Cold Water

The Anxiety

Two more weeks passed.

As they had been for the last few days, Stephen's thoughts were running rampantly through the possibilities of what could happen when he was discharged from the hospital the next day. His room and the routine and the people around him had become a security blanket since the accident, something he could rely on to stay the same as he grappled with the new challenges presented to him.

He worried about having no excuse but to be sociable and to do all of the things he suddenly found himself terrified of. He worried about people's expectations and having to go back to work. He worried about having to fill his days when he wasn't told to rest and stay confined to four walls.

A tap on the door interrupted this particular cycle of thoughts and he quirked his mouth upwards in greeting when Bridie came into the room. She smiled readily, brandishing the usual paraphernalia for a check-up and laughing when he mustered a bored expression.

"Only two more to go," she chastised. Stephen wondered if there was as big of a flicker in his expression as it felt like there was. The reminder made his heart race a little more erratically, throwing him back into that tornado of unnerving possibilities.

Part of him wanted to leave. He was ready to actually feel better and he knew he was never going to get there whilst he stayed in hospital. The surroundings reminded him that he was hurt, that he was still recovering, and he didn't want to feel like that anymore. He hoped that being at home would throw him back into his old headspace, where everything was okay and he was fine.

So, he'd done a fairly convincing job of being positive about leaving. Convincing enough to have fooled most of the people who interacted with him on a daily basis. Maybe not convincing enough to get past Bridie's shrewd perception, although she hadn't confirmed those suspicions. She played along well enough now.

"Dr. Garner will go over how to look after these when you're back at home," she said as he held his hands out to let her wipe over the cuts that were still scarring around his wrists. Possibly a permanent set of markings, the doctors had said, although Stephen hadn't thought about it too much.

He let her go through the motions, shrugging his shirt off with nothing but a faint wince when the skin around his side wound stretched uncomfortably. He sat patiently as she unwrapped and rewrapped the bandages covering that injury, nodding along to what she was saying but not feeling much like talking. That was new as well, or at least it was new since the accident. Beyond the hospital he wondered if people would think he was rude for being quiet but with the people who understood, he all too frequently let himself fade quietly into the background.

The question of how he expected to go back to work, considering his profession, was one that he didn't have the answer to. The thought of having the attention of an entire audience made his stomach feel empty and weightless, the swooping sensation unpleasant enough even without the challenge of actually having to perform. It had been strange having a conversation with his agent the day before; someone who seemed so certain that he would want to go back to work; when he still couldn't figure out his own reaction to the prospect of presenting again.

"You're very quiet today," Bridie commented eventually, as direct as she always was. He had known he wouldn't get away with it because she didn't tread on eggshells around him and when he decided to opt for the non-verbal responses where he could, she called him out for it.

"A-Am I?" he asked, feigning ignorance. She raised her eyebrows but stayed quiet, making her opinion known nonetheless.

"Just because you're being discharged, it doesn't mean you're expected to be completely fine now," she continued when he didn't make any conversation of his own.