New Girl - The Creatures

Chapter 32

The peace I felt after James kissed me felt like it lasted for months. It was like time stood still for half of a year with absolutely nothing changing and the warm bliss I felt was everlasting. Or so I had thought. As he pulled away and unwrapped his arms from me, I felt a searing pain shoot through the front part of my skull, and I heard myself scream out involuntarily. A horrendous ringing filled my ears, almost like someone had thrown a flashbang right in front of my face. It felt like my skin was being torn open and my skull smashed apart.

James' muffled voice mingled into the ringing, and as my vision blurred, I saw a nurse and Dr. Altman rush back into the room. My eyesight came back into focus and the ringing began to subside, followed by the pain beginning to reel back.

"Sam? It's Dr. Altman, can you hear me?" she asked, shining a light in my eyes to examine my pupils. I opened my mouth to speak and I said, "Yes, I can," but that was not at all what came out. It was a jumbled and grumbly mixture of incomprehensible sounds. I felt my heart sink as James' eyes became wider than ever. I tried again, and was met with an awful amalgamation of phonics that made sense to nobody. I started to hyperventilate and felt tears stream down my face. "Nurse, get Sam up to OR 2 for me immediately, and page Dr. Sevette from neuro. Sam, we're going to take you back to the operating room. It seems that there's been some damage to the Broca area of your brain. Can you understand what I'm saying? Just nod yes or no," Dr. Altman said, keeping her voice calm. I nodded yes, and some part of her seemed relieved.

Dr. Altman pulled James to the side as the nurse prepared my bed and I.V to be taken out of the room. I tried to slow down my breathing so I could hear what she was saying to him as the nurse wheeled me out of the room. "Why can't she talk?" James asked, and I could hear every single bit of pain coating his voice. I wasn't able to hear Dr. Altman's reply as the nurse raced with me down the corridor and to an elevator.

*James POV*

"Why can't she talk?" I said, trying so hard not to start crying and screaming. Fuck. "It seems that Sam has suffered some damage to the Broca's area of her brain and has caused aphasia in that region. Essentially, she can understand what someone is saying and can read and write, but the nerves responsible for the brain telling the body what to verbally say have been damaged, so she cannot speak. We're going to go in with an emergency MRI and then take her up to the operating room to see what we can do," Dr. Altman said in a remarkably calm and soothing tone. I could tell she was trying to keep me from freaking out.

"Can people recover from this?" I asked her, terrified of what the answer may be. "There have been cases of people with Broca's aphasia being able to recover either spontaneously or with the help of a speech and language therapist. We're going to see if perhaps it's a bleed in that area that can be remedied or if it's something more invasive. I will have a nurse update you every single hour so that you know what's going on," she finished, and then immediately rushed out of the room after Sam.

I crumpled down to the floor, my body heaving with every single sob. What did she do to deserve this? I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, and after a few minutes, I unlocked it. My background was a picture of Sam and I at PAX, and I had to close my eyes before I lost it again. I saw a missed call from Jordan, and I exhaled slowly before calling him back.

"Hey! Put Sam on, everyone wants to tell her hi!" I heard Jordan screech over the line. There was some muffled conversation in the background and I knew that every one of those dicks was in the room and Jordan had the speaker phone on. "I uh, I can't. Something happened," I said, hearing how deflated my voice was. "What do you mean?" I heard Seamus say. "She can't talk. One second she was okay and talking, and the next she was screaming in pain and she couldn't say anything," the line was dead quiet as I paused for a second. "She could still understand what people were saying though. They just took her up for an MRI and then to an operating room and the doctor is gonna have me updated every single hour," I finished. It was quiet, and then Dan spoke first.

"Is she going to be able to talk again?"

It felt like my throat was full of rocks.

"Dr. Altman thinks she may be able to. She said that there have been cases of people with damage to the Broca's area of the brain, which is what they think is wrong with Sam, that have been able to talk again either randomly or with speech therapy. As soon as I know more I'll tell you guys," I replied, trying not to let my voice catch. I heard someone sniffling, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it was Seamus. "I'll talk to you guys later, I need to get some fresh air," I muttered, and after telling them all good bye, I put my head in my hands, massaging my temples.

What if she couldn't talk again? What if I could never hear her laugh or the way she says my name when I annoy her? I sat in her hospital room, staring a hole into the floor, every last second leading up until Dr. Altman would send me an update feeling like a millennium. The only thing I could think of was the feeling of her lips on mine and how she broke out into a grin after they parted, and how she fit in my arms as I held her for the briefest and purest moment of happiness I've ever experienced in my life.