“I’ll see you after school tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Love you.”
I reached out and tried to grab her hand. She placed it in my palm.
“I love you too, Rumple.” I took a big breath and huffed it out. “Sorry I’m such a jackass.”
“I know how hard it is,” she told me. “I can see it. You are doing so much better. I know you don’t think so, but you are. Danielle said you’d be out of the hospital and into the rehab center by the end of the week at the rate you’re going.”
“And how long there before I can even think about leaving? A month? Three? More?”
Her hand smoothed my hair.
“Fucking sucks.”
“I know, baby.”
We kissed a few more times, but I was too tired to beg her to stay any longer, and I didn’t want Sophie to be late to work or something. Nicole walked out, and I was left on my own to think too much.
The main thing I was thinking about was something I had just noticed the previous night.
Usually I dropped right off, too tired or medicated to think about much of anything, but last night had been different. I was tired, but I didn’t drop off right away. I was anxious, like I was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what it was.
Then it hit me.
I knew what was missing.
What I was waiting for.
I was waiting for the day to pass by again—detailing the activities and carving them into my brain for safekeeping. I was waiting for my overactive mind to replay my life from the morning to the night in exquisite detail.
But it didn’t happen.
I looked up at the new flowers Nicole had brought into the room—despite my insistence that boys didn’t g
et fucking flowers—and tried to remember what had been there before. Whatever they were, they had been yellow, and the new ones were kind of orangey-red, but I couldn’t remember exactly how they were different or what kind of flowers they had been.
My mind had no image for me to recall.
Shakespeare coined the phrase: “Make not your thoughts your prison.” Somehow, even though the phrase fit me perfectly right now, not remembering everything was definitely a blessing.
Now maybe my mind could rest, too.
“Hello, Thomas.”
I looked up from my new bed in the rehabilitation clinic and saw a tall, lanky guy with blond hair and a soft, kind of effeminate voice despite the slight southern drawl.
“Hey,” I said. I narrowed my eyes a little.
“I’m Justin,” he said as he pulled up a chair to sit beside me. “I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know we’d be talking a bit while you’re here.”
“About what?” I asked.
“Well, the accident,” he said, “and how you feel about the situation you are in now.”
“Oh fucking hell,” I grumbled as insight struck me. “You’re a shrink?”