Phoebe's Performance

Beans

Chapter 13

Colour might have departed from the world for all I know because everything is white. I blink. The ceiling is white. The walls are white. The quilt on my body is white. I blink again. The room is clinical and there's a smell like someone's been bleaching the bathroom. Not that I can see anybody with a bottle of Domestos from this vantage point, lying flat on my back. But everything can't be all white. That's practically impossible.

Something must be wrong with my vision.

I blink. Try to lift my head but my brain pulsates. The room blurs and I have to shut my eyes for at least thirty seconds because my stomach lurches like I'm about to be sick.

Is this what it's like to have a migraine?

A dull ache spreads all over my body. Fuck. Why can't I remember anything? I must have had a rather exciting night on the lash. Maybe I picked up some random man because, after all, Ben's kicked me to the curb. Except I feel like I can't move. When I sober up I must promise to count my drinks because seriously I can't move a muscle.

Ben's face suddenly appears directly above mine, his head hovers, kissing distance away. I quickly close my eyes and contemplate this vision of Ben.

He must be a figment of my imagination for he wouldn't be near me. Not now. After all, Ben couldn't have been clearer the last time I saw him. He waited with me at the bus stop, when I was off to my big audition. He was desperate to talk to me.

He wants to date other women. He wants to have sex with someone else. He thought we were too young to get so serious. And the clincher: how did he know if I was good in bed? That's what he said. How did he know if I was good in bed? Ugh.

The conversation had been absorbing and awful. The bus drove straight past while Ben was rattling on about not wanting to consider marriage until he was thirty. Not that marriage was even on my brain at this point – the audition was. But one day, when I become a concert pianist I'd imagine getting married and possibly to him. Apparently a lot was wrong with wanting that, according to Ben.

I blink.

Ben's large brown eyes bore into mine. I don't understand what he's doing here. I missed the bus and had to call Mum and Dad to give me a lift. Boy was Mum cranky.

"She's awake," Ben yells into my face as if I've lost my hearing or something. Mickey's face appears beside his. Her face is puffy, quite a hard task when you're as slim as my sister. Her eyes are swollen. Then Jack's head appears and a solemn look flashes across his expression.

My throat feels scratchy and I try to speak. What the hell is going on? The sound is caught in my throat and no noise escapes.

"Phoebe...."Mickey's voice wobbles. "You're in hospital."

Hospital? The disinfectant smell. The clinical looking room. I suppose she's right.

"What do you remember?" asks Jack in a hollow voice like it's caught in a teapot. I try to move my head, but my body feels stiff.

I can't speak. I can't move. I can't remember anything, just conversation with Ben and then calling up Mum for a lift. I suddenly want to speak to Mum. I want to see Dad's smiling face. God he goads her sometimes. I'm not dead so maybe I'm dying.

Jack bites his lip, his eyes are wide and a single tear rolls down his cheek. I don't recall seeing my brother cry for about twenty or so years. He wipes the tear away. "Do you remember the accident?"