4

The hospital is in chaos. I know I should leave, come back another time, but I have to know, and I’m already here. News vans surround the entrance to the huge building, and I can feel the eyes of the city on me as I pass in behind the jabbering reporters and in front of the cameras.

I can see from a distance that both the emergency room and the main entrance are choked with frantic family and friends of the accident victims. I go through a lesser-used side entrance. For some reason I expect to be stopped. I feel like I’m doing something wrong. No one gives me a second look as I get on the elevator and start for the burn unit.

When the door opens, the smell hits me and knocks my knees weak. A smell is not a memory you can imagine, especially not the smell of burned human flesh and the chemicals used to treat it. I step out of the elevator into the chaos and I know instantly that it wasn’t a dream.

This lobby was the end goal of a hundred walks down the hallway to build my strength. Now it’s filled with dozens of distraught family members, some weeping, some stoic, some totally out of it, but all worried and confused.

I step forward, heading for the desk though I have no idea what I will say. But the smell…The rooms have positive pressure, to keep bacteria from wafting in. Air always goes out, never in, carrying the smell of the occupants with it. It grows stronger. It stuffs my sinuses full. I feel like I can taste it.

The acidic coffee begins to roil in my stomach. I fight it down, swallowing over and over, a trick I use to keep from puking when a shot goes down wrong. It’s not working. My mouth fills with saliva, and I know what’s coming next. Spotting a trash can, I charge for it, knocking past people I can barely see.

It comes up easy since I haven’t eaten anything yet today, but I gasp down air as I get control of my wretching and the smell of burnt people fills me again and my guts heave, trying to eject something I will never, ever be rid of.

A hand begins to rub my back. “It’s okay. Calm down. Just breathe.”

That voice. I turn to look, my eyes filled with tears and thick ropes of bile hanging from my lips. Wiping my eyes, I see that it’s really Jake, the nurse who watched over me hour after hour, talking when I couldn’t talk back, changing my dressings, keeping me clean and as comfortable as possible and never showing a hint of disgust or frustration.

“Nurse Jake,” I say, wiping my mouth on the sleeve of a very expensive suit coat. “It’s me, Cody.”

“Cody? Do I know you?” He pulls back a little to get a better look at me.

“Yes, I was here.” I was here. I was. I remember every detail. I remember the desk, the vending machines, the couches in the waiting room, even the one cable hanging from the television that had been zip-tied to the others with a bunch of slack in it so that it looped out and bugged the hell out of me.

Nurse Jake seems accustomed to dealing with confused family members, because instead of trying to figure out how or if he knows me, he tries to help me instead. “Do you know someone who was in the accident? Let’s get you to the desk.”

“Is Dr. Grossman here?”

“Yes, but he’s extremely busy,” he says as he guides me to the nurse at the desk. “Now who are you here to see, Cody?”

I followed him because of his voice and his gentle touch, but I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know how to explain what I need. I don’t know what I need.

The nurse behind the desk is ready to type a name into the computer, but I have nothing to say. Then I recognize her. “Nurse Colleen?”

She smiles at me, confused but still ready to help. She was all business, never putting up with any whining or dawdling from a patient when something needed to be done. It’s not that she wasn’t sympathetic, but she realized that many of us weren’t in the proper mindset to be reasoned with.

She smiles, though she wonders how I know her, and says, “Yes. Who are you here to see?”

It comes crushing in on me. The other set of memories, the ones where I burned, they’re real, they’re definitely real, but they’re not real here and now.

My head spins. The smell, the eyes on me, the wailing friends and family, the crush of desperate people closing in behind me…I can’t take it. I turn and press through the crowd that’s gathered behind me, the people who’ve only just arrived to try to discover the fate of their loved ones. I see my parents there, trying to keep on brave faces as they wonder if I’ll live, trying to keep on positive faces when I emerge angry and hateful and not at all like the son they’d known.

I see Madison. Though I’d never seen her by my hospital bed, I see her there, trying to stay unreadable, to hide how her guilt is killing her. I wonder about the man who’d thrown his door open and stepped in front of the chemical truck. What would he give to take that one tiny mistake back?

I press the button for the elevator again. Jake is standing behind me, asking if I’m okay. I don’t know how to answer.

The elevator isn’t coming. I go around the corner and down the stairs.