Silver Lining

22. Memory flashes

The last day

It happened in flashes.

Sirens.
Flashing lights.
Voices blurred together.
The stained grey couch.
A body on the floor.
Dizziness.
A stretcher and an ambulance.

And then it was black again.

***

A hospital room. Relief flooded my body so intensely that my heart skipped a beat.

There were people surrounding the bed I was in, but they were fuzzy. "Why so fuzzy?" I asked. My voice sounded distant, and a couple of people chuckled.

"You know painkillers make you go loopy, Mad," Theo said.

"Theo!?"

"I'm right here," he said, leaning in to give me a hug.

'What happened?" I asked, my voice small. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

There was a pause, and then an unfamiliar voice spoke up. "Two days ago, when you and Michael left the house for a little bit, a woman saw you and recognized you from the news. She called the hotline last night to tell us she saw you. The call operator that took the call you made to the emergency services on November 29th spoke up about the call. Because the call cut out, she thought it was a prank. Someone famous going missing shakes up the world, and we get a lot of prank calls from people pretending to be you, or people pretending to have seen you. The call operator said that you said you were kidnapped by a man named Michael Woods-" I flinched at his name "- so we looked up his files, and it said that you requested a restraining order aganst him, but there wasn't enough evidence. There was an adress of a place he was staying at, so we went there."

I nodded slowly. "When Michael and I went out and that woman saw us, that was only this afternoon, not two days ago."

"You were unconscious on that couch for a little while," Theo told me gently.

I started to cry, partly relief, and partly because I was just so scared, and now I didn't have to be but it was like I didn't remember how to not be scared. It was overwhelming.

A doctor came in and asked everyone to leave so I could rest. She let Theo stay, which was nice. Theo sat on the edge of the bed, stroking my hair.
"I'm Dr. Maria." The doctor said. "How are you feeling, Madison?"

"Okay, I think."

She chuckled, and began to change my bandages. There was a big one wrapped around my chest and collar bones, a smaller one over my left eyebrow, and one going down the side of my face. I remembered the knife dancing on my skin, and ran my tongue over my bottom lip. It was bumpy and uneven where he cut me. "Twenty stitches," Dr. Maria said. "I suppose it could of be worse."

I liked her. She was optimistic, and it made me feel more positive.

***

I slept for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. I woke up at five, and Theo was there beside me still, along with Matt and Laurel.

"How are you feeling, sleepy head?" Laurel asked with a smile.

"Laurel! Oh my gosh, it's so good to see you! And you too, of course Matt."

Matt grinned. "It's good to see you too."

"Are you hungry?" Theo asked.

All of a sudden I was starving. "Yes! So hungry." I hadn't eaten anything on that last day I was conscious, where we went out, and I kind of didn't eat anything in the last two days. Well, I suppose this IV in my arm had liquid nutrition or whatever the stuff they gave you was in it, but I was starving.

Theo nodded. "I'll go the cafeteria. Any requests?"

"Salad?" I asked hopefully. Man, was I excited to get some food into me that wasn't greasy takeaway. Actually, I was excited to do a lot of stuff- brush my teeth, shower, wash my hair, go for a run, walk Asher, do yoga, eat food that Theo cooked, the list goes on.

"Sure, I'll be back in a tick. Coffee for you guys?" Theo asked, glancing at Laurel and Matt and they nodded.

"I'll go with you, help you carry stuff," Matt said to Theo, and they left the hospital room.

"So! Tell me what's been going on in the world. Have they invented anything new and amazing?" I asked Laurel, struggling to sit up in my bed.

"Here, let me help." She pressed a button on the head of the bed, and the top half of the bed rised upwards a little, so I was in a half sitting, half lying position.

"Thanks."

"No problem. So what's changed with the world... Well, you going missing caused a big stir. Have you seen Twitter?"

Twitter? That seemed so... weird. Like I had been out of contact with the rest of the world for what felt like years, and now I could just talk to anyone, anytime. That seemed so... foreign.
I realized Laurel was still waiting on an answer. "No, I kind of just woke up. What's on Twitter?"

Laurel pulled out her phone, and showed me Twitter. "Someone started the hashtag #weloveyoumadison and it went viral. At least eighty percent of Twitter was related to that hashtag or people worrying about you.

I fake laughed.
I could tell Laurel wasn't telling me something, she looked kind of uncomfortable. "Everything alright?"

Laurel shifted in the armchair she was sitting on, and stared at her feet. A tear dribbled down her cheek. "Logan passed away."
It felt like I'd been punched.

Matt and Theo came back, and saw both of us crying. "What's wrong Mad?" Theo asked, rushing over towards me.

"L-Logan," I said, hiccuping at the same time.

"Oh, Mad," Theo said, sitting on the bed and hugging me. "She's in a better place though, okay? She passed peacefully, while she was asleep."

I remembered walking around the gallery with her. it seemed like so long ago, but I remembered it so clearly. The way she'd observe each painting so carefully, as if she was trying to learn everything she could from the artist, she wanted to take in everything, the whole world.