Just Like Yesterday

5

I blink the blurriness away. I'm in a white room that smells like rubber gloves and tissue paper. A man in a white coat has his back turned to me, and he's fiddling with tools on a light blue counter top.

Someone has their hand on my shoulder. I look up and see... Jenna Joseph? She looks exhausted, with lines under her eyes, smeared mascara, rumpled clothes, and frizzy hair. But with the florescent white light shining behind her, for a moment I mistake her for an angel. Even in her sleepless state, she's one of the most purely beautiful people I've ever seen. I can't take my eyes off of her, and then she catches my gaze.

"How're you feeling?" She asks softly. For a moment I don't know what to say. I don't feel anything. I should be confused and scared, but I feel at home. I don't know where I am or why Jenna Joseph is right next to me or what happened to put me on stage before thousands of people, but I feel fine.

"I'm fine," I say, and my voice comes out soft and hoarse and... different. I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't sound the same. "Do you know how long I was out for?"

Her brow furrows and she blinks a few times. "Just a few minutes, I think. Josh said he took you backstage and then you threw up and passed out, but you got up before I could get there. You don't remember that?"

I don't remember anything after passing out, but I can't tell her that. I don't want to worry her more than I already have. But how could I not remember? It's like I was sleeping. How long has it been?

"I remember... It just felt like a long time."

The doctor turns around with a light in his hand. He smiles warmly at me.

"Okay," he says, "first we're going to test your sight. Just follow this light with your eyes." He shines it before me and moves it back and forth, back and forth. I follow it easy enough, and he checks something off on his clipboard. We do a bunch of other tests with my hearing and coordination and balance and reflexes. Each time, he checks something off on the board in his hand. He asks me to relay to him what happened, and I tell him that I fell. That Josh took me back stage. That I threw up. He asks me what happened before I fell, but I don't remember. The moment comes back to me and I recall something playing in the background. After a second, it registers in my mind as the backing track to Holding Onto You. I tell him I was in the crowd with all the other people, and he checks something off on the clipboard. After about an hour, we're finished.

"Everything looks normal," says the doctor. "But you'll need to monitor him for the next 24 hours to make sure he doesn't develop more symptoms," he's talking to Jenna. "If he experiences more vomiting, trouble waking up, confusion, fainting, memory loss, or anything else abnormal, come straight back here." She nods and smiles at him, and then the doctor turns to me. "Take it easy." He pats me on the back, and Jenna laces her hand through mine, leading me through the doorway.

Suddenly I'm terrified. My heart is pounding in my ears and I can't stop shaking. My mind races. A thousand questions are mixing together in my brain and becoming a roar much like the one I heard when I first woke up. I need to sit down.

Outside of the hospital, it's dark. A clock reads 1:32. We walk past the doors and come to a car that I don't recognize. Mark Eshleman is in the driver's seat, scrolling through his phone. Mark Eshleman.

"How'd it go?" He asks, looking up towards Jenna and me. I don't know what to say. Mark's always been a huge inspiration for me. Meeting all these people I look up to while being half out of it is really overwhelming. My head starts to pound.

"It went fine. They don't think he has a concussion, but they want us to keep an eye on him for the next 24 hours just to make sure." She gets in the backseat, and I take the passenger side. I decide to keep quiet for as long as I can, just to figure out what I'm doing sitting feet away from two people who I've only dreamed of meeting. And they're treating me like an old friend. Wait, was Jenna Joseph just holding my hand? I rub my temples to ease the pain bubbling up in my skull.

Mark looks at me, concerned. Just like the way Josh looked at me on stage, and the way Jenna looked at me in the hospital room.

"You okay? You got real pale all of a sudden." Of course I'm not okay, I want to say. I've daydreamed of meeting you and Jenna and Josh for years and now I've met all of you but not in the way that I dreamed of and I woke up somewhere I don't recognize with people I don't know and everything feels wrong and I don't have half of an idea what's going on and I've only been conscious for an hour but my world is falling apart and I want to cry.

"Yeah, I'm fine." But I'm lying, I'm so very far from fine.