I had just gotten out of the office, halfway through lunch period. They let me out early, since this time, it genuinely wasn’t my fault I got sent to the office. Arguably. I mean, sure, I was technically part of the fight, but I was trying to break it up and even got punched in the face for my efforts! That deserved a reward, not a couple days of detention, but I knew better than to argue with the vice principal.
Alex called just after lunch, and when I was done yelling at him for getting me in deep shit for the second time that day—when I actually started to listen to him—I realized how worried he sounded.
“What’s wrong?”
“You mean you’re actually gonna let me speak now?”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“You need to get over to Humber Hospital.”
“Why? What’s going on? Has something happened to Holly?”
“Y-yeah…” He gulped and sniffled, and I swear my heart stopped. “She’s hurt. She’ll be okay, but…” He coughed and then sniffled again. I’d never heard him cry before. Alex was a stereotypical dude. No emotion, just straight and to the point.
“What happened?”
“Something…something exploded.”
“What d’you mean, something exploded?!”
“I don’t even know, but I was on the phone with her. You know that ravine near your place?”
“With the hydro lines?”
“Yeah. Anyway, she’d finally gotten to the top of the hill, and then we were talking while she was catching her breath—she’s always so freaking stubborn. This isn’t the first time she hasn’t listened to me when I told her—”
“Alex.”
“Right. Sorry.” Sniffle. “Uhm…” Sniffle. “She was catching her breath, and I was laughing at her and making jokes about having to call the police to find her body because she’d tripped and fallen down that horrible slope—”
“Oh, please!” I said, completely forgetting the seriousness of the conversation. “I’ve fallen down that ravine. She’ll be all right if that’s all she’s done. It’s really not that steep.”
“Well, they found her about halfway down, so I guess you’re right! Congratulations, Jesse. You win the ‘jerk little brother’ award.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s…”
Sniffle. Again.
I was not used to this, and his crying was starting to wear at me. “No, it’s not your fault. Didn’t mean to jump down your throat for that.”
“We have different ways of dealing with stress, I guess.” I’d always joked around about things, and it had always creeped others out a bit. I was the first one making jokes about my parents’ deaths, even if I had been crying at the same time. It was just how I made sense of the situation, y’know? If I ever came across a situation I couldn’t joke about, I didn’t know what I’d do.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Do you know anything else? What happened when you were making fun of her?”
“All I heard was something exploding nearby, and then a thump like she’d dropped her phone, and the line disconnected.”
“Whoa!”
“Yeah. I called nine-one-one and went over there myself. I got there as they were putting her in the ambulance. Her face is all covered in scratches, and—”
“Listen, I’m about to be told off for talking on my cell in school, so could you pick me up before you head to the hospital?” I nodded to the teacher who was giving me a stern look from her doorway and held up a finger for her to just give me a moment.
“Yeah. I’m there already, but it’s not too far. I’ll come get you. Front door?”
“That works for me. Be there in a few minutes, need to sign out first.”
Click.
I walked back into class and packed up my stuff, shaking my head when asked by a couple of my classmates what was wrong. I muttered, “Family emergency,” which seemed to be enough to stem the tide of questions, though Brent still gave me a worried look. I held up my cell phone, indicating I’d text him as soon as I knew anything.
I walked down the hallway, then sat down against my locker and chewed on my lip until I tasted blood. I was used to taking care of Holly, but having her in the hospital was a whole new level. It took me a while to shake off the feeling and remember Alex was on his way—he was probably already waiting outside. Breathing deeply, I got up and spun the lock but then realized I had everything I needed to grab for the evening.
I turned on my heel, walking towards the front office. The principal dodged out of the way of the door as I pushed it open.
Oops.
Apologizing—and cursing to myself—I stepped back to let her through. She shook her head at me and continued through the door.
The receptionist, a short woman who had to stretch to peer over the counter, raised an eyebrow and gave me a half-smile as I whirled to a stop in front of her. I think that was the most expressive I’d ever seen her.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah—um, I need to sign out.”
“Does your teacher know you’re here? I mean, I assume you were in class for the first—” she looked at the clock behind her “—twenty-three minutes?”
“Yeah. It’s Mr. Davies. He knows I’m here.”
“Mmmmkay, then.” She drew out the mmm and gave me a weird look. “So I can ask him?”
What the— Seriously? Just let me sign out!
“Fine, but I need to sign out a couple minutes ago at this point. My sister’s boyfriend is waiting for me.”
“We need a legal guardian’s permission to sign you out, young man.”
“My sister is my legal guardian, and she’s lying in a hospital bed, which is where I’m going. Right now.” I was trying not to yell at the woman, but I couldn’t help it.
“It’s school procedure.”
Screw procedure! I grabbed a blank sheet of paper sitting on the counter, scrawled my name and student number across it and left before she found another reason to hold me up.
Alex was idling right outside. I opened his car door and got in without a word. He left the silence unbroken as he drove.
#
In the overpoweringly white room, I looked at the mostly still form of my older sister. Other than her groaning once, the silence was stifling. She was still unconscious, barely moving at all except for the steady rise and fall of her chest beneath the sheet.
“Well, I guess that wasn’t her waking up,” Alex said and came over to put a friendly hand on my shoulder.
I bit my lip, and he squeezed my shoulder.
“Stop that. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
I looked up at him, consciously trying not to chew my lip to shreds. Again.
“I… Well, crap.”
“She—” he began and then clamped his mouth shut.
“She what?”
“They didn’t tell me everything.”
I focused on my martial arts training for a moment, using it to calm myself so I didn’t stress Alex out any more than having an unconscious girlfriend would already have done.
“So then tell me what you do know.”
“They wanted to wait until you got here, but I think…I think something might have happened in the ambulance.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
I turned around as a tall man dressed in a lab coat came through the door.
“I’m Doctor Yeung, your sister’s attending physician.” He reached out a hand, and I gripped it firmly, pumping it once before letting go.
“Great to meet you, I guess. What happened with my sister?”
“First, I want to reassure you that there’s every possibility Holly is perfectly fine. She’s just unconscious right now.”
“So theoretically, if I were to, say—” I reached over and lightly smacked her leg. She groaned and wriggled a bit. “She’s basically asleep, then?”
“Yes. In fact, I’d be willing to say that she’d exhibit exactly that reaction,” he said dryly, as if there was nothing wrong.
“I’m amazed, Doctor!” Really? Humour? This is coming from me, the king of laughing at bad situations, but…really?
“Your sister is…a bit of a medical miracle, shall we say?”
I blinked. “Miracle” was not exactly the first word that came to mind when I thought of her. “How do you mean?”
“She survived a very, very intense electrocution.”
“Is that what happened?” I looked over at Alex, who had sat on the edge of Holly’s bed. He was holding his jaw tight to keep from crying. “I guess she’s lucky she didn’t die, then.”
“Well, technically, she did die. We think she suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of the electrical overload—”
I held up a finger for him to pause, and when I spoke, it came out as all but a scream. “Wait, you’re saying Holly had a heart attack and then died?”
“Sir, I promise you—”
“No, you’re not going to sugar-coat this for me. My sister just died, and—”
“Jesse!” Alex stood and grabbed my shoulder again, clamping down. I took the hint and breathed deeply, calming myself.
“I’m sorry, Doctor. She’s alive now. That’s what matters.” Inside, I was raging at the doctor for brushing it off so easily, but yelling at him wasn’t going to change what had happened to Holly.
“Your sister had been unconscious for less than a minute when the paramedics arrived. Ironically, the cardiac arrest saved her life because she was still able to be revived. That’s why I mentioned that she was as good as a medical miracle.”
“Jesus Christ,” Alex muttered, staring at Holly.
Breaking news: heart attacks save lives!
“She should, hopefully, be waking up within the next couple of hours—ah!” He motioned with his arm. “I might be overestimating…”
I looked over at my sister, lying on the bed and tossing and turning as if she was waking up. “Holly? Holly?!”