by Vivien Reis
"How. Much. Of a chance?"
"There's no way to know for sure, some people miraculously pull through and wake up functioning. Some wake up but have to be cared for the rest of their lives. Others never wake up."
A miracle. There, he said it. It was impossible. Not because miracles didn't happen, but because apparently they didn't happen to the Coles. Ben's entire life had been one wrong thing happening after the next. They had been barely hanging on before and look where their efforts had gotten them.
He glanced up at the doctor again, but the world looked different to him now. Everything in his peripheral distorted and stretched sideways or up and down. His head ached behind straining eyes.
What's happening to me?
Ben rubbed at his eyes and opened them again. The same. He looked down at his hand and his fingertips bulged, his wrist impossibly skinny like he was melting away.
Gran said something, but it disappeared in the thick space between them. His brain wouldn't work, couldn't work.
Had his mom progressed like this? Was her mental curse passing on to him?
A crashing noise, and then the world brightened again, intensifying the throbbing in his temples. Abi rushed out the door, her dark hair floating in tendrils above her as she left.
Ben squeezed his head.
"Abi!" Gran yelled after Abi, but didn't move to chase after her.
"I'll leave you two alone in a moment, but first I wanted to inform you of some things you need to consider. Should I continue?" The doctor motioned to the door Abi had disappeared through.
Ben looked back at his father and tried to shut out the doctor's words. He rubbed at his temple and imagined his dad waking up from all this. The steady beeping and dull whish of air passing in and out of his lungs wasn't comforting. It was a death sentence.
"But none of his injuries were to the head. How is this possible?" Gran's arms were crossed but her chin quivered.
The doctor's voice dropped to just above a whisper. "Oxygen deprivation caused the damage sustained to the brain. He was only gone for about thirty seconds, but sometimes that's all it takes."
"I've heard of people being gone for minutes." Her voice broke. The statue was cracking.
"I'm sorry. You'll need to consider your options for long-term care. This kind of thing can be very expensive depending on the insurance your son has."
"I want a second opinion."
"And you have every right to do that, but I just want you—"
"I'm getting a second opinion. Thank you for your time."
The door closed and the soft click was like gunfire in Ben's ears.
Abi didn't remember going outside. She was standing by the hospital building, breathing, panting. A steady stream of tears left a hot trail down her cheeks. A heavy mist in the cold air clung to her face.
She wanted to scream, to yell, and it made her afraid to even breathe too fast. If she did, she might shatter. Crumble to a million pieces.
That's what it felt like. Like her insides had frozen over and were breaking piece by piece.
Or was it burning?
She collapsed onto a bench and dug her elbows into her legs, hard.
This day isn't real. This week isn't real.
If she could wake herself up, maybe this would all end. She would be in her warm bed, with the smell of pancakes wafting up the stairs and into her room. Her father's laughter would echo up to her and she would be free of this.
She wrapped her hands around the front lip of the bench until the sharp edges dug into her palms. She tightened her grip, shaking from the effort.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
"Abi?"
Mr. Flynn sat next to her, breaking her concentration.
"You're bleeding. Here." He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket.
She stared at it. Who carried handkerchiefs anymore?
He pressed it against one hand first. Then the other. The pain gave her something to focus on, something to burn through all the other emotions surging inside.
"I stopped by to pay your dad a visit."
When she moved to speak, she realized she had been clenching her jaw shut. It ached from the movement.
"Better do it quickly, before we pull—" The words caught in her throat and a sob came out instead.
Pull the plug. Angry tears blurred her vision and spilled down her cheeks. What was wrong with her? She wanted to hit something. To hit herself. Why would she say something like that?
She hiccupped a breath and then more tears came, hot in the cold air, her eyes heavy and swollen.
"Hey, hey, hey." Mr. Flynn pulled her close to him. "Shhh."
She gripped a handful of his shirt, her nails biting into the cut already on her hand.
This was real. Her dad was really gone. He was already dead, machines breathing for him, tubes feeding his body.
"I know, I know." He held her, his embrace catching all the tears she shed.
Her mouth moved again and again between the sobs and then she heard the words. "He's gone. He's gone. He's gone!"
The cries died down, her lungs spasming for air. She watched the trees overhead, the last of their dry winter leaves rustling in the wind.
Someone had ripped her father away from her. Someone was responsible for this.
Someone would pay for it.
# TEN
Ben tossed and turned, left and right and left again. The bed creaked with every move. His skull was rupturing from the inside, and his mouth was dry. Every swallow squeezed at his throat, and he fought the urge to gag.
It was still dark outside. Shouldn't it be morning already?
Gran had talked to Ben and Abi about each seeing a psychiatrist. She had laid a business card on the table, and Ben wondered where she had gotten it. Had one of Dad's doctors given it to her? Had she gone out herself to find them one?
It hadn't mattered. He didn't need a psychiatrist. He needed a real doctor, someone who could do something about his headaches.
And maybe bring his dad back to him. Wishful thinking.
He turned again. Moving made his head pound but so did lying still. He tried to breathe slower, shallower, faster, to listen to music, but nothing helped. His stomach twisted in knots and he inhaled deeply through his nose to kill the rising gag.
He needed pain medicine. Where did Gran keep it? The bathroom? Kitchen?
Should he wake her? No. She would be upset, and he didn't want her to worry. Hot sweat beaded in every pore, chilling his skin while his insides scorched.
The same thoughts about the medicine ran through Ben's mind on a loop he couldn't stop. Over and over.
Toss.
Turn.
Toss.
Turn.
Ben's eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the sun's painful rays streaked through the blinds in his room. He cringed further and further inside himself with each pounding throb of his head. Everything was gray and white and exploding colors. The world was different now because the world didn't exist. Just pain and throbbing and cold and hot and pressure from outside and in.
His limbs shook uncontrollably and when he turned over again, there was a loud crash as something shattered.
The bedroom door flung open.
"Ben?" Gran's tone was quick and sharp and it hurt.
Ben squinted at the small amount of light leaking in the door around her. He turned his head away from it, acid making its way up from his stomach.
"What's wrong?" She was at his side, hand pressing against his forehead. "Is it a headache?"
Words his mouth couldn't speak turned to a groan.
"Let's get you to the hospital."
A hospital. That meant going outside, a car ride, and so much noise.
"No. I can't." Ben closed his eyes.
The bed creaked as she got up and a dozen throbbing pounds of his head later, she was back at his side.
"You haven't taken any other medicine, right?"
An unintelligible grunt passed
through Ben's lips. Had he? He couldn't quite remember. What had he been doing the night before?
"Benjamin. I know you don't feel well, but I need to know if you took anything else."
Ben's brain scrambled to comprehend what she meant. Her voice was on replay in his mind, the last few words echoing on repeat.
"No." The voice was husky and odd in his ears, but Gran reached under him and helped him sit up.
"Take this. It'll help with the pain and it'll help you sleep. I think you're having a migraine."
Ben did as she said, acutely aware of the roiling nausea as he sipped the water.
"I'm going to make an appointment for you today. As soon as you sleep this off."
She left, and then he lay there forever, until finally his eyes grew heavy, but the throbbing never stopped.
When he awoke, it was like he had the hangover of his life. His head swam as he got up and he stumbled into the dresser before catching himself. His brain was in a perpetual fog, making it difficult to make his limbs move.
Gran already had her things together to take him to the hospital when he emerged from the bedroom.
"Your appointment is in forty-five minutes. How are you feeling?" She crossed the room, pressing her hand against his forehead again.
"I feel like my brain just went through a wood chipper. Where's Abi?" He tried to scan the room, but his head ached each time his eyes moved. It wasn't the same incessant pounding it had been earlier that morning, but he was afraid to push it.
"She's still with Cora. I don't think she's ready to come back yet." Gran’s expression was solemn.
They had found Abi sitting outside the hospital near the car yesterday. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red, but she wasn’t crying anymore. The only words she had said to them were that Cora was coming to pick her up.
"I don't blame her." What he really wanted to say was she was the lucky one. She hadn't been the one to find their dad like that.
"Come on, it's better to be early than to be late." Gran grabbed her coat and then slowly walked Ben outside to the car.
The light stung his eyes even though it was an overcast day. As Gran drove to the hospital, he had an odd sense of vertigo. It was as if his brain couldn't catch up to the movements all around him.
When they entered the waiting room, there were several other people there, coughing with damp foreheads and droopy eyes. He wondered how much he fit in with them. Gran flipped through magazines while they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
People got up and new people sat down and the old people walked out the big and rumbling double doors.
All the while, Ben imagined his father in a bed five stories up, machines breathing for him.
A heavyset nurse called them back. She gripped his arm while taking his blood pressure, leaving a white impression of her fingers on his skin when she let go.
They sat in the examination room, and the pages of Gran's magazine flipped every eight seconds.
There was a knock, and the door opened. Ben felt a little strange having his Gran in the room with him, but he knew she needed to be there to ask questions he wouldn't think to ask.
"So, what's going on?" Dr. Brandon's hands shook as he turned the faucet on and lathered soap into them. He was sweating. Probably from how busy he seemed to be.
"Ben here has been having headaches for a few days now."
Since the day my father was attacked.
"Okay." Dr. Brandon sat on a stool and wheeled closer to Ben, taking a deep breath before continuing, "Do you have any nausea with these headaches, tremors, chills, auditory or visual hallucinations?"
Ben tried to clear his mind, and the rising panic at the last part of his question. He couldn't tell anyone about his visions—he just needed medicine for the headaches and everything would be fine.
"I've been feeling nauseated and have had the tremors. No hallucinations." None that he wanted to tell the doctor about, anyway. If his hallucinations were a symptom of the migraines, though, then maybe he wasn’t on the same path as his mom.
"They're not what you would typically think of as hallucinations. They can be strange spots in your vision or hearing a certain song on repeat in your mind. This might hurt your eyes just a little bit."
The doctor stood up and clicked something resembling a pen, the opposite end illuminating. Ben braced himself and the doctor shined the light first in one eye and then the other. He checked over Ben, looking in his ears and his nose, listening to his heartbeat.
Finally, the doctor sat back down. "Well, there's nothing physically wrong with you from what I can tell, but I was expecting as much. Usually there's no outward physical cause for migraines other than some kind of stress related to the brain. Anything from dehydration to the foods you eat can cause enough stress on the brain to result in migraines."
The doctor's eyes darted to Gran and then quickly back to Ben. "I know you've been through a lot this past week, so it's understandable. My first recommendation is to prescribe you a pain medication for your migraines, and see if they progress further or eventually dissipate. I'll also prescribe a muscle relaxer—tension headaches can snowball into a migraine if left unchecked."
Gran nodded her head slightly. "What if his symptoms get worse?"
Dr. Brandon turned back to Ben. "How many migraines have you had so far?"
"Just the one this morning." The vibrations from speaking rattled around in his head. "Every day this week I've had progressively worse headaches until this morning."
"That seems quite sudden. What I can do is schedule you for a CT scan and some blood work. That might sound a little scary, but it's just to make sure there are no abnormalities that would cause this. Sometimes it’s as simple as a vitamin deficiency. More than likely it's just the stress you've undergone this week."
Brain scans. Just like his father, who was now a vegetable. Should he remind the doctor that his mom had been locked up before and that he should also set him up with a psych eval?
"What about the grogginess? I feel like my brain is working in slow motion."
The doctor nodded in understanding. "It is very common for people with extreme migraines to experience aftereffects once the pain has subsided. Migraines are an acutely stressful event on the brain, so it can take some time for you to bounce back from it, like being sore after a workout."
Dr. Brandon made several notes in his computer, the keys clacking. "I'm gonna send you back to the front desk and we'll schedule you for those scans. In the meantime, if this prescription isn't effective against your migraines, or if you have more than one a week, I want you to give me a call. Now, if the two of you just wait here a minute, I'll go get this filled for you."
He got up and left, cutting off any further questions from Gran. Ben was glad they wouldn't have to wait in line in the noisy pharmacy section of the hospital.
The doctor came back quickly and Ben examined the two bottles. The first one had small blue pills inside and the second had large white ones. He couldn't pronounce the names of either one.
"Take the blue ones once every day. You should notice a difference in twenty-four hours. That one's a mild muscle relaxer. The white ones should be taken every four hours as needed for pain."
They left the hospital but Ben couldn't calm his storming mind. "Did Mom get migraines?"
Gran was quiet, thinking. "I don't know. I didn't move back here until after her hospital stay."
She didn't say what he already knew—the risk of having schizophrenia increases if someone in your family also has it. If he had the gene, it was already too late. His mind had started crumbling around him.
There weren’t any news vans in front of their house anymore,. Somewhere along the line, Ben had gotten used to them.
When they pulled up in the driveway, Ben didn't immediately unbuckle. Gran got out and opened the front door, looking back at Ben. It occurred to him that his home was no longer the place he had grown up in. It didn't see
m natural, pulling up to this driveway that wasn't his. It wasn't his home, it was Gran's. He was an idiot for not appreciating what he had, for being mad at his dad over not...what? Congratulating Ben like he did Abi?
Stupid.
Ben got out of the car and passed Gran.
"I'm going to go lie down," he said. Gran agreed, reminding him to take his medicine. He did, feeling it scratch all the way down his throat.
His bedroom was at the end of the hall across from the bathroom. He passed Gran's room on the way, noticing the door was ajar. Something about the decorations seemed unfamiliar. The comforter? The bedframe? Abi was on the phone, lying on her back on the bed. It seemed so normal. What kind of conversation was she having? He thought Gran had said Abi would be with Cora all day, but he couldn't remember exactly.
Ben lay down on his bed. The black curtains cast the room in a gray light that reminded him of a black and white film. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine sleep tugging at his eyelids.
He dozed off briefly when a humming sound woke him. No, not humming.
Talking.
Someone was in the hallway.
He got up, his knees slow to move, and opened his door.
It was empty, nothing but family photos and floral wallpaper. He stood there a moment before the words became clear again.
"I just don't feel like it, Cora."
It was Abi. She must have had her phone on speaker in Gran's room. He went back to his bed but, instead of the conversation becoming faint, it grew louder.
Like a radio tuning to a station, the words increased in volume, grew fuzzy, then low, then loud again. Ben's ears felt like they needed to pop and he opened and closed his mouth.
"You had fun at the last party." There was a pause. "I'm not saying you'll have fun this time, but you need to get away. I want you to forget for one night what's happened to you."
Cora was trying to talk Abi into going out with her. What had she meant by last party? Had Abi snuck out before?
Ben shook his head. This wasn't a real conversation. Abi wouldn't go out and party. He walked back to Gran's room and flung the door open.