The Haven High Book Series (Wattys2017)

Chapter 3

Click on the image below for the audio book. 

Zach woke up in a hospital bed with wires hooked up to his chest and machines whirring and beeping, feeling groggy and scared. What the hell had happened to him and what was he doing here?

When he made the attempt to sit up both his dads came rushing into view and from either side of his hospital bed laid him back down.

His dad Matt insisted, "Don't try to move they're still doing tests. None of us is sure what happened. Until we know, please try to stay as still as possible."

His other dad Chris ran his hand over his head to comfort and smooth down his fly away hair and added, "They've scheduled a CAT scan and MRI for this afternoon, but don't worry Matt had the best pediatric neurologist from Johns Hopkins on the phone while you were out, and he assured us that there could be a multitude of non-life-threatening reasons for a teen boy to collapse."

Matt piped in," Yeah you just probably pushed yourself too hard." He straightened out Zach's hospital sheet with a shaky hand patting his chest as he did so.

His dads exchanged a look of concern, as he wondered who they were trying to reassure with that statement, him or themselves.

He knew what had happened to him was not normal -- far from it. Something in his head was fried, but how could he explain that to his dads without sounding crazy? Oh God what if he was crazy.

Zach swallowed hard trying to work up the courage to tell them what happened when the doctor came into the room.

"Hello gentlemen, my name is Dr. Kowalski, I'm the on-call pediatric neurologist for the hospital. I understand your son had an incident at school. " 

Suddenly, Zach had to hide a smirk, because the guy sounded like a cheap b-movie Dracula. Every word he uttered was slathered with a thick Eastern European accent.

"Hello Zachary," the doctor checked his chart as he made his way to his bed, "How are you feeling now? Can you describe the events of this morning to me?"

After making his way across the room, the doctor took his wrist in his ice cold hand, which for some weird reason sent a shiver down Zach's spine. Checking his pulse before taking a pen light out of his pocket to shine it repeatedly in each eye, the strange doctor raised his hand and pointed his index finger towards the ceiling asking him to follow it with his eyes as he watched the reaction of the pupils or corneas or whatever. Hell Zach was no expert, but this guy didn't look like one either.

Zach couldn't help but think that the doctor looked pretty young to be a neurologist. He watched Grey's Anatomy with his dad's all the time. He knew they had to be at least in their 30's before they had a specialty like that, but this guy looked like he was straight out of college.

His parents picked up on it too, and questioned his credentials right off the hop.

"Excuse me," his Dad, Matt, spoke up using his best lawyer tone, "Isn't there a more senior staff member that can examine my son?"

Zach had to smile when his Dad, Chris, the buff firefighter, stepped up on the doctor attempting to use his physical stature to intimidate.

Chris was the much younger of the two. He still had all his dark blond hair with not a hint of grey. His face was unlined and his dark brown eyes shone with a youthful vigor. Unlike his legal beagle of a dad who's hair was peppered with grey. Crowsfeet, created by a lifetime of smiling, accentuated his older dad's soft blue eyes and laugh lines had formed on his dimpled face. 

His youngest dad still looked like he was in his thirties, and still in peak physical condition, when in fact he was nearly fifty now, whereas Matt looked more like a rugged grandfatherly type with slight belly.

Matt loved to boast, "I robbed the cradle."

While Chris liked to joke back. "You sure did sugar daddy," which would elicit an eye roll from him every time. They both loved to tease each other relentlessly.

Zach had to laugh as he thought: his dads, the unstoppable team. There was nothing they couldn't accomplish together, just seeing their united front made Zach feel one hundred times better.

The doctor didn't seem to mind his credential being question, because he just smiled and said, "Although I may look young, I assure I have been a practicing neurologist and neurosurgeon for the past ten years. I received my doctoral PhD of medicine from Harvard when I was twenty-one. The rest as they say is in the genes." He winked in good humor at Zach as he said," I guess you can say I got the brains and the looks."

This seemed to satisfy his dads as they physically relaxed and stepped back to let the doctor do his job.

Zach shivered once again when the doctor turned his gaze on him. There was something up with his eyes. For some reason he was reminded of Mr. Knight. That intimidating stare was everywhere these days. His train of thought got derailed though with the litany of questions that followed.

He answered all the ones he could, leaving out the crazy stuff. He'd tell his Dads about it if something showed up on the MRI or Cat scan. God he hoped nothing showed up on either but he would cross that bridge if and when he came to it.

Zach smirked trying to hold back a laugh because for some reason he couldn't get the Arnold Schwarzenegger quote from Kindergarten Cop out of his head. He could clearly recall the young kindergarten kid asking Arnie, "What's a matter," and Arnie responding", I have a headache," then one of the kids saying, "it could be a tumor," and Arnie answering him in frustration and his patented Arnie accent, "It's not a tumor!"

Zach couldn't help himself and snorting out loud, quickly apologizing when his dads gave him a stern look to remind him that this was a time to be serious.

The doctor quickly came to his recue saying as he patted his hand, "That's quite all right young man. After all laughter is the best medicine."

He continued as he turned to his Dads and extended his hand, "Gentlemen if you would please follow me into my office we have much to discuss," but seeing Zach's obvious alarm at being left out of the conversation he quickly assured, "Please don't worry young man, we will just be discussing the boring minutiae of the tests that will occur this afternoon. Please try to rest in the meantime."

"Gentleman,"the doctor pivoted on his heel and led his parents out of the room, and as he did, Zach couldn't help but think the guy was really weird. Who even talks like that anymore?

He wished this day would let up already and stop resembling a twilight zone episode.

He could have sworn he could see right through his hands when he had been trying to call the dads, but obviously he must have simply hallucinated it all.

What if there really was something wrong with his head?

He shuddered when an even more troubling thought occurred to him.

What if there wasn't?