InEscapable

InEscapable Part 4

Chapter Three-Reni

My eyes won't open, but I can smell where I am.

Bodily fluid masked by soap. Bandages and plastic. Latex, latex, latex.

And the sounds. All sorts of hospitalish sounds. The beep-beep of a monitor to my right. The echo of a cart rumbling down a hall to my left. The shrill of an under-achieving air conditioner overhead.

I concentrate on my sense of touch. I'm disgusted to feel socks on my feet. No wonder I'm so hot. I could really use the draft of a wispy hospital gown, but I'm covered up with a blanket or sheet or both. I'm all clammy and suffocating and sore.

I've got to get these socks off.

Moving around disturbs more than just my monitor. I hear George grunt, hear him shift his weight on something vinyl. "Glad you could rejoin the rest of civilized society," he whispers.

We must be alone. George's voice sounds tender and warm. When we're in the company of others, he feels an obligation to be more stern. To show a strong hand because of all that I've done.

"Sorry," I tell him. My stomach feels like I accidentally swallowed a razor blade. I groan.

George chuckles. I love when he chuckles. "She really did a number on you. Do you wish I'd left you in juvie? This never happened to you in juvie. Better security there, I think."

Ha. Real juvie is worse than this troubled-teen high school he has me enrolled in now. I suppose that's the point though. Real jvuie is full of girls even meaner than any Leahs or Lolas and they all picked on girls who don't really deserve to be there. And then there was me. Quiet me, whose reasons for not making eye contact had nothing to do with fear. I don't remember much about juvie except how I felt when I was there. Like I had to concentrate very hard to stay human. To stop myself from being what got me there in the first place.

But it was like hatred and violence and threat floated in the air, and you could either breathe it in or die. There were plenty of times when I should have died than do what I did. I still don't remember any of it, what the guards said I did. All I remember is waking up in the infirmary, feeling dizzy and sore and ashamed.

Just like now. Did I hurt Leah?

The vomit erupts before I can stop it. The force is so strong that one of my eyes opens and I get a blurry image of George jumping to his feet from the visitor chair, irate and surprised. His expression is so horrified that if I weren't puking, I might laugh. I hear wet chunks splatter on the floor and I wonder if any of them ventured onto George's court shoes.

For a criminal defense attorney, he's got a weak stomach. But I guess looking at pictures of grotesque things—and showing them to a jury—isn't quite as bad as seeing them up close and personal. Or smelling them. I hear George's court shoes take him out of the room, between bouts of vomiting. I didn't mean to run him off. It's nice to see George on occasions other than mealtimes. Well, maybe not on these kinds of occasions.

I hear a new stride come in. The padded feet of a nurse. "Oh my goodness, that's a lot of throw up," she says, and for a second I think it's Margaret, my foster mom. In the next second, I remember Margaret is dead and I realize why everything smells and sounds so familiar here. Why I will never forget these smells and sounds, not in a hundred thousand years. This is the hospital where Margaret died. Where she spent the last moments of her life trying to make sure I was going to be okay after the cancer won. The realization almost knocks the wind out of me.