When The Time Comes

chapter 30; Liberty

I'm not sure how I wake up but it's either a snore caught in my throat or the sounds outside the room. When I finally open my eyes, I am transported to the time I had my wisdom teeth taken out. The same dull buzzing in my head and shrouded sight. I haven't seen a dentist in over eight years now which could be a good thing just as much as it could be bad. My mom was always scared of dentists too. At her age, she's got more crowns than real teeth. I glide my tongue over my teeth and then my dried prune feeling lips.

And then I notice the white mass around my left leg. It's tight and I can't wiggle my toes- not that I can see them from this angle either. I try to move them but there's just no feeling.

I am drowsy, eyelids dragging themselves up and down as I survey the room. Through a clasp on my finger, I am hooked to a monitoring machine that shows my steady heart beat and blood pressure. 

I half remember what happened to me. I remember seeing Stewart and running out of the house into a night much darker in my memory than it was in real life. The machine catches on to the small spike in my body as I recall the feeling of the car reversing into me. Even on the ground, I remember thinking it wasn't actually happening. That it had all been a dream. Cars don't drive into people, especially not into me. 

Running my palm across the sheet covering my lap, it's clear it did happen to me. I wonder why it's so hard to believe then. When my mom had her first heart attack, close to the time of the divorce, she didn't believe it happened to her either. Even in the hospital, a room similar to the one I'm in, wasn't enough to settle her doubts.

She'd call it faint. It was common in her family to faint. Her mom used to faint a lot when she was a child. She witnessed her fall over in the kitchen so many times as a youngling. It had to be hereditary because her older sister had a series of fainting spells much later in her life too. I wasn't around to see it but whatever mom had, was far from what they'd experienced.

So when it happened the second time, for me to witness too, I guess she didn't have any other option than to believe it. 

I don't know why all of this is coming back to me right now. My association with hospitals begins and ends with my mom. So is it that strange that I return to the thought of her, now that I'm the one in the sheets.

For the longest time, I stare blankly around the room until I find a button near my pillow. It's hidden well enough, I wonder if they don't want us bothering them. I press it twice. The second time just in case the first didn't go through.

A few minutes later, a nurse, tall and broad shouldered walks in. Omar is behind her too. It's a relief to see he's still alive. He looks pale and the top of his forehead and head glisten with sweat. He looks unwell. Maybe it's the lights.

"How are you feeling, Liberty? I'm Paul."

"I'm fine," my voice cracks a little.

"You got into a nasty accident," Paul says and I drag my eyes away from Omar who looks pretty grim himself.

"We had to put your leg into a cast to heal the fracture."

"What?" I mumble.

"It's going to take a while to heal, I'm sorry. You won't be able to use it much before, well, y'know," he shrugs.

I glance at Omar to check his reaction.

"Before what?"

"Your date," Paul says, easily. "We found you on the system when you came in, of course. It's standard procedure to check these things."

The hospital knows about me. That I got stag mail. 

"How do you check? Is it public record?" I try to sit up but give up when I can't pull my own weight.