“Mr. Lowell, can you hear me?”
Yes, I can hear you. Your voice is annoying. What the fuck is going on? Shut the hell up. Get me out of this damn place.
“Hayden, please open your eyes.”
I’m fucking opening them, Cara!
“If he isn’t conscious within the next few hours, we’ll run some tests. But it doesn’t look good.”
“Why isn’t he waking up?” my mother asked. “What are our options?”
Damn it, I’m right fucking here!
“I told you this third surgery was going to be too much on his body. If he doesn’t wake up, you can expect a malpractice lawsuit,” Cara said.
Wait. Surgery? Why the hell was my sister talking about surgery? Where the fuck was I?
“He needed the surgery. The first was to pin and plate his arm and leg and the second was to pin his ribs. But he started internally bleeding so we took him back in to chase it. Your brother would’ve bled out in the hospital bed had we not done anything.”
“You mean to tell me you didn’t catch the bleed before you stitched him up the first time?” Cara asked. “What kind of hospital are you running, doctor?”
“Cara, now isn’t the time to get upset,” my mother said.
“Not get upset? My brother’s lying in a hospital bed unconscious after three back-to-back surgeries and no one knows why! We don’t know what will happen when he wakes up, we don’t know what kind of brain damage there might be, if any. We don’t know what happened during the car accident because the damn traffic cameras weren’t hooked up, and I’m not supposed to be upset!?”
Hospital? I was in a hospital? Wait a second, what accident?
Oh shit. The car. My phone.
Holy fuck. The Caribbean. I’m not in the Caribbean. Wake up, Hayden. Wake the fuck up! Your business needs you!
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I was aware of the world around me, but I still didn’t have the faintest clue as to what was going on. Well, I was slowly piecing things together when the world wasn’t black. Dark. Empty.
I kept screaming for my leg to move. For my arm to move. For my eyes to open or my tongue to start working or my lips to part. Any sort of movement to prove to me that I had control. That I had the capability of controlling my body enough to get done what had to get done. Mom had no idea what was going on at work. I’d probably missed my flight. Three surgeries? What the hell?
I needed to talk to the doctor.
But it was like my will was disconnected from my physical form.
“Oh, Hayden,” my mother said. “I’m begging you. Just open your eyes.”
I’m trying, Mom. I swear to you, I’m trying.
“I can’t lose you, too,” she said breathlessly.
“We aren’t going to lose him,” Cara said. “Life isn’t that cruel.”
Say that to the guy that can’t move, why don’t you?
I felt my mother’s face fall to my arm. I could feel her tears running across my skin. I wanted to move my arm. To put it around her and reassure her that things were going to be okay. That I was okay. That I could hear her. That I wasn’t gone. Not like Dad had been taken from us. I wasn’t going to go out like that. With a car like it had happened to Dad.
Come on. Just one fucking finger. That was all I was asking my body to do.
“Please,” my mother said with a whisper. “Please don’t leave me, Hayden. I can’t bury you, too.”
You won’t, Mom. I swear if it’s the last thing I make sure, you won’t have to bury me.
Chapter Two