You & Me at the End of the World

by Brianna Bourne

  “Excellent. Family?”

  “In the waiting room. Mom and sister, I think. Been here all night.”

  “He’s a minor, right? Bring Mom in.”

  The woman—a nurse?—nods briskly and leaves.

  “It’s great to have you awake, Leo,” the doctor says, smiling warmly. “I’m Dr. Olatunji. I’m one of the neurologists here.”

  I stare at him. I can’t process his words, because my head is thumping out a steady backbeat of where’s Hannah, where’s Hannah, where’s Hannah?

  I don’t understand.

  We were alone.

  We were dead.

  And now here I am with some doctor in some hospital and it’s not making any sense and I’m about to freak the FUCK OUT.

  The ICU is obviously full of people, because now that I’m listening for it I can hear beeps and sniffles and low conversations. I open my mouth to ask him how everyone got back, why it was just me and Hannah alone, why Houston was empty, but the questions die on my tongue. They feel like the wrong thing to ask. Like they are absurd.

  So instead I ask the only question that actually matters. “Where’s Hannah?”

  The doctor’s expression doesn’t change. “She’s here too, and we’re taking good care of her.”

  Okay. Okay, she’s here. That calms the panicky ache in my stomach. So, what … we’ve been rescued? Was it really an evacuation after all? I don’t understand. None of this is making any sense.

  “Why are we in the hospital?” I ask.

  “You and Hannah were in a car accident last night, and you lost consciousness on impact. You’ve been in a coma for the last eighteen hours.”

  A car accident? But I wasn’t driving. I was sitting on a stage with Hannah. Like five minutes ago.

  Wait, did he say coma?

  “I’m— I don’t—” I shake my head. “This isn’t making any sense.”

  “Don’t worry, confusion is completely normal,” the doctor assures me. “And it’s okay if you don’t remember the accident; we call that post-traumatic amnesia. Aside from the head injury, there’s some bruising on your ribs but no broken bones. And most importantly, there’s no sign of cerebral hemorrhaging, but we’ll keep a close eye on you in case of complications.”

  I’m trying to chew all that information down when there’s a flurry of sound behind the curtains surrounding my bed. My mom bursts into view, frazzled and wide-eyed.

  “Leo!” she cries.

  She looks … different. Usually my mom wears billowy thrift-store dresses and no makeup, and she keeps her salt-and-pepper hair wavy and waist-length like a hippie. All that’s the same, but she seems unraveled. It’s in the dullness of her eyes where usually there’s a spark of humor and the serious line of her mouth where it’s usually curved in a smirk. Seeing her like this throws me off almost as much as the words car accident did.

  She comes straight to my side and presses her hand to my cheek. I can’t help it—my body flinches at the uncharacteristic display of emotion.

  She casts a worried look at the doctor. “Is he okay? Oh hell, he can’t talk, can he? You said he might not be—”

  “I can talk, Mom,” I croak.

  Her eyes well up. If I wasn’t already in total shock, her very un-Mom-like reaction to all this would be sending me over the edge.

  Dr. Olatunji smiles serenely from the other side of my bed. “If you’re feeling up for it, Leo, we need to do some checks. We’ll take a look at your eyes first.” That’s all the warning I get before he pulls my eyelid open and shines a light directly into it. My pupils constrict and my eyes almost roll back in my head. I swallow down a yelp.

  He tests my reflexes, my strength, my coordination. He asks me question after question: No, I don’t feel nauseous. No, I’m not dizzy anymore. No, my ribs don’t hurt much. He’s impressed that I know my name and the year. I want to cut in and tell him, No, I’m confused, I am so, SO fucking confused, but everything is happening so fast and I can’t keep up. He has me get out of the bed and walk around the room, trailing an IV stand on wheels. I’m a little fragile and unsteady, but it’s not any worse than the morning after a hard night out on the town. He spews information at Mom while I sit stupefied in my bed, totally fucking bewildered.

  I can’t latch on to any of the millions of questions I should be asking. I get the weirdest feeling that whole hours are rushing past, but it’s like I’m standing frozen while everything happens around me.

  “Well, Leo, I think we can safely call you a bit of a medical mystery,” Dr. Olatunji says at last, his voice rich with what might almost be a chuckle.

  Mom frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “Leo isn’t showing any typical signs of concussion—you almost wouldn’t know he’d been unconscious for eighteen hours. Then again, we were a little surprised that he was out so long in the first place, given the mildness of the head injury.”

  “So he’s going to be okay?” my mom asks.

  “We’ll keep an eye on him, but I think he’ll be just fine.”

  Mom slumps with relief. She looks so tired. This is definitely not the blithe, carefree Darlene Sterling I know.

  A nurse leans in through the curtains. “Dr. Olatunji, we’ve got a trauma patient with a collapsed lung in the ER who needs a bed. When do you think we can move Leo up to Neuro?”

  “I don’t see why he can’t go up now. Get the transfer started.”

  There’s a flurry of activity. I sit there blinking as nurses swarm in, unplugging machines, making calls on the phone on the wall, piling folders and all sorts of other shit on the foot of my bed.

  “Leo, I’ll keep you on IV fluids and a mild painkiller for the bruising on your ribs,” Dr. Olatunji booms over the noise, pointing at the sloshy bag that’s been laid in my lap. I try not to think about how one end of the tube is stuck right into the back of my hand. Gross. “We’ll do another round of scans in the morning,” he continues, “to keep an eye out for any hemorrhaging. Mom, you’ll be talking to the neurologists upstairs about what to look out for, in case symptoms start to appear. Sometimes head injuries can take longer to make themselves known, and the consequences can be serious and even fatal. Leo, it’s important that you tell us about any dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, or headaches. Okay?”

  I nod.

  I’m about to ask about Hannah again, but a man in a different color of scrubs comes in and kicks the brakes on my bed, and suddenly I’m being wheeled through the ICU. We pass bed after bed, but I don’t see Hannah in any of them.

  Then I’m being pushed through two sets of big white doors and into an elevator. Mom bustles in just before the door closes, her long, gauzy dress brushing the floor. Her earthy patchouli smell fills up the elevator. I surprise even myself when I reach for her hand.

  Upstairs, there’s more chaos as my new nurses get me settled into my room. I get introduced to a whole stream of people, but the names go right over my head. It’s just a blur of candy-colored scrubs. I keep trying to blink away the haze of disorientation, but no one gives me a chance to speak.

  Every now and then, when there’s a second between conversations, I feel something clenching in my chest. An awful, sick feeling of dread.

  Accident. Coma. Eighteen hours lost.

  Hannah, Hannah, Hannah.

  Mom flags down a nurse. “Can my daughter come up now? She’s been in the ICU waiting room all night.”

  The nurse agrees, and then it’s only a minute before my big sister is swaggering into the room in her signature leather jacket and bedhead topknot.

  “Hi, Gem,” I croak.

  “Good to see you awake, kiddo,” she says, ruffling my hair a little more carefully than she usually does. There’s a patch of gauze over the bump on my forehead, but it doesn’t really hurt.

  “Look who else is here,” she says, stepping aside to reveal my brother—and Asher.

  Joe comes over first, leaning down to give me an awkward side hug. For a split second, he looks like the ki
d he used to be. Just the little brother who idolized me, who followed me and Asher around the neighborhood on his scuffed-up Goodwill scooter. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything but an angry fourteen-year-old boy.

  And then Asher lumbers over, and I’m smiling my first genuine smile since I woke up. He must have run here, because there’s a mottled blush under his freckles—Hannah’s just got a sprinkling, but Asher has the kind of freckles that you only usually see on true redheads. You can tell when he’s had PE or been embarrassed or emotional because his cheeks go so pink.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner, man,” he says. “I only found out after Gem posted about it.”

  I don’t get a chance to ask about that—she posted it on social before calling my best friend?—because another nurse comes in. I let Mom and Gem handle all the medical stuff, and time starts streaming past me again, not touching me.

  Finally there’s a moment where the room is nurse-free. The sky outside the windows is dark. I didn’t even notice night falling.

  I’ve had an intense afternoon, but now I can finally ask some of the questions that have been popcorning around in my head.

  “Okay. Tell me what happened, guys.”

  For a second, no one says anything. The silence gets kind of tight, sending a lick of warning through me.

  “Oh, we can talk about all of that later,” Mom recovers, waving her wrist dismissively. She plops into a chair and pulls her huge, saggy purse onto her lap, digging through it until she holds up a stick of gum in a battered wrapper. She beams in triumph. This is the mom I know.

  Gemini smooths the blanket over my feet. “Just relax, Leo, and work on getting better so you can get out of here.”

  “Don’t you think I should know what happened?” I ask.

  “All you need to know right now is that you’re going to be okay,” Gem says, infuriatingly calm. She pops to her feet. “Anyone want anything from the vending machine?”

  I’m starting to get annoyed. “What about Hannah? Is she okay?” I demand.

  Asher’s slouching against the wall by the window, eyes flicking back and forth like it’s a tennis match. He clears his throat, and in a very un-Asher-like moment of courage, he speaks up. “Uh, Gem, can’t we just tell him—”

  “Ash, babe, my mom’s been awake for like two days straight and—”

  “Well, I did have that twenty-minute nap on the floor in the waiting room,” Mom supplies from her chair, smacking on her gum.

  Gem rolls her eyes. “Leo’s only been up for four hours. We can tell him all about it in the morning.”

  Asher shrinks, even though he’s at least a foot taller than everyone in the room. He’s always been a little afraid of my sister.

  I know what she’s doing. Classic Sterling avoidance tactics. Normally I’d be on board with this plan. I’ve had a rough afternoon and all I should want is to sleep, but instead a very un-Leo amount of pissed-off-ness is rising in me.

  I’m about to unleash on Gemini when a nurse sails in with a fresh IV bag.

  “Oh, for shit’s sake,” I mutter under my breath.

  The nurse takes one look at all of us—my mom slumped in the chair, Gem with her hands on her hips, Joe and Asher cowering in the corners—and claps her hands briskly.

  “Okay, family. I think your boy here needs some rest.”

  No, what I need are some fucking answers. I need to find out if this really is just Sterling FeelGood tactics or if there’s something my family isn’t telling me.

  “I’m going to be bossy and send you all home to sleep,” the nurse says.

  “I’ve only been here since lunch,” Asher protests.

  The nurse fixes him with a firm stare. “Nope, everyone out, please.”

  My family shuffles past my bed in turns, giving me hugs and murmuring how happy they are I’m okay. I grumble my good nights. Why couldn’t they just answer my questions? Fucking Sterling FeelGoods.

  When it’s Asher’s turn, he hands me a page torn from his sketchbook. It’s his usual style, simple lines of thick marker, but this time the quirky little monster he uses for me has Xs for eyes and is lying in a hospital bed. I swallow hard.

  “Thought I was gonna have to find a new ride-or-die,” he says, his voice rumbling as low as his bass guitar.

  My throat swells up, but years of instinct have me changing the subject before I can even think. I feel a spike of guilt for it, but I can’t deal with this right now.

  “Go on, get outta here,” I say. “No need to spend your Saturday night being bored in here with me.”

  “It’s Sunday, but yeah. Lissa’s having that party tonight, but I don’t really feel up to going.”

  I scrub a hand over my face. That’s right. It’s Sunday. Tomorrow’s a staff development day at school, so Lissa Montgomery is having a party. Lissa is Asher’s ex-girlfriend, but they somehow came out of it friends. Mystifying, but that’s the kind of guy Asher is.

  “You should go, Asher. Have some fun.”

  He nods and gives me a hug, and then they’re all gone.

  The hallway outside goes quiet as the hospital winds down for the night. For the first time since I woke up, I’m alone.

  The last few hours have been as flicker-fast and tipsy as a sketchy carnival ride. I’m so tired I might pass out, but I need to think.

  I stare at the ceiling for a few minutes, sorting through my head. I’m still no closer to understanding what the fuck is going on. Where was everyone? Nobody’s said a word about hurricane evacuations or floods or being gone. Everyone’s acting completely normal. Which has to mean—

  No.

  No fucking way.

  It was real. It had to have been real. They know what I’m talking about when I ask for Hannah.

  Wait. I can prove it was real. I have that cut on my ribs—the one I got when I jumped off the swing carousel.

  I pull my hospital gown up and press shaky fingers to my skin, searching. It wasn’t deep, but it would have left a mark. The gory green bruise from the accident swathes my whole left side, but where the cut was …

  There’s nothing but smooth skin.

  No scab, no scar.

  Everything goes still.

  No.

  I have to find Hannah. She’ll know. She’ll help me confront everyone about where they all went, why they’re pretending nothing happened, like they didn’t just leave us. We’ll tell them.

  Because it wasn’t just a dream.

  It cannot have just been a dream.

  Hannah’s bay in the ICU is exactly like the one I woke up in.

  After slipping through the curtains, I hold my breath and stay very still, listening to make sure no one saw me. My blood is pounding—I had to sneak out past the nurses station on my floor, then charm my way in here on the pretense of thanking the team who took care of me last night. On my way “out,” I sidled into Hannah’s bay instead of exiting through the double doors.

  When I’m sure I’m safe, I turn. Everything is gray with shadows, and there are so many machines. A thousand blinking lights. Hannah is a long, sleeping lump under the bedding, surrounded by the electronic hum of the hospital.

  I hurry to the side of the bed.

  When I see her face, I clap a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing with joy. It’s nearly impossible to keep all this bright, sudden happiness in.

  She looks just like she did when we were last together. The smattering of freckles across the bridge of her little fox nose, the gorgeous neck, her hair loose and fanned out around her face.

  She’s here. She’s real. The relief almost knocks me over.

  I can’t wait till she wakes up and sees me. She’s going to flip out.

  Her left hand is resting on the mattress outside of the covers. I twine her elegant ballerina fingers between mine.

  “Hannah? Wake up,” I say, keeping my voice low. If the nurses hear me, I’ll get in a shit ton of trouble.

  The ICU is humming with soft nighttime noises
. As I was surreptitiously scanning for Hannah’s bed, I saw patients with tubes taped into their mouths, patients wearing oxygen masks, patients hooked up to all kinds of machines. There’s something familiar about the breathy patterns of the breathing machines, the bursts of compressed air separated by quieter moments of stillness. It sounds like the echo of a dream.

  It’s freezing in here, and Hannah’s fingers are so cold. She’s only got one thin blanket on; they really should crank up the heat. I press her hand between mine to warm it up.

  “Hannah? I can’t stay long,” I whisper, more urgently this time, but she still doesn’t stir.

  And then her hand slides out of my grasp and flops limply onto the bed, and that’s when it clicks.

  Oh. She’s not asleep—

  She’s unconscious.

  It sends a twang of pure, liquefied fear right through me. My knees give out, and I crumple onto the chair by her bed.

  I’m an idiot. She’s hurt. Of course she’s hurt. She’s smashed and battered in places I can’t see.

  I don’t understand. Last time I saw her, we were sitting on the stage she made for me, grinning at each other like idiots. This can’t be happening. I can’t have made that all up or dreamed it. It felt so real.

  I drop my head to the mattress, pressing my cheek to her arm, heartsick and gulping for air.

  Hannah’s skin smells like the hospital, like rubber and blood and alcohol, but underneath there’s the tiniest hint of almost-ripe pear. Like how she smelled in the empty city.

  I wouldn’t know how she smelled if I made it all up, right?

  Or did I just get a tiny glimpse of her on Saturday before the accident? Did I see her face and smell fresh pear and create a whole dream-Hannah from just a snapshot of her?

  No. I know it’s real. Every memory I have of her, every moment I spent with her is a living, Technicolor burst. They feel just the same as any other memory. They’re not even far-off and muted, like memories of my kindergarten classroom or the time I had my birthday party at a water park.

  I think about the way our hands touched when Hannah handed me mugs of tea, the constellation of freckles on her arm, how she held me when I fell apart in her lap. How can I have all those memories if I don’t even remember the car accident, or why we were even in a car together on Saturday night in the first place?