Grace for Drowning

Chapter Twenty Two

Grace

Everything hurt. For a while, that was all I was aware of. I drifted in and out of consciousness, catching snippets of the world along the way. Concerned voices, crying, people poking and prodding. I knew I should be able to put all of that together into a picture of what was happening, but my brain wasn't working properly. I felt like I were floating, and any time I tried to grasp a concrete thought it just drifted away on the wind. I wasn't even sure I was awake at all. It felt like a dream.

Time passed. I couldn't say how long. Gradually, I began to become more lucid. I opened my eyes to find myself lying on a bed in a drab white room. There was a TV bolted to the wall in one corner and a bag of clear fluid hanging near my right arm. A hospital. I felt an inordinate amount of happiness that I managed to find that word.

As the fog faded from my mind, questions began to replace it. What the hell had happened to me? Despite the giddy euphoria that wrapped my mind like a warm blanket, I could tell something was seriously wrong. There was an undercurrent of pain lapping just below the surface, held at bay but not vanquished. A quick glance down at my torso confirmed my fears. At first, I felt like I were looking at someone else. My body was all bandages and bones. I almost laughed at how ridiculous it was, to think it might belong to me. I couldn't possibly be this thin, this damaged.

I tried to drag myself into a sitting position, but even that slight movement sent a lance of agony through my chest. I groaned, and then coughed. My throat felt like someone had used it to sand back a chair. Perhaps it really was my body.

A few moments later, a nurse appeared in the doorway. "Easy now," she said, striding over to check my wounds. "You've been through a lot. You need to move slowly." She was a kind looking woman of about forty, and she wore one of those genuinely compassionate smiles that seems like it would take a hurricane to remove.

"What happened?" I rasped, sounding like a lifetime smoker on her deathbed. Panic was rising in my stomach now. All I'd done was shift my body a few inches and it felt like I'd torn myself in half.

She studied me for several seconds, as if assessing how much truth I could take. "You were in an accident, but you're going to be fine. The doctor will be very happy to see you awake and talking."

That didn't ring any bells at all. The last thing I remembered was leaving my shift at The Apollo.

"How long?" I asked, feeling my eyes growing heavy. She was right. I needed to take it easy. Even the simple act of talking was exhausting.

The nurse licked her lips. "Three weeks."

Three weeks. God. That was terrifying. An entire chunk of my life effectively gone without a trace.

I sucked in a long breath and summoned what energy I had left, but everything was already dimming at the edges. "Logan?"

"I'll call your friends. In the meantime, you need to rest." She didn't sound entirely comfortable anymore but, before I could ask why, the darkness took me again.

*****

When I woke for the second time, it was to Joy's face. She sat on one of the chairs next to the bed, gazing out the window with a worried expression.

"Hey," I said.

She jumped, then her lips curled into a huge smile. "Oh my god, you're awake!" she squealed. "I mean, they told me you were, but still, oh my god!" She seemed to realize that half the hospital could hear her and took a moment to compose herself. "That is to say, hey."

I laughed, and instantly regretted it. It felt like an army of tiny men were trying to chisel their way out of my chest. "Take a memo: no laughing," I said, when I could talk again.

"I'll have to keep my razor-sharp wit in check then," replied Joy.

I tried the safer option of a smile, with no ill-effects. "Indeed you will."

"How do you feel?"

"Honestly? Awful."

She grimaced. "That sounds about right. Do you remember anything?"

"Nope. Nada. What happened? All the nurse told me was 'accident.'"

"You were hit by a car. The driver ran a red. They think maybe he was drunk, but they haven't actually caught him, yet. Three witnesses and nobody got a license plate."

I should probably have been angry, but the whole situation was so unreal. With no memory of the event, I felt strangely detached from it, like it had happened to somebody else. "I find it so weird that I can just forget something that important. It creeps me out. One minute I was walking along the street, the next minute it's three weeks later and I'm here." I glanced down at my broken chest. "But then a part of me doesn't want to remember, since I imagine it hurt like hell."

"I imagine so. On the plus side, they must have you on some wicked drugs."

"Damn straight. I feel like I'm on a cloud, right now."