If I thought yesterday’s nurse was bad, today’s is worse. She won’t let me stay in bed in the one position I know is comfy. She gets me up in a wheelchair and takes me down the hall. My whole chest burns and I cough a handful of times, each one stretching the few stitches that line my side.
The pediatric floor is actually not a bad place to be as far as hospitals go. Bright colors, artwork everywhere—even on the ceiling, which, when you stare at it for hours on end, you start to appreciate.
But the crowning achievement is the kids’ activity room at the end of the hall. It’s either busy or empty. Cushions on the floor, tables wheelchair height, a crayon box that looks like it exploded on the walls, and crafts of every sort can be found here. We may be stuck, but like hell will we be bored.
Nurse Overlord parks me at a table and sets a dish of beads and string in front of me. There’s a call button just in case we actually need medical attention, but the look she gives me makes it clear I am to use this only in an emergency. Like, a real one.
“Can’t figure out a pattern you like?”
My head snaps up and I turn, wincing at the pain in my side. Luis rolls up to my table. He’s still wearing his signature beanie. Besides looking a bit tired and sporting a bandaged scar—he looks great. There’s still that trademark humor shining in his eyes. “Luis? I didn’t think they’d let you out and about so soon,” I say, remembering Ryan said Luis was headed into surgery yesterday.
“Fast recovery.”
“I guess that explains the million texts?” I feel bad if I missed them. My phone is still buried in my bed, barely touched. I don’t need that device or the people in it. I’ll just end up saying something I’ll regret.
“None of which you’ve replied to. We thought you might hate us now.” Luis pulls a stack of construction paper toward him and grabs a stray crayon. He lays down line after line on the paper—not actually creating anything worthy of a museum, just something to do with his hands.
“It’s better for me to be alone.” I don’t even try to stop that coming out. Normally I would keep those ideas to myself, the ones that say wouldn’t it be nice to have something that people knew and were primed for instead of me explaining what I have to every single person who asks. They all regret it. Almost instantly you can see them start to backpedal, to pull away. And then there are the things that are impossible to explain. Like how a fucked-up insurance system forces your parents to get a divorce. I spent a lot of time on the internet, searching for reasons. The main takeaway: insurance companies don’t want to cover kids like me. So you’re left with the state-run insurance, if you qualify. When you’re married, you usually don’t. So, divorce. It makes Mom a single parent of a kid with a disability, and suddenly she has access to life-saving medical care for me. And that’s how I became the reason for every decision, taking over their lives like a tumor.
“Oh really? That’s why you didn’t tell your friends back home any of this?” I glare at him. “Face it, you need people.”
“Did you get that out of a fortune cookie?”
“Shut up, I have cancer, that means I’m real deep.”
“Says who?”
“Every YA novel ever written.”
“Lay it on me, then. What am I missing?”
Luis crunches up a piece of paper and chucks it at me. “I will not tolerate that attitude.”
I plaster on a cheesy smile and wait for him to go on.
Luis seesaws the crayon on his fingers, waiting for me to get myself in order. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay. Once I’m back to some kind of working condition, he goes on as if nothing happened.
“People.”
“The majority of them suck. Next question.”
“Let them in.”
It all comes back to me, crashing in on me. Why am I like this? Why me? Why did I break up my family?
“Are they going to understand how my parents got divorced because of me? That I’m the reason my mom lost her job? How I’ve ruined her life?” I say these words to the table, finally giving breath to what’s been living inside me. Saying it out loud just pushes it down on me even more. There’s no lightness in sharing because maybe this is all my fault. Maybe I should just let Mom do what she wants because I’ve taken so much from her?
Luis lets out a long, slow whistle. “Damn, that’s a lot. I did the same thing to the first person I told that I had cancer. Unloaded like that. It’s like a smack in the face. But that’s not on you. You deserve to be happy, and the only person stopping that is you.”
His words dig under my skin, pushing between muscle and dermis, trying to make me a host. To turn me into the girl who should not ask why but just live in the unknown.
“This place takes away everything I want.”
“And what does it give in return?”
“What are you talking about?”
“First law of science. Matter cannot be created or destroyed.”
“You made that up.”
“Not possible, I’m an honor roll student.” He pushes on, not daunted by my silence. “The hospital can’t kill something. It can change something, but kill it? Nah.”
I stab my plastic string through the beads. There is no way I am going to admit he has a point. None.
“Ellie?” He says my name a few more times, and I want to respond. I should respond, but the anger in my chest chokes my words. I can’t get them out. All I can do is keep stringing beads, until finally he gives up.
He hits the call button and a nurse comes to help him leave. Before he goes, he looks at me one last time. “Maybe it’s not the hospital but your fear of it that’s doing this. That’s what makes you clam up. Keep to yourself. Why not let people in instead of holding them at arm’s length?”
I stare at him.
“A Patient Life is actually pretty great.” And the nurse takes him away.
Caitlin. An ache lodges in my chest, pushing against my heart at the thought of her and the words I said. I move to wipe invisible tears away and my side lights up again with pain. Perhaps this is just life.
Life is pain … I doubt The Princess Bride knew just how right it was. I wonder if they were thinking specifically about doctors in that moment.
No one else comes to visit me. Luis takes to his room, and only through our group chat do I know he made it out of the hospital. I read the messages but don’t respond. That lifeline too seems to have dried up. Texts went from hundreds if not thousands a day to none and I feel the loss like a missing limb.
One I didn’t know I needed until it was cut off.
When the pain gives up and I just grin and bear through the bulk of it, Dr. Darlington signs my discharge papers. Mom keeps her distance, but Dad is trying to put things right with a one-armed hug as he helps me from the car into the Home. We won’t be here that long, and I can’t wait to escape all of my missteps here.
Veronica sits behind the counter when I walk in. She smiles and gives me a shallow wave, which I don’t return. Why should I? There’s nothing permanent here. Nothing to hold on to.
I curl up in our room as Mom and Dad go through the motions of packing up and cleaning. I pull out my phone and stare at the list of text messages. Should I reach out to someone? Tell Caitlin how I really feel? That I’m sorry? She’s always been there. For a moment, I was sure she was going to be the thing I could take across that hospital line. A friendship built to last.
Look how that turned out.
Luis’s words come back to me. Maybe it’s me.…
What a hot mess I have made of my life. I drop my phone onto the ground and then roll over toward the wall. Dad covers me with the quilt from Veronica and asks if I want anything to eat.
Nothing. I want nothing. At least nothing he can give me. I want to take it all back, gobble up every word I said so they cannot fracture my world anymore.
Ping!
This time I don’t reach for my phone.
My lungs still keep me up at night, and now they bring a friend—pain! I gladly swallow the Benadryl and I’m dead to the world in less than thirty minutes.