attempted a smile . . . and didn’t do a half bad job at it. ‘Understand? You need to concentrate on getting better first. Then we’ll worry about what’s going to happen with school. ’ ‘Fine,’ I said, glancing from her face to Dad’s, looking for some clue – any clue – as to what was really going on. Why were they treating me like I was in the first grade? Concentrate on getting better? Who did they think they were kidding? Why wasn’t anyone levelling with me? ‘But . . . I’ve really been in here a month? Can I at least call Christopher and find out what’s happening in school? He must be wondering how I am. I’m his only friend, you know . . . ’ But no one exactly rushed to get me a phone. Instead everyone said I needed to rest, that Christopher was fine and that they’d get me my laptop (my other request) soon. And Dr Holcombe did call a nurse over to unplug some of my more intrusive and bothersome wires (not all of them, it turned out, were attached to a sticker. Some of them were attached to needles that went UNDER my skin. It was quite a relief to get rid of those, in addition to the ones that pinged so noisily every time I moved). So by the time Frida got back with my ice cream and cookie, everyone was treating me less like a hospital patient and a little more like a normal person. ‘Here,’ Frida said, putting the ice cream – which she’d slathered with hot fudge, whipped cream and nuts – on the bed tray one of the nurses had set up in front of me. Next to the ice cream lay an enormous chocolate-chip cookie – the kind I used to eat four or five of a day, if I had the money for them. Now the thought of putting any of that sugary stuff into my mouth actually made me feel a little sick. Which was weird, because normally dessert is my favourite meal of the day. Still, everyone – Mom and Dad, Frida, Dr Holcombe, three nurses who had wandered into my room and the orderly who had been in my hallucination (because it had definitely been a hallucination. No way had Lulu Collins been in my room . . . with Nikki Howard’s dog, no less) – seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for me to take a taste of the sundae Frida had brought me. So I did the only thing I could. I lifted the spoon and dipped it into the bowl. Then I brought it – carefully, remembering what had happened with the water – to my lips and took a big bite. ‘Mmmm,’ I said. Everyone in the room exhaled at the same time. And smiled. And laughed. The orderly high-fived one of the nurses. While I took a really fast gulp of water. Because all that sugar? It tasted totally gross to me. What was happening to me? Since when did I hate ice cream? What had this doctor done to me? Fortunately no one noticed. Everyone chattered away about how great it was that I was making so much progress so soon. Which was flattering and all, but might have meant more to me if I’d known exactly what I was making progress from. I mean, what was I supposed to be recovering from? What had happened to me? Which part of me was hurt? And what exactly was this ‘procedure’ they’d used on me? Dr Holcombe had been right about one thing: I was beginning to notice that some things were different than they’d been before the accident. And not just my not liking ice cream any more. That was the least of it. The weirdest thing so far was how the people in my own family acted around me . . . as if they didn’t know me. Almost as if – and I know it sounded crazy – but almost as if I was someone else.