“I guess so. I’m not going to say it hasn’t happened, but not to me.” She laughed. “At least, not yet.”
When Sam swiveled back to face her, all thoughts of hooking up with someone that night—Johanna or anyone else, for that matter—had left his mind completely.
“I need to ask you for a really weird favor.”
“Okay, shoot.”
Ten minutes later, Sam left the bar through the back door, with Johanna’s arm draped around his waist.
He hung out in the alleyway for a few minutes, while the bartender grabbed a smoke and Sam fought the urge to lecture her on the statistics of lung cancer. When he got the ‘Way to Go’ text message from Brady, he thanked Johanna for her escape assist, promised to call her if he ever found himself in a less complicated romantic situation, and hailed a cab to take him to his apartment.
As the cab drove, Sam slumped down in the seat and rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep. He needed time and distance from Viola, from the entire situation. But there was one thing he did not need, and that was to get involved with someone romantically while he was battling with whatever personal issues were causing him to fantasize about a comatose girl.
Maybe he’d take a few sick days, and drive up to Syracuse for the weekend. Ben’s anniversary was coming up, and his mom shouldn’t be left alone to deal with that. Especially not with his dad gone now, too.
But when the cab pulled to a stop, and Sam opened his eyes, he was shocked to see rows upon rows of bright hospital windows staring down at him.
“Uh, sorry I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” he said through the partition.
“No mistake sir,” the cab driver said. “This is the address you gave me.”
“Son of a bitch,” Sam muttered. Then, “Sorry, not you.”
Talk about proving Brady right. When Sam had jumped in a cab and thought of home, his mind had automatically filled in the blank with his job, and he hadn’t even noticed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. Well, hell. Since he was already here, and his car was here, and his apartment was another forty-dollar cab ride away, he might as well stay, regardless of how much crap he would hear if Brady or any of his fellow interns found out about it.
Stepping out of the cab, he went in through the front entrance, keeping his head down and making a beeline for the third floor locker room. Since it was smack in the middle of the night shift, no one was around. He showered and changed into clean scrubs—which were all he had access to at the moment, and largely pajama-like anyway—and sought out the nearest empty on-call room. Since his next scheduled shift wasn’t until Monday, he figured he’d sleep off the beer and then drive himself home first thing in the morning. It was a solid plan.
Except, Sam’s brain didn’t want him to sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, his brain raced and his thoughts turned dark. Every fear he’d ever had manifested itself behind his eyelids in full, Technicolor glory. It was like having a nightmare while being fully awake. On top of that, his stomach was roiling, making him feel both ravenous and nauseated at the same time.
After about half an hour, Sam couldn’t take any more. He stood up and slipped on his shoes, then left the on-call room and started wandering the hallways. His head felt immediately better, but his stomach was still tied up in knots. Without his white coat, most people he passed probably assumed he was a tech from another floor, and no one bothered him.
But inevitably, his feet started to follow the familiar path to the seventh floor. Sam passed the registration desk, which was empty, and kept walking. When he stopped in front of room 714, the door was closed. There was probably a nurse in there, checking in on Viola. That’s the only reason he could think of for the door to be closed at that hour.
He stood for a moment, swaying lightly on his feet, debating whether or not to go in and make sure she was okay. He wasn’t very drunk, but he had been drinking. If he was caught practicing medicine of any kind while under the influence—even checking a patient chart—he could lose his license. Before he’d ever gotten a chance to use it. Which would be bad.
Reluctantly, he backed away and wandered toward the other end of the hallway. When he passed the nurse’s station, he nodded politely at all four nurses who were sitting there. They were night shift nurses, and he usually worked days, so he didn’t know any of them all that well. But he did know that there were only four of them on shift at any given time.
Which meant, whoever was in the room with Viola, it wasn’t a nurse. The acidic feeling in his stomach shifted and became a lump of ice. Without thinking, he turned and booked it down the hallway as fast as he could. On the way, he ran into a housekeeper who was coming out of 710 and knocked his cart into the wall with a loud thump. But Sam didn’t bother to stop and apologize. He couldn’t afford to stop.
Something was wrong. He could feel it, with every instinct he had. Arriving at 714, he skidded to a halt and flung the door open.
The room was dim. Empty, except for its sole patient.
Everything seemed to be in its proper place. The chair was against the wall, and the bathroom door was open, showing a dark and empty interior. No one else was there but him. Sam exhaled in relief, and his embarrassed laugh that followed seemed to echo far too loudly in the small room.
That was when it struck him how quiet it was. Too quiet. The world seemed to slow down as his slightly inebriated brain processed why that observation stood out.
Reaching sideways, Sam flipped on the overhead light. Something was missing. The machines, the monitors. They weren’t beeping. He held his breath, but couldn’t make out the sound of Viola’s breathing, either.
Sam took a step toward the bed, his heart in his throat. Please, God. No. Not again.
“Sam.”
The sound of his name being whispered was like a jolt of electricity to his stuttering mind. Possessed by instinct, his body flew into action. Pounding the blue button on the wall, he lowered the bed, tearing off the blankets that covered her motionless form.
“Code blue!” He yelled it as loud as he could, even though the alarm was already sounding, and a coolly mechanical voice overhead was already announcing “Code blue, room 714, code blue, room 714” through the PA system.
Automatically, his hand went to Viola’s neck. The pulse was there, but it was weak.
“Where the fuck is the crash cart?!”
“Right here, Dr. Philips,” a voice answered, from behind him.
Sam couldn’t bring himself to move out of the way. Her airway seemed unobstructed, but her breathing was less than five breaths per minute. If not non-existent.
“Viola! Viola, wake up!”
She was unresponsive. Some part of his brain knew that she’d been unconscious before, that he shouldn’t expect her to react to his voice. But the steps told him this was reason for panic. So panic he did.
Sam was beginning manual CPR when someone finally grabbed him and dragged him away from the bed.
Like a well-trained flock of vultures, the crash response team descended, surrounding Viola until all Sam could see of her was a pair of bare, pale feet.
It took him a few seconds to stop fighting, to realize that the response team was there to help her. That they weren’t attacking her. After a few seconds, Sam realized he was being held back against the wall by not one, but two people. Brady—who was still in his regular clothes—and an ICU tech named Jeff. They were both looking at him like he’d gone insane. And maybe he had, because when he saw them bring out the paddles, he actually started fighting again, to get to her side. To stop them, or help them. He didn’t really know which.
All Sam really knew for sure was, he was not in a position to be objective.
“Brady,” he said, and his voice sounded strained, even to his own ears. “It’s my fault. She’s dying. I killed her.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Where does a thought go when it's forgotten?” –Sigmund Freud
“Viola…V
iola, wake up!”
I claw my way to the surface, but the water is so thick, like oil. It pushes its way into my mouth and nose, forcing its way into my lungs. I can feel them expanding. It hurts so much.
Something big cuts through the darkness in front of me, a giant and terrifying shape. It collides with my chest, sending venom through my body. I cry out in pain. My voice comes out as a quiet, pathetic moan. The sea monster circles around and crashes into me again, harder this time.
Everything goes dark. I’m lying on a dirty beach, half buried in cold, gray sand. The oil coats my eyelids, my nose, and the inside of my throat. Every breath feels like I’m swallowing shards of glass.
Months pass, or maybe years, as I stare through my congealed eyelashes at the neon yellow sky. The sun burns me, and the air feels heavy on my skin. I know now that I’m in hell, that I didn’t make it. I’ll just lie here forever until my bones are bleached, or until the tide shifts and drags me back into the inky blackness of a filthy sea.
I deserve this, I think. I should’ve been better. Nicer. More honest with myself about what I wanted out of life. I should’ve…I should’ve…
“Viola, honey. Open your eyes.”
***
Viola opened her eyes slowly, feeling like there were ten-pound weights attached to each of her eyelids.
Moving her eyes in sluggish jerks around the room, she registered half a dozen faces. Each face was less familiar than the last, but they all held expressions she recognized. Concern. Surprise. Excitement. Caution.
The woman leaning over her was black, with tight braids of salt and pepper hair, tied in a bun. Viola’s eyes were drawn to the pattern on her clothing, which was strange and outrageous. Yellow bears and little pink pigs. Cartoon rabbits and a tiger that seemed vaguely familiar. She focused on that image with all her might, but the name wouldn’t come.
“Viola, honey. Do you know who you are?”
Of course I know who I am, she thought, growing annoyed with the woman’s sickly sweet smile and condescending tone. Her words were spoken in a strange way, like there was something in her mouth she didn’t want to bite down on quite yet. It reminded Viola of a song she’d heard once…but the name of the song, or its tune, wouldn’t come to her, either.
Growing bored with the woman and her inane questions, Viola let her eyes wander around the room until they fell on a face she hadn’t noticed before.
He was much taller than everyone else, standing in the back of the room against the wall. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was looking at the floor. There was something about the look on his face…so sad. It made her want to ask him what was wrong.
“Ssss-sam.”
Looking startled, everyone in the room turned to look at the man in the back. His eyes snapped up to meet hers. The second their gaze connected, Viola felt a warm tingle run through her body. Her heart started pounding, as he pushed away from the wall and walked cautiously toward her. Why did his face seem so familiar? She’d never met him before, had she?
“Dr. Philips,” the black woman said. “Is there a reason this girl knows your name?”
But he wasn’t paying attention to the nurse anymore. And somehow, Viola realized she’d already known that the woman was a nurse. That Sam was a doctor, and this was a hospital. But God help her, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here, or how she knew the doctor’s name. Or why she trusted him. Or why her eyes couldn’t pull away from the frown on his lips.
Viola shook herself. Something must be wrong with her, otherwise she wouldn’t be getting distracted by things that normally wouldn’t even phase her. There were more important questions to ask, things she had to know.
Turning her eyes once again toward Sam—because obviously, a doctor had more authority than a nurse—she opened her mouth to ask him how she had ended up there. Who were all these people gaping at her? What had happened? Was she sick? She’d never even had a high fever before, without her parents calling in a specialist. How was it possible that she could be lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical types, and her mother wasn’t here freaking out about it?
Only none of those questions came out. What came out was an extremely embarrassing moan, which went a little something like “whuuuuuuuuu.”
Mortified, Viola clamped her mouth shut. She tried to raise her hand to cover her mouth, but it only rose a few inches from the bed before flopping back down into her lap. And now that she was looking down, Viola noticed that she was wearing a very tacky blue and white shirt of some kind, and there were all kinds of tubes taped to her hands…and her fingernails were painted pink. Pink, for God’s sake.
“It’s okay,” the doctor said, smiling encouragingly as he put a hand on her shoulder. “This is all going to feel really confusing for a while, but we’re all here to help you. You’re at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. You were in a car accident. Your car went into the river. Do you remember any of that?”
Too afraid to speak again, Viola shook her head. No. She didn’t remember that happening. But it sounded like it would’ve been a terrifying experience, so maybe that was for the best.
“Before the accident,” he glanced over her at the nurse, “you were at a…party. You were waiting for someone. Do you remember who that was?”
Viola didn’t remember that, either. But it sounded much more plausible than being stupid enough to drive a car into a body of water, so she shrugged. As for who she’d been waiting for, it could’ve been any number of people. Aiden, her parents, Uncle Jack….
“Ask her how she remembers you,” another man’s voice said. She looked up and to the left. There was another young doctor—or probably a doctor, since he was wearing a white coat—standing behind Sam. In response, Sam frowned back at him, while the nurse folded her arms and rolled her eyes.
“Amateur city up in here,” she muttered, as if to herself.
Sam took his hand off Viola’s shoulder, and she immediately felt very cold. Cold and small. She looked around the room frantically, feeling like she’d been dropped into the middle of a play where everyone knew their lines and parts except for her. There was something they weren’t telling her. Possibly more than one something.
“It’s okay,” Sam told her, with an apologetic face. “You don’t have to try to answer a bunch of questions just yet. The important thing is that you’re awake. And you’re going to be okay.”
At his words, Viola felt a sudden flash of recognition: Sam’s face, looking stricken and concerned as he stood over her. A light glowing above his head, setting his shaggy brown hair on fire. His hands cupped her face, warming her skin. “My name is Sam. I’m going to take care of you,” he’d told her, in that same deep and throaty voice. “It’s going to be okay.”
That was why he seemed so familiar, she realized. His must have been the last face she’d seen before falling unconscious. But it didn’t explain the way she felt.
“Yyyyyyy-you…sa-said…to me,” she said slowly, painstakingly forming the words like each letter was a building block she had to pick out and sort from a giant pile of identically colored blocks. “Be-fore.” The effort of pronouncing each syllable made her head pound.
Sam smiled, and everyone else in the room looked a little relieved.
“You remember being brought in before your surgery,” he said. “That’s a really good sign. That means you’re probably going to get the rest of it back, too. Your coordination and speech should also improve, with a little bit of time and practice.”
She smiled back, wishing he would put his hand back on her shoulder. Or take her hand, it didn’t matter which. For some reason, Viola felt so much safer when he was touching her. Maybe it was because of how helpless she felt, lying on a bed in a room full of strangers, with no bra under her hideous shirt and possibly not even makeup. He wasn’t the hottest guy she’d ever seen, but he seemed to want to help her and his voice was incredibly soothing. It would be good to keep him nearby, in case she needed an
ything while she was stuck here.
Feeling like she was finally starting to get a handle on things, Viola went back to her other pressing concerns.
“Par…parents.”
At her stuttered one-word question, everyone in the room seemed to stop breathing. That was when another man walked into the room, also wearing a white coat, and leading a small parade of other white-coated people. He was bald, and extremely tan. He looked Middle Eastern, or maybe Native American. Either way, his thick, black eyebrows were out of control.
Everyone seemed to snap to attention, including Sam, who immediately stood up and moved away from the bed, joining the other white coats against the wall by the window.
“Hello Viola,” he said, coming forward to stand at the foot of her bed. “I’m very glad to see that you are wide-eyed and awake.” He held some kind of clipboard in front of his chest, like he was about to recite a poem or something. Maybe he was, because when he started speaking, it was painfully slow and measured. “My name is Dr. Chakrabarti. I am the attending physician on your case.” He gestured to the rest of the white coats in the room, running his eyes over them critically. “These other doctors are interns, who have all been helping me take care of you while you were asleep. This nice lady is one of our nurses. We are all very excited to meet you officially for the first time.”
Viola raised an eyebrow, or at least she hoped she did. Okay, so her family name was pretty well known in certain circles, but what was with all the bowing and scraping? Was her dad paying them by the word, or something?
“Fir-first…why?”
Dr. Chakra-whatever his name was raised his giant, mutant caterpillar eyebrows.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
From behind him, Sam cleared his throat. “I think she’s trying to ask why we’re excited. To meet her. We haven’t, uh… we haven’t exactly gotten to that part yet.”
“Oh.” The doctor whose name was impossible to remember—let alone pronounce—looked at Sam for a few seconds, then back at her. His face went from serious to dead-serious. “I see. Viola, are you having a difficult time understanding what we are saying to you?”
Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) Page 7