Blood, Sweat, and Kreutzer

Chapter Six - Alyss

Slowly but surely, Alyss can feel her pain decreasing. It's only a little bit every day, but that means every day it's a little easier to breathe, a little more comfortable to sit up, a slightly smaller bag of painkillers hanging from the IV and snaking through the tiny tube attached to the inside of her elbow.

It's something, at least and, as much as it scares her, Alyss begins to hope.

Dr. Hanne seems pleased with her progress. One day, she says, "Alyss, you are healing so well! I'm surprised with how quickly you're progressing."

"Does that mean I can get out of bed soon, or even go home?" Alyss asks, suddenly seeing a new ray of hope.

That ray of hope is quickly dashed as Dr. Hanne shakes her head. "Sorry, not yet, dear," she says regretfully. "You'll still be here for awhile yet. First we have to get your chest and your leg healed, and then you'll have to go through a lot of physical therapy."

"Oh," Alyss says. She leans back against the pillows.

Dr. Hanne rests her hand on top of Alyss's for a moment, squeezing reassuringly. "I'm sorry," she says again, softly. She seems like she's going to say something more, but she catches herself, shaking her head slightly, withdraws her hand, and leaves.

It's several nights later that Alyss wakes with a breathless cry. Her room is dark save for the hallway light filtering through the window in the door. She has a vague feeling of having been tumbling uncontrollably backwards, just waiting to hit the ground with a finality that would have ended everything. As it is, her heart is thudding uncontrollably, and her chest feels like it's caving in and crushing itself.

In a desperate attempt to hold on to something, anything, Alyss reaches for her iPod where it sits on the table next to her bed. She slips her headphones into her ears, and pulls up her music streaming app, setting it to play on random.

The song that comes on has a light instrumental backing of strings and piano, with a sweet, simple male voice singing, and the lyrics catch her feelings perfectly.

I woke up from the same dream
Falling backwards, falling backwards
'Til it turned me inside out
Now I live a waking life
Looking backwards, looking backwards
A model citizen of doubt

Until one day I had enough
Of this exercise of trust
I leaned in and let it hurt
Let my body feel the dirt
When I break pattern, I break ground
I rebuild what I break down
I wake up more awake than I've ever been before

The words, the voice, call to someplace deep within Alyss that's been crushed down to sleep and slumber for far too long. She feels tears springing to her eyes.

Still I'm pinned under the weight
Of what I believed would keep me safe
Show me where my armor ends
Show me where my life begins
Like a final puzzle piece
It all makes perfect sense to me
The heaviness that I hold in my heart belongs to gravity
The heaviness that I hold in my heart's been crushing me

The song breaks back into the instrumental backing, fading away. Alyss pulls out her headphones before the next song can play. She stares straight up in the darkness, at the ceiling she can't really see clearly right now but that she knows is there. Knows with the same certainty that she knows that Ms. DuLacy and Halt are there. And Gilan, George, and Jenny.

And Will, she whispers to herself. She closes her eyes at the familiar pain, but makes herself push through it, closely examining where and why it hurts.

Why it hurts? She knows that. It hurts because he betrayed her. She likes to think it was an unintentional betrayal, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe he just got tired of her. And she does have to admit, Cassandra is bright and vivacious and friendly, showing affection as freely as Alyss holds it to herself.

Where it hurts? Deep in her stomach and in the middle of her chest, an ache of betrayal and of longing. She misses him, desperately, she realizes.

But she still can't reconcile that with the horrible feeling of betrayal. Maybe, she muses, with time she will. But that hurts too much right now - so much that it completely overshadows the pain of missing him.

Maybe it's meant to hurt, to be okay to be hurting.

There's nothing she can do about it right now. She closes her eyes and, eventually, drifts off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She sleeps late the next morning. It's full daylight streaming through her window when she opens her eyes. Ms. DuLacy is already there, sitting in her usual spot with yet another music score open on her lap. She starts when Alyss speaks.

"Good morning, Ms. DuLacy," Alyss says, her voice still thick from sleep.

Ms. DuLacy looks up, smiling. It's a rare morning that she sees Alyss sleep so deeply and comfortably.

"Oh, good morning, Alyss dear. I'm glad you slept late and got a lot of rest?"

"I didn't sleep so well," Alyss admits. "I woke up with a nightmare for a bit, but managed to go back to sleep."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ms. DuLacy asks.

Alyss considers this for a moment. "No, I don't think so," she decides a moment later. "I think I'm okay."

Ms. DuLacy nods understandingly, and when Alyss makes no attempt to further the conversation, she returns to her score, glancing over at her student every once and awhile.

The morning nurse comes in with Alyss's breakfast, helping her to sit up. It must be twenty minutes later before Alyss speaks again, having used the time spent eating the first half of her breakfast to build up her nerve.

She takes a deep breath, setting down her yogurt spoon. "Ms. DuLacy?"

"Yes, dear?" Ms. Dulacy asks. "Are you okay? Is there something you need?"

"Oh, I'm fine," Alyss says. "But I was just wondering, is there any way...I mean, is it possible that I could..."

Finally, she just spits it out. "Could I please see Halt?"

A/N:
The song I quote in this chapter is from one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite musical artists. It's from Atlas by Sleeping At Last - the final song in the set, Pluto. The entire album really speaks to me (my favorite song is Saturn - my best friend introduced it to me on a really emotional night we shared and it's a song that's very close to my heart) but each of the songs is so down to earth and relatable. I encourage you to go listen to Atlas and other music by Sleeping At Last.

Hope everyone's hanging in there!