Paraplegic (COMPLETED)

Chapter 23

Voices yank me from my mental abyss; they're low at first, then they slowly increase in pitch. Everything is black. That's when I realize my eyes are closed. I force them open; white light dives in between the slit of my eyelids, causing me to keep them squinted for a long moment until they finally adjust. It doesn't take me but a moment to regain my parameters. I'm in a small room of the hospital, but it isn't the operating room.

The voices continue. Mother and father are seated in front of a window, softly speaking to one another. There isn't very much sunlight shining through the window; it must be close to dusk. It feels like I'm having a déjà vu moment. This is exactly how I awoke when I first found out that I was paralyzed.

Paralyzed!

That word alone causes me to shake loose of this groggy state. I tilt my head forward and yank the white sheets off my body, examining my pale legs from beneath the hideous hospital gown. They don't move. At first, I consider it might be because I've since forgotten how to command my lower limbs to move from inside my brain, but as the seconds pass, I realize the truth—the surgery failed. I'm still a paraplegic!

Mother and father notice my sudden movements; they stare at me with blank expressions. I stare back, unsure of what I should say. Right now, I feel like screaming and crying for all eternity.

How could this happen? This . . . this was my last chance, my only hope to ever getting my legs back and it failed. I'll never walk again!

My wheelchair is parked next to my bedside. I want nothing more than to see that wretched thing spontaneously combust into flames and burn. I hate it!

Mother expels a long sigh. "McKenzie—"

"I wanna die!" I throw my head back against the pillow and stare up at the ceiling. "Please. Please, just kill me! I don't want to live this way anymore. I can't . . . I just can't." The tears have already begun to fall.

At that exact moment, Eric moves into the room, although appearing somewhat apprehensive to enter. His kind eyes sweep up and down my face. I can't bear to maintain eye contact with him for more than a second, so I turn away to hide my tears.

"I'm so sorry." I can feel the genuine sorrow in his voice, but all the sorrow in the world won't change my current situation. "The surgery didn't go as well as we'd hoped. The damage done to your T-12 vertebrae was much greater than we anticipated. It was just a bunch of bone fragments. We couldn't reconnect it to the rest of your spinal cord even if we wanted to." He pauses, standing there with a look on his face that clearly displays he's utterly lost on what to say next. "I'm so very sorry," is all he can manage, then turns his back and exits just as despondently as he'd entered.

My pitiful five percent chance has just turned into zero—an ugly, horrid zero. My life is over.

Father slides toward the edge of the chair he's sitting on. "Baby, we won't stop trying. I promise. Okay? We won't! I don't care what needs to be done, you'll get your—" He stops abruptly, and I know it's because he's fully aware he can't promise that I'll get my legs back, no matter how much he might want to say it.

"I'm done." My voice squeaks. "I can't live like this. You have to understand. I'm done."

Mother starts trembling. "McKenzie, don't you dare say that!" She chokes on her words. "You don't get to choose when things end! You don't get to leave us whenever you feel like it! Do you hear me?" She says those words with such fear and anguish in her voice, but I know it's only because she's terrified there's some truth to what I'm saying. After all, I've flirted with suicide once already.