by M. S. Willis
It was quiet as we both processed the misery, but, thankfully, Matt spoke again rather quickly. “So, tell me about your roommates. How’d ya meet ‘em. They seem like a bunch of characters. Especially Paige. Good night, that woman seems like a handful.”
I smiled. Paige was a handful. She was a master of cornering herself into nutty situations and I wasn’t sure how many times I’d had to pull her ass out of an uncomfortable fire when her stubbornness stranded her in the middle of one. “Paige. I met her through Annie, actually. Annie started at my firm after she graduated college and she was already roommates with Paige. We all went out to happy hour often and eventually when their lease was up, they moved into a bigger place and asked me to move in. Those girls would be so lost without me, so, as a favor to them, I accepted. Paige is a tough egg to crack. She was raised in an abused woman and children shelter and is a little jaded as a result. She’s clueless when it comes to love and she can be the biggest bitch you ever met when she’s upset about something, but she’s got a huge heart. You just have to get past the tough as nails exterior first.”
“What about Annie.”
“Annie is a different story altogether. She is like the polar opposite of Paige. She’s warm, and happy and she trusts WAY too easily. And, unfortunately, she has a thing for jocks. You know the type - the ones who spend more time in front of a gym mirror than with her and who only place value on the perfection of a person’s physique. In fact, she brought one home the other night that was absolutely AWFUL and our other friend Alex had to boot his ass when things got out of hand. He called me a faggot and we also found out that he’d attempted to grope Paige a few nights before that when he’d cornered her at a bar. She broke his hand for the attempt.”
Matt laughed. “Good girl. That’s what I taught my sisters to do if anybody attempted to touch them inappropriately.”
“Well, I’m not sure you’d want your sisters becoming like Paige, considering that girl has NO sense of self-preservation. Seriously, she’d take on a sumo wrestler if he said something to piss her off and she can’t weigh more than a buck twenty. But we love her anyway. If anything, it’s entertaining. She will definitely keep a person on their toes.”
Matt snickered. “I like you, David. I know we just met and all, but there’s somethin’ different about ya. I don’t know, you’re more real or some shit.”
Matt and I walked for another two hours, talking and holding hands. The moon was shining down on us and the stars twinkled in the sky. The night was perfect and I knew there was nothing that could ruin it.
Heading back to the truck, I asked, “So, would you like to come back to my place? We could watch some T.V. or hang in my room, or both?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I think I’d like that.”
Excellent. This was going to the most perfect night ever.
Chapter Six
“We’ll refer to him as ‘douchnugget’.”
Arriving home, Matt and I walked up the three flights of steps to the apartment laughing and probably being a lot louder than the neighbors appreciated. But I didn’t care. I was over the moon with the guy and I couldn’t believe my luck in having snagged him. When we approached the apartment, I noticed that the door was ajar and I stopped in my tracks at the sight of it.
“Dammit. Annie must have been in such a rush to get out of here that she left the door open when she left. It’s like I told you, when it comes to love, that girl loses her senses. Although, I like Logan. At least he is a decent guy.”
I pushed the door open and allowed Matt to walk in ahead of me. I was mentally calculating my ‘gentleman’ points for the evening and I was impressed with how well I was doing. We walked into the living room and I noticed that a lamp was knocked over on the floor. “What the fuck? I guess Annie was in more of a hurry than I realized.”
Something wasn’t adding up. Annie had her issues, but she wasn’t a complete moron. A sound occurred in the back bedrooms and my head shot up to hear it. “Didn’t Annie say she was going to meet Logan when we left?”
Matt nodded ‘yes’ in response.
I looked at my watch. “Then what the hell is she still doing here? Maybe she couldn’t decide on an outfit or something. Take a seat, I’ll just go back and check on her.”
I heard another soft shuffle come from Annie’s bedroom and I entered the hall yelling, “Annie Marks, you better get your ass over to the club if you hope to catch Logan before he leaves. I hope you called him to let him know you’re running late. He’s not like the other douchnuggets you dated!”
I pushed her door open and my jaw dropped. “Oh my god, Annie!”
The first thing I noticed was the blood. There was so much of it; on the carpets, her bed, her stuffed animals. I ran to her side where she was laid out like a rag doll across the top. A crash occurred behind me almost instantly and I turned to find Chris standing in the corner of the room. “What the fuck?!”
He jumped at me suddenly and I darted left to avoid getting hit by his fist. I wanted to run to get help, but at the same time, I didn’t want to leave Annie alone with him. I knew I could never take him on alone, considering how big he was, so I ran out into the hallway hoping to get to a phone to call for help.
“Matt! Get a phone and get the fuck out of the apartment! Now!” The last thing I needed was for Chris to get near Matt and I was burning the carpet beneath my feet trying to get to the living room.
Matt looked into the hallway and his eyes widened to see Chris hightailing it behind me. By the time I exited the hallway, Matt had attempted to jump at Chris, but Chris swung out and caught him between the eyes, knocking him unconscious almost immediately. I picked up random knick knacks around the living room and threw them in Chris’ direction attempting to stop him as I looked for my phone. As soon as I saw it, Chris upended the table where it sat and the phone went flying across the room out of reach.
There was no other option at the point but to protect Annie and Matt. Channeling all the rage I could summon, I lunged at Chris and my fist caught his face, knocking him back into the wall. I jumped on him again and continued slamming my fist into his body and jaw. I wasn’t a fighter, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. My friends were important and I wasn’t going to let this guy hurt them more than he’d already done.
He broke free of my grasp and shoved me back into a side table. The wood split apart around me before I could push up and run towards Annie’s room. Chris caught me in the hallway.
(David Note: Now, here we’re going to go into a ‘sad face’ moment and I lost consciousness pretty soon after Chris caught me. Rather than dousing this story with the unfortunate details of what Chris did to me, I want to skip ahead to the ‘happy face’ moments. I see no reason in wallowing in the intimate details of a past tragedy, so, let’s move on, shall we?)
. . .
My eyes were glued shut with sleep gunk and I had wires and tubes stuck to my body. I pulled my arm up slowly and attempted to wipe away the ungodly goo that was preventing my vision. My arm hurt badly and I couldn’t bend my elbow because of something hard wrapped around it.
“David?”
Matt’s voice. I was confused as all hell to hear it and when I tried to move my body, insane pain shot through me like lightning. I wanted to speak. I tried to speak, but my jaw hurt as well. I was one big bundle of broken and it took my brain a few minutes to register what had happened.
“David. Do me a favor and stay still. I’m goin’ out into the hall to get a nurse and I’ll be right back. Don’t move if you can help it.”
I heard Matt stand up and the sound of his boots rushing across the floor of the room. Within minutes, chaotic activity erupted in the room and my vital signs were being measured.
“David. How good to have to back with us. My name is Nurse Lacey, I’ll be taking care of you until the doctor can arrive. I don’t have much to offer you until the doctor sees you, but I need to know if you are in any pain.”
I nodded my head. Y
es. Yes I was in pain. Every single part of my body hurt and I prayed that Nurse Lacey had some magical trick up her sleeve to make it stop. I watched as her blurred shape moved around the end of my bed and she stopped when she reached the IV bags. She slipped some type of wonderful concoction from her pocket, measured out a dose in a needle and injected it into the tubing attached to my body. The pain instantly disappeared.
Holy shit that stuff was good.
“Matt.” My words were muffled by the thickness in my tongue and my inability to move my jaw, but he must have known I was calling to him.
“What do you need, David? I’m right here.”
“I need you to get the name of whatever it was she just injected into my IV. It’s awesome.”
Matt chuckled and I heard the nurse chuckling as well. “I just administered a dose of a pain killer You should be feeling better in no time.”
“Oh…I’m feeling better. That stuff is amazing. Tell the guy who invented it that I’m his new bestie.” I’m sure they could barely understand me, which just added additional comic relief to the words being said. My tongue was so damn swollen it felt like I’d spent the last few hours suckling a cactus.
Nurse Lacey chuckled again just as another person entered the room. I could barely focus on his features, but the white coat gave away the fact that he was a doctor.
“It’s good to see you awake David. We’ve been concerned for you over the past few weeks. My name is Dr. Ericson, I’ve been taking care of you while you’ve been in a coma.”
Coma? Holy shit! How long had I been out?
Thankfully, I didn’t have to ask that question because Doc Ericson appeared to be a mind reader. “You were in a coma for close to two weeks. You took quite the beating and you were unconscious when you were brought in by the ambulance. You’ve woken up a few times here and there, but this is the first time, you’ve been interacting with us. I’m sure you don’t remember the other times, you regained consciousness.”
“Annie?”
I wasn’t sure if they knew what I was asking, but, luckily, Matt appeared to understand my one worded question.
“Annie’s alive, she’s in the hospital right now as well. Paige was released a few weeks ago.”
“Paige?” I didn’t remember Paige being in the apartment when we’d arrived home. But then again, I was having problems remembering anything. Even though I was awake, I felt like I was floating in the middle of jello.
Doc Ericson interrupted my thoughts when he explained, “David, the police are going to need to speak to you about what you remember about that night. I’ll need you to let a nurse know when you are feeling up to it. Unfortunately, we’re going to need to run some tests before you’re able to eat or drink, so I’ll let the police know you’re awake, but tell them it will be a while before they will be able to interview you.”
I nodded as much as I could and Doc Ericson rattled off a bunch of directions to the nurse before leaving the room. After checking the beeping machines, Nurse Lacey also left the room.
“Paige?” It was all I could get out. My throat was getting so raw, I felt like someone had reached down there with heavy grit sand paper and gone to town scraping away.
“Paige came home shortly after we were attacked. Apparently, Chris attacked her as well, but ran off once Daemon and Logan came to the house to investigate why Annie hadn’t shown up that night.” In a quieter tone, he confessed, “They haven’t caught Chris yet, but they are lookin’.”
I reached out blindly with my hand and Matt took it with his. “I’ve been worried about you, David. I thought that you weren’t comin’ back. You had some swellin’ on the brain, but it decreased daily as you slept. The doctors said that with brain injuries, there was always a chance that you wouldn’t wake up.”
He sounded absolutely devastated and I felt terrible that I couldn’t speak or crack a joke to make him feel better. I squeezed his hand to indicate I was listening, but muttered an apology, despite the growing inferno of pain in my throat. “Sorry.”
Matt squeezed my hand in return. “You have nothing to be sorry about, David. You didn’t do anythin’, that stupid son of a bitch did.”
“Douchnugget.”
I had to say it. Chris was the poster child for the definition of the word. He was the ultimate of all douchnuggets, the King Nugget, the Nugget that shall not be named – unless you’re calling him a douchnugget.”
Matt chuckled. “Okay. We’ll refer to him as douchnugget.”
Chapter Seven
“Smend o pwastich surgen!”
Weeks passed as I recovered in the hospital. Matt sat by my side the entire time and only left when he had to work. He was my hero and a hot one at that. When it was time for me to finally face the damage, he was the poor soul who offered to hold the mirror for me to see my face.
“You ready? I’m goin’ to turn it around now so that you can take a look. It’s not bad, I don’t know why you’re freakin’ out so much. It’s bruised and still a little swollen but I’m sure that’ll go away in another few weeks.”
“Don’t!” I held up my hand to silence him. “You don’t have to lie to me, Matt. I know I look like Quasimodo and you’re just being nice. I’m shocked at how well you’re able to hold a pleasant facial expression while looking at me. I’ll count down from three and when I hit one, turn the mirror.”
Matt sighed loudly. “It’s not that bad.”
Holding up my hand again, I breathed in and said. “Three…”
I was stuck at three. Matt looked at me, I looked at Matt, but I couldn’t say ‘two’. “You know what, It’s probably better that we start at ten – NO – one hundred. One hundred is a good starting point.”
“Oh, this is stupid, just look.” With one flick of his evil wrist, the mirror was reflecting my image back to me.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!” O. M. G. I’m hideous! Seriously, how have you been looking at me for the past few weeks? I’m disfigured, I’m malformed, I’m … I’m … I’m unsymmetrical!” My voice was three octaves higher than could be heard by a human. I swear I heard dogs howling in the distance.
Picking up the microphone to call the nurse, I frantically pled, “Nurse? I have an emergency! Nurse!!!!! I need a plastic surgeon, stat!!!!”
Matt grimaced and attempted to wrestle the call button from my hand. I dropped the button and threw my hands up into his face. “Don’t look at me. I’m so ugly you might turn into stone! Run Matt! Run while you still can!”
“David! Would you stop it?! Seriously, it’s not that bad!” I would have believed him if he wasn’t saying those words through stifled laughter.
“Not that bad! Are you blind?! Have you not seen how my nose has moved a quarter centimeter to the right? How my cheekbones are sagging? How my chin is crooked?! Who have you been staring at over the last few weeks? Certainly not me if you think it’s not that bad! This is worse than bad. This is epically tragic! Homer could write a follow up novel to the Iliad and Odyssey based on the grotesqueness of my face! Heroes have died battling things as ugly as me! Seriously, do not let any children stumble into this room. They’ll be ruined for life! The boogeyman is real and he’s me!”
Matt couldn’t hold back his laughter.
“And now you’re laughing because you know it’s true! Just admit it!”
I took the increase in volume of his laughter as his agreement to what I was saying.
The nurse came running into the room acting as if someone was on fire. “What is going on in here?!”
Sniffling and tearing up as he got himself under control, Matt choked on a chortle when he explained, “Everything’s fine. David just saw his reflection for the first time since the accident. He swears he’s in need of plastic surgery.”
Her shoulders dropped in relief and she took a good hard look at me, even going so far as to twist her head back and forth the way a dog does when it’s confused. “I don’t think so, David. Really, it’s not that bad.”
“What?! Not
that…!” Matt’s hand slapped over my mouth before I could finish my diatribe on the seriousness of my ugliness.
“I’m sorry he bothered you, Nurse Lacey. I’m sure I’ll be able to get him through this without any additional problems.”
“Smend o pwastich surgen!” I tried begging for her to retrieve a competent surgeon, but my words were mushed under Matt’s palm.
Nurse Lacey cracked a smile and shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t know the woman who raised you, Matt, but she should be sainted for raising such an angel of a son. You take care of David and try to keep the call button away from him as much as possible.”
Matt acknowledged that he would and once again, we were alone in the room. “Now, David. What can we do to make this better? I’m not goin’ to have you freakin’ out on me while you’re still tryin’ to heal and I won’t let you look in another mirror until all the swellin’ has gone down. You can’t handle it.”
Tears streamed down my face and splashed in all directions due to weird shape of my deformed features. I couldn’t even cry pretty anymore – I was THAT ugly.
“Tell you what David; let’s give it some time for the swellin’ to reduce and if you still think you need plastic surgery, I’ll help you become beautiful again. I mean, I’m goin’ into cosmetology. I should know something about beauty.”
And then it hit me. Not only could I be regular good looking David again – I could be new and improved David. I could fix all the things I never liked in the first place (although, trust me, there wasn’t much.)
“Yes, Matt. That’s brilliant. We must prepare. Grab a paper and pen, you need to follow these instructions exactly in order for this to be a success.”
Reaching to the bedside table, his eyes never left mine. “Ooookkkkaaaaayyyy. What do you want to do?”