by Roxie Rivera
Pennies, nickels and dimes showered my back and head, rolling off my body and clattering onto the parking lot. The tinkling sound of the coins hitting the pavement and spinning left my head throbbing. When the last coin fell, Janine crouched down and roughly jammed the dirty sock in my mouth. “Good luck crying for help.”
Then, as if she hadn’t done enough, she spit in my face. “Whore.”
Stunned and panting for air around the dirty sock in my mouth, I tried to free my arms from the bags. My body felt strangely detached, as if the synapses in my brain weren’t firing properly. I blinked, trying to get my bearings and clear the blood from my vision. It was running down my head and pooling under me as my vision tilted and spun, taking me back to those hot summer afternoons at the playground with Ronnie. He would take hold of the merry-go-round handles and run so fast while I clutched onto the middle and imagined I was an astronaut rocketing through space.
But I wasn’t in space now. I was bleeding and losing consciousness in a parking lot. The smell of oil and blood filled my nose as I finally managed to work the sock out of my mouth. Weakly, I called for help, but the lot was deserted. I had fallen between my car and another. Could anyone even see me?
Exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I started to drift, my vision turning dark and my muscles slackening. What little faculties I still possessed told me I was in bad shape. I wondered how much that sock of coins had weighed. How hard had Janine swung? What was the force of the impact? All my knowledge of physics and math was useless now. Had she cracked my skull? Was my brain bleeding?
Am I going to die?
“Cassie? Cassie!”
It was Kyle who dropped down next to me. “Oh, shit. Shit! No. No. Don’t move. Stay still.”
I clutched at his hand, gripping his fingers and smearing my blood on his skin. I tried to lift my head, but he urged me to be still as he held his phone to his ear. Vaguely, I was aware of him talking to a 9-1-1 dispatcher. I squeezed his hand, my strength failing, and said, “John. Call John.”
“I will, Cassie,” Kyle promised, his phone clamped between his ear and his shoulder. “Just don’t move, okay? There’s an ambulance coming.”
“Ronnie,” I murmured, feeling exhaustion take hold. Someone had to call my brother.
“No. Cassie! Stay awake!” He touched my face, his fingers sliding in the blood. “No. She’s passing out. Are they close? Jesus. I think she’s dying.”
Maybe I was.
Chapter Five
“Cassie? Cassie? Can you open your eyes?” A booming male voice drew me out of the lethargic darkness. “Hey! There you are!”
Unable to focus, I saw two of the same face above me. His dark eyes were kind but concerned as he flashed a pen light in my face. “I’m Shawn. I’m a nurse here in the ER. You’re at Memorial Hermann. Can you tell me your name?”
“Cassandra,” I croaked. “Cassie.”
“Last name?”
My brain knew the answer, but my mouth wouldn’t make the sounds. I felt as if I were drowning in quicksand, my whole body sinking into the depths of something heavy and suffocating.
“Do you know what date it is?”
“Tuesday,” I answered, my thoughts all muddled. My tongue felt wrong in my mouth, and I slurred as I spoke. “No. No. It’s Monday. Plasma physics. Monday. Wednesday. Friday.”
“Who is the president?”
“Apprentice,” I murmured, feeling sleepy again. A stab of pain on my left arm jolted me awake momentarily. Blearily, I lifted my head, my sore neck protesting the movement, and saw another nurse working a large needle into a vein.
At my whimper of pain, Shawn touched my shoulder. “Your IV blew. We’re putting in a new one. We need to be able to give you fluids and medicine.”
I didn’t even try to protest as they cut away my clothes and moved my body for x-rays and to catalog my injuries.
“Okay. What’s happening with our patient?” A commanding female voice filtered across the din of beeping machines and nurses talking. “GCS?”
“Nine when EMS picked her up but she’s trending down…”
I closed my eyes as Shawn spoke to the doctor and gave her a rundown of my condition. I didn’t fight against the uncomfortable testing that followed as the doctor poked at my feet and prodded other places. My head spun as she barked out orders for more tests and asked for an operating room to be reserved, just in case.
“Cassie, I’m Dr. Choi.” A beautiful older woman appeared over me and gave me a reassuring smile. I blinked rapidly as I tried to focus on the double images of her. Which one was her? Which one was the extra? “I’m a neurosurgeon, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. You took some bad hits. Your boyfriend told the paramedics it was coins?”
“In a sock,” I managed to say. “Hagen is here?”
“Kyle,” another nurse interjected. “He’s in the waiting room.”
“Not my boyfriend,” I said. “Hagen is.”
“Cassie,” Dr. Choi checked my pupils, “I am very concerned about what’s going on in your brain.” She frowned and started to palpate my head. “Your skull feels intact, but I’m worried you may have bleeding underneath it. We’re going to do some more tests, but it’s possible I may need to operate to relieve pressure if there is bleeding.”
I couldn’t hold back the tears or my pathetically weak sob.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dr. Choi said as she gently squeezed my hand. “You’re in good hands here.”
Shawn took control as the doctor left, and before I knew it, I was rolling out of the ER and down a hall to the CT room. It was a quick test, and I was back in the ER, waiting my fate a short time later. The nurses and techs who streamed in and out of my room were so kind. They soothed my panic with their sure hands and warm smiles. My fuzzy thoughts seemed to clear as the minutes ticked by, and I managed to convince myself that I wasn’t going to die after all.
“Cassie?” Dr. Choi returned to my bedside. “I’ve had a look at your CT.”
“And?” I asked, terrified to hear her answer.
“You have a small epidural hematoma. We can treat it conservatively. I can have you admitted and kept under observation.”
“But?”
“But there’s a risk to waiting,” she explained carefully. “It takes time to get a patient who is crashing down to the operating room. When you’re talking about the brain, those seconds are precious. I think you would benefit from having the bleeding removed now while it’s small.”
“How?” My voice sounded so small and childlike as I imagined the horror that awaited me.
“It will be a very short and simple procedure. I’ll make a tiny incision on your scalp. I’ll drill a small hole into your skull. We’ll suction out the blood to relieve the pressure on your brain. I’ll place a drainage tube that will stay in place until the bleeding is resolved. You’ll be in the operating room for less than an hour. If everything goes well, you’ll be home and resting in a week.”
Visions of drills and blood made my stomach churn. I wanted to run away. I wanted to escape. I didn’t want anyone poking around in my brain.
But…
“I’m a scientist,” I said, crying now. My head throbbed as I wept, but I had to get it out. My words were slow and some of them slurred as I tried to explain the situation. “All my life I’ve wanted to work in space. It’s all I know. It’s all I want. I have to be able to think. To do math. To do physics. So, whatever it takes to fix my brain? You do it.”
“I’ll take good care of you, Cassie,” Dr. Choi promised.
There was a sudden rush of activity as the nurses and techs prepared me for surgery. I asked about Hagen, but Shawn shook his head. “Your friend hasn’t been able to reach him.”
“My brother?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll check.”
Feeling so alone, I tried not to cry, but I was so scared. My stomach lurched suddenly, and before I could warn anyone, I vomited uncontrollably. Thankfully, Shawn was ready with the
pink basin that had been sitting on my bed since I arrived in the emergency room. He and another nurse quickly rotated me onto my side, preventing me from choking or aspirating. “It’s okay,” he said gently. “Get it out. It’s the head injury.”
I groaned and tried to touch my pounding head. My arms felt so heavy, and I dropped them. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’re used to it.” Shawn wiped my face and made the basin disappear. “Let me see those pretty eyes, Cassie.”
I blinked as he shined the pen light at me, checking my pupils. My vision seemed even blurrier now, and I was seeing four of everything. All four of Shawn’s jaws flexed, and I knew it wasn’t good as he said more medical things I didn’t understand. The nurses and techs stepped up their speed, and in no time, I was being rolled down a hallway and into an elevator. I closed my eyes as the world started to spin again. The beep of the machine tracking my heartbeat started to speed up, and I wondered if I was about to have a heart attack on top of everything else.
When we neared the operating room, Shawn and the other nurse and tech stepped away from me as others came into view. Shawn smiled down at me and patted my hand. “You’re in good hands, Cassie.”
“Thank you,” I managed weakly.
New nurses and techs took over, all of them in scrubs and their faces covered. I was transferred to the operating table and an anesthesiologist talked to me about the upcoming procedure and what to expect. The idea of being awake while a surgeon drilled into my skull sent my heart rate skyrocketing, and the anesthesiologist gave me something that left me feeling calm and detached.
Someone—a nurse or doctor—started asking me questions and giving me words and numbers to remember. I couldn’t read the cards held up in front of me, and I started to worry that I was going to end up blind. The cold room was brightly lit, so bright it made my eyes hurt, and I closed them as the nurses and techs moved by body into the correct position. My head was secured, but there was no sensation of claustrophobia when I realized I couldn’t move.
Whatever the anesthesiologist was pumping into my veins was working. I didn’t even question the nurse who began to clip away a small area of my hair or flinch when they started sticking needles of anesthetic into my scalp to numb it.
“Cassie? It’s time, okay?” Dr. Choi stood in front of me, her face covered with a mask and shield. The lighting had been dimmed in the background. The surgical lamps above me were bright white. I could hear nurses shuffling around behind me, moving equipment and supplies.
Unable to nod, I said, “Okay.”
Dr. Choi moved out of my field of vision, stepping behind the drapes around my head. The anesthesiologist touched my hand, and said, “Just a little something to make you sleepy.”
My body relaxed, and I fixed my gaze on the wall across from me. Whether it was the drugs or the exhaustion or the brain bleed itself, I felt like a balloon floating above my own body. I could hear Dr. Choi talking to her assistant and the nurses. She spoke steadily, her voice clear and calm as she worked. When the drill started to whir, I tried to go somewhere else in my mind.
Hagen.
He was my safe place.
Or he was.
Janine’s angry words came roaring back to me. She had attacked me because Hagen had hurt Travis. Badly, if she was to be believed.
My emotions were muted by the medications, but I could still feel the burn of betrayal and the heartbreak of disappointment. Later, when the medications wore off, I wouldn’t be able to handle the emotional pain. I wasn’t strong in that way. I had been damaged by the death of my parents, and my reaction to Hagen putting me in so much danger would be one so brutally painful it might kill me.
“Cassie, we’re done.”
As if the invisible balloon I had been tethered to was losing helium, I felt myself float back into my body. My head still throbbed, but it was a different sort of pain, blunt and not sharp. Groggy but relieved, I let go.
Chapter Six
The sensation of something squeezing my arm woke me. Blinking with confusion, I glanced around the hospital room. The memories came rushing back, and I closed my eyes again. The band squeezing my arm suddenly loosened. Blood pressure cuff, I thought at the soft hiss of air.
“Cassie?” Hagen’s familiar voice drew my attention away from the band squeezing my left arm to the right side of my bed. My vision crossed, and I blinked a few more times to clear it. When that didn’t work, I tried to focus on just one of the images of him. He searched my eyes, as if terrified I wouldn’t remember him.
“You weren’t here.” I hated the whine that had sneaked into my voice, but I was hurt, emotionally and physically.
“I’m sorry, Cassie.” Hagen’s strong hand held mine as he lifted it carefully to kiss the back of it. My eyes had a hard time focusing, but even so, I could see the swelling and scrapes on his knuckles. Had he been in a fight?
“You weren’t home,” he said, “and I tried calling you. I went to the apartment. There were police everywhere. I saw the blood by your car.” He stopped and swallowed hard. “One of your neighbors told me they had taken you in an ambulance, but no one knew which hospital. It took me forever to find you, and I had to call in a favor to get in here with you.”
“Kyle called you.”
“He didn’t.” Hagen shook his head as he gently stroked my hand. “Maybe he called the wrong number.”
“Maybe.”
Hagen started to lift his hand, as if he wanted to stroke my hair as he often did when we were cuddled close together, but he flexed his fingers and lowered them back to the bed. I couldn’t see my head, but I could feel the bandages. He carefully trailed his fingertips across my cheek and down my nose toward my mouth. His eyes darkened, and he seemed overcome with emotion. “Oh, baby, what did they do to you?”
“Not they,” I corrected, tiredly. “It was Janine.”
He seemed taken aback. “Janine?”
“You hurt Travis so she hurt me,” I explained, my eyelids drooping again. Feeling myself falling back asleep, I tried to make him understand the situation. “It’s your fault.”
“Cassie?” He said my name in a voice filled with hurt. “Cassie, that’s not true. I didn’t do anything to Travis.”
“She said you did.” Even though I wanted to keep talking to him, to find out the truth, I couldn’t stay awake. I fell back into a bottomless chasm of exhaustion and could only hope that Hagen would be next to my bed when I woke up.
He was still there when I woke up—but he wasn’t alone.
A nurse with a perky auburn ponytail and a warm smile crouched down next to him, one hand on his thigh and the other holding his hand. It wasn’t the kind of touch two strangers would share. It was intimate and familiar.
When Hagen realized I was awake, he drew away from her quickly, standing so fast he almost knocked her back onto her butt. He seemed to realize his mistake as soon as he made it and hurriedly reached down to steady and help her stand. She was tall and not even the utilitarian cut of her scrubs could hide her incredible curves. Laughing softly, she patted him on the back and shook her head. “Easy, John. She’s not going anywhere.”
With a smile, she walked to the hand sanitizer dispenser on the far wall and waited for a dollop to fill her hands. As she rubbed them together, she introduced herself. “I’m Vicky. I’ll be your nurse today. How are you feeling?”
Moving my confused gaze away from Hagen, I winced at the pain in my back and side. “Sore.”
“Your head or your body?”
“My body,” I clarified.
“You took some nasty hits. The bruising is pretty bad.” She checked the IV pump next to the bed and the tubes flowing out of it. “You have a shoe print on your backside.”
Upon hearing that detail, Hagen actually grunted. I glanced at him, noticing his stiff jaw and his tightly crossed arms. Anger radiated from him, and I worried he was going to give himself a stroke if he didn’t calm down.
“The police were here e
arlier, but we sent them away. The doctors will be by to do rounds soon, and you’ll need some more tests, a CT for sure. If the doctors think you’re up to some questioning, we’ll let the police in to see you.”
I didn’t say anything to that. My blurry gaze remained fixed on Hagen, and I wondered if he was sharing my same thoughts about the situation. If I pressed charges against Janine, if I fingered her as the assailant who had beaten me last night, would she turn around and blame Hagen for the attack on Travis? Would both of them end up in jail?
And, anyway, I wasn’t sure what the point of pressing charges would be. It wasn’t going to rewind the clock and prevent my injuries.
“How does your head feel?” She checked the drainage tube dangling from my bandaged head.
“Okay,” I remarked, thinking it was a good sign that my splitting headache had vanished. “There’s kind of a throb. Not bad like last night before the surgery.”
“Good. Can you rate the pain? On a scale of one to ten?”
“A five,” I said after a few seconds of gauging it against the agony of yesterday.
“You have pain meds ordered, and you had a dose right before shift change. You’re due for another in, oh, two hours or so, but if the pain increases or you’re just super uncomfortable, all you have to do is ask.”
Hagen sent me a look that all but begged me to take whatever pain medicine was offered. He clearly couldn’t handle the sight of me battered like this.
“So, after rounds and whatever tests they order, you’ll get a visit from our traumatic brain injury team,” she said as she moved around the bed and checked other tubes leading out of my body from under the blanket. “They’re going to want to establish some benchmarks for your current state. You know, checking your language capabilities, your memory recall, things like that.”
Knowing she had probably seen more than her fair share of head traumas, I asked, “How bad was it?”