Through the Break in Her Hair

Chapter 22

For the record, my dad won. Well, kind of. I didn't have to visit Dr. Rancheck, which was a plus, but mom definitely moped around the following day. To be fair, I did promise that she would have the deciding say, and when she was overruled by alpha dad, it really upset her. I was the kind of guy that could totally understand that.

Also, take note—when and if you, at any time, promise something on behalf of another party, make sure that the other party is on board or at least aware of said promise. I messed up there, didn't mention it to dad at all, and obviously have had ensuing consequences ever since. The first being that mom felt undermined, the second was that in the end, I had to be rushed to the ER. So maybe if we had just allowed mom to take me in the first place, I could have been spared quite a bit of agony.

Monday morning, at about, let's say 3:15am ish—I wasn't exactly coherent enough to have a grasp on what time it was, or what time was itself—my mother awoke to the sound of me moaning and thrashing from the floor above. She ran up the stairs and found me curled in a ball on the floor, in the fetal position. Mind you, this is all her account, my dad was also incoherent at that time.

Anyway, she reached down to wake me and, I quote, "burned" her hand on my forehead. Burned it...I am still yet to be convinced that my skin could conduct the heat to burn her while at the same time maintain its elasticity and regularity. Note also that I have zero burn scars—just to prove my point.

At that time, she screamed for my dad, waking him and likely the whole neighborhood, insisting that I be carted off to the emergency room. That part I do remember, slightly.

It had been years since my dad had cradled me in his arms. I was his strapping young man for Pete's sake, not a boy! And I recall waking to the sound of his grunting as he hoisted me up from the floor and then down the stairs to the main level.

Mom was snipping at him. "Be careful with him! Don't knock his head against the wall!" she hissed.

Dad's response slid weakly out between his grated teeth. "I'm trying, Susan. It's a lot harder than you think. John's put some weight on."

Any girl in that situation would have had her ego knocked down a few rungs, fearful that she'd crossed the line into the "fluffy" weight category. But not I. No, weight to me equaled muscle mass. Or at least a fighting chance if it ever came down to a brawl. Now I wouldn't be knocked over by the wind! Haha!

But that was all I could remember of the night, until we got to the hospital that is. I remember everything about the hospital...clearly. More so than I want to, actually.

You know, it's surprising how many needles they can jam into you at once, how many vials of blood they can extract before they bleed you dry. And all I wanted to do was sleep. Was that too much to ask for?

Too much to ask my mom for, that much I'm sure of. I swear she was the driving force that pushed all the nurses and doctors to "check for this," and "see if it's that." My God, the woman was a shark! Needless to say, she was going to get her way this time.

Blood poisoning was the final diagnosis, and landed me a two day stay in the hospital. Most of the time I was awake, and aware of my surroundings, but I feared the times that I wasn't exactly...in the right mind.

Over the short span of two days, my gift had developed to the point of being able to hear more than one or two words of what a person was thinking. I was starting to make out sentences, feeling the general mood of a person before they even entered my room.

It frightened me to think of what I mumbled while under the sedation of medication. For my sake, I hoped all the nurses thought I was just delirious, and that their own minds were playing tricks on them.