Sunday, August 20
I couldn’t move, and everything hurt—my skin felt stretched too tight, muscles burned like they’d been lit on fire, and my bones ached deep into the marrow. I never knew pain like this before. I could barely breathe around it.
My brain felt like it was full of cobwebs and fog. I tried to lift my arms, but they were weighed down, full of lead. Confusion swirled inside me.
I thought I heard a steady beeping sound and voices, but all of it seemed far away, as if I was on one end of the tunnel and everyone was on the other end. I couldn’t speak. There...there was something in my throat, in the back of my throat. My arm twitched without warning, and there was a tug at the top of my hand.
Why wouldn’t my eyes open?
Panic started to dig in. Why couldn’t I move? Something was wrong. Something was really wrong. I just wanted to open my eyes. I wanted—
I love you, Lena.
I love you, too.
The voices echoed in my head, one of them mine. One of them definitely mine, but the other—
“She’s starting to wake up,” a female said from somewhere on the other side of the tunnel.
Footsteps neared and a male spoke. “I’m adding propofol now.”
“This is the second time she’s woken up,” the woman replied. “Hell of a fighter. Her mother is going to be happy to hear that.”
Fighter? I didn’t understand what they were talking about, why they thought my mom would be happy to hear this—
Maybe I should drive?
The voice again, in my head, and it was mine. I was sure it was mine.
Warmth hit my veins, starting at the base of my skull and then washing over me, cascading through my body, and then there were no dreams, no thoughts and no voices.
Tuesday, August 22
Nausea churned my stomach.
It was the first thing I noticed when the suffocating, blanketing darkness eased off again. I was sick to my stomach, like I could vomit, if there was actually anything in my stomach.
Everything hurt.
My head throbbed, along with my jaw, but the worst pain was coming from my chest. Each breath I took scorched my lungs and didn’t seem to really do anything for me. I had to take more breaths to get enough oxygen. There was unnatural tightness, like rubber bands had been stretched around my chest.
Struggling to make sense of what was going on with my body, I willed my eyes open. Nothing happened at first, like they were sewn shut, but I worked and worked at it until I peeled them open.
Bright light blinded me, forcing me to lose all progress and close my eyes again. I wanted to shrink back from it. I shifted slightly, then stopped when darts of pain shot up and down my body.
What was wrong with me?
“Lena?” The voice moved closer. “Lena, are you awake?”
I knew that voice—it belonged to my sister. But that didn’t make sense, because she should be at Radford. At college. I think.
I had no idea what day it was. Saturday? Sunday?
Cool fingers touched my arm. “Lena?”
Trying again, I opened my eyes, this time prepared for the light. My vision cleared, and I saw a drop ceiling, like the kind in my classroom. Lowering my gaze, I looked to the right and I saw Lori sitting in one of the two chairs next to me.
It was her.
But it wasn’t.
My sister looked horrible, and she never looked bad. She was genetically predetermined to always look amazing, even in the mornings, but right now her hair appeared unwashed and was pulled up in a haphazard bun. Her eyes were bloodshot and the skin under them puffy and pink. The gray Radford University shirt was wrinkled.
“Hey,” she whispered, smiling, but something was off about the smile. It was weak and strained. “You’re awake, sleepyhead.”
Had I been sleeping a long time? Felt like it. Like I’d been sleeping for days. But this wasn’t my bed or my bedroom. I wet my lips. They felt dry, as did my mouth and throat. “What...?” I ran out of air, and the words were hard to force out. “What is...going on?”
“What’s going on?” she repeated, and then closed her eyes tight. The skin puckered at the corners. “You’re in the intensive care unit in Fairfax. At INOVA,” she said softly, opening her eyes and glancing at the door.
“I...I don’t understand,” I whispered hoarsely.
Her gaze darted back to mine. “What?”
Getting the words out was exhausting. “Why am...I in the ICU?”
Lori’s eyes searched mine. “You were in a car accident, Lena. A really—” Her breath caught and she breathed deeply. “A really bad car accident.”
A car accident? I stared at her for a moment and then shifted my gaze from her, back to the drop ceiling and the too-bright lights. A second passed and I turned my head slightly, wincing as stabbing pain ricocheted from one temple to the next. The walls were white, lined with boxes and containers marked as hazardous material.
The tugging feeling at the top of my hand made more sense. It was an IV. I was most definitely in a hospital, but a car accident? I searched my head, but it...it was full of shadows with memories cloaked behind them.
“I...I don’t remember a car...accident.”
“Jesus,” Lori murmured.
The door opened, and I saw Mom. A tall, thin man followed her, wearing a white lab coat. Mom halted almost immediately, clasping her hands together against her chest. She looked as bad as Lori.
“Oh, baby,” Mom cried, and then she was lurching forward, rushing to the bed.
A memory floated to the surface. Words—words that had been spoken to me. Do you love me enough to carry me inside my house, pass my mom and tuck me into bed?
Someone had said that to me—outside, in the driveway of Keith’s house. The voice came back out of the darkness, eerily familiar. But only after we stop at McDonald’s so I can get chicken nuggets.
Chicken nuggets?
The memory floated away as soon as it formed, and I couldn’t place the voice or tell if it was even real or just from a dream.
“Thank God.” Mom bent over, carefully kissing my forehead and then my nose and then my chin. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” She kissed my forehead again. “How are you feeling?”
“Confused,” I forced out. Really, extraordinarily confused.
“She doesn’t remember.” Lori rose, smoothing her hands over her hips. “She doesn’t remember the car accident at all.”
“That’s not uncommon with these types of injuries along with heavy sedation,” the man in the white lab coat said. “Her memory will most likely come back either completely or with a few patches once we get everything out of her system.”
Heavy sedation?
Mom took Lori’s place, sitting the closest to the bed. She picked up my hand, the one with the IV. “This is Dr. Arnold. He was the one who...” Lowering her chin, she shook her head as she drew in what sounded like a halted breath.
I knew whatever she couldn’t say was pretty serious, and as I stared at her, I saw her in my mind, sitting at the kitchen table, poring over contracts. She’d been wearing her reading glasses, and she’d told me that when my phone rang again, I had to answer it. And she’d said something else.
Be careful.
Always.
When had that been? Saturday. Saturday before—
Dr. Arnold sat on the edge of the bed, crossing one knee over the over. “You are a very lucky young lady.”
Focusing on him, I decided I was going to have to take his word for it, because I had no idea what was going on.
Mom squeezed my hand, and when I glanced at her, she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Her eyes were just as puffy and red rimmed as Lori’s.
The doctor reached to the front of the bed and lifted a chart up. “Other than tired, how are you feeling?”
I swallowed and it was like sandpaper rubbing together. “Tired. And I...I don’t feel good.”
“That’s probably the leftover effects of the sedation,” he said, running his fingers along the center of the chart. “We’ve got you on some strong pain relievers right now, so that can also make you feel a little sick. That said, how is the pain?”
“Um...my head hurts.” I glanced at Mom, and she smiled reassuringly. “My chest hurts. Everything...hurts.”
“You took quite a beating,” Dr. Arnold replied, and my eyes widened. A beating? I thought it had been a car accident. Before I could ask, he continued. “You suffered a concussion, but there’s been no evidence of swelling of the brain. As long as that remains true, we’re going to be out of the woods in that area.” He scanned the chart. “You might’ve figured out that your left arm is fractured. It’s going to be in a cast for anywhere from three to six weeks.”
I blinked slowly. A cast?
But my arm couldn’t be fractured. I had practice and games coming up.
I lifted my left arm and it throbbed dully. Yep. There was definitely a cast around my forearm. My gaze flickered back to the doctor. Nothing about this felt real.
“I...I can’t be in a cast. I play...volleyball.”
“Honey.” Mom squeezed my hand gently again. “There is no need to worry about volleyball right now. That is the last thing you should be stressing over.”
How could I not stress over it? It was my senior year. Coach thought I could catch the eye of a scout, and Megan would be so ticked off if I couldn’t play.
Dr. Arnold closed the chart. “You’ve had some very serious injuries, Lena, including trauma to your chest, which caused a bilateral pneumothorax.”
I stared at him blankly. Pneumo-what?
He smiled faintly, obviously reading my confusion. “It basically means you had air in your chest cavity, which put pressure on the lung and prevented it from expanding. Oftentimes it’s single sided and the puncture is so minor that all we need to do is get the air out.”
I had a feeling, based on how my sides felt like they were packed in Ace bandages, that wasn’t what had happened here.
“In your case, you broke ribs on both sides, puncturing your thorax on both sides, so both of your lungs collapsed and were unable to compensate. I cannot stress how serious of a situation that is. When we have two lungs down, we often aren’t having a conversation with the patient later.”
Mom lifted her other hand, smoothing it over her face. She stopped with her fingers covering her mouth.
The doctor draped one arm over his knee. “We had to go in and do surgery on both sides.” He gestured to the location on his body. “To remove the air and seal off the leaks.”
Holy.
Crap.
“We wanted to give your lungs time to recover, so we’ve had you heavily sedated and let the machines do the breathing for you, but we didn’t have to keep you under very long. You were ready to wake up yesterday.” Dr. Arnold smiled again.
I had a vague recollection of hearing people talk about me waking up, but there was something else existing on the fringes. Other people talking. Someone screaming—no, the screaming wasn’t from the hospital.
“As I said, you’re a very lucky young lady. We were able to remove the ventilation tube, but we’re going to hold you in the ICU for another day or two, since your blood pressure is a little low. We want to keep an eye on that.”
I understood what he was staying and it made sense, but a huge part of me couldn’t believe it.
“Once we think you’re ready, we’ll move you into recovery so we can monitor for infection and inflammation. We’ll get you started on breathing exercises later today, and by tomorrow we’ll have you out of this bed, walking for a little bit.”
I could barely process this.
“If all goes well, which I believe it will, you’ll be back home by the beginning of next week.”
Beginning of next week?
“You’re going to be bruised and sore for some time, and I think volleyball is going to be sidelined for quite some time.”
My heart sank. No. I had to play. I could—
“But you should heal a hundred percent and there should be no long-term effects within reasonable exceptions. But we’ll tackle more of that later.” Dr. Arnold stood, and I wondered what he meant by within reasonable exceptions. “The seat belt saved your life. If the others were wearing—”
“Thank you,” Mom cut in quickly. “Thank you so much, Dr. Arnold. I cannot express how grateful I am—how grateful we are—for all that you’ve done.”
Wait a second. There was something missing here. Something more important than volleyball and chest tubes. How did I get here? What happened?
“Others?” I gasped out, glancing at Lori.
My sister paled as she plopped down in the chair beside where Mom stood.
Dr. Arnold’s face went expressionless, like he’d slipped a mask on. He said something about how long I would be expected to be in the hospital and then hightailed his butt out of there.
I shifted my gaze to Mom. “What...what did he mean about others?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” my sister asked when Mom didn’t answer.
Mom glanced at her sharply. “Not now, Lori.”
“Yes.” I took a shallow breath. “Yes. Now.” I tried sifting through the gaps and the empty parts. I remembered talking to Mom on Saturday, telling her I—“I went...to Keith’s party.” Closing my eyes, I ignored the throbbing ache in my head. “I remember...”
“Remember what?” Mom whispered, slowly sitting back down.
My jaw pounded as I ground my teeth together. The pool party. Sebastian. Thinking he was going to kiss me again. Being thrown in the pool. Talking—no, arguing—with him afterward, then... “I remember sitting down with...with Abbi by the pool and... I don’t remember anything else.”
I love you, Lena.
I love you, too.
Who had said that? Abbi? Megan? It was one of them. I lifted my hand in frustration, wincing as the IV tugged at my hand.
Mom caught my hand, carefully lifting it to her lips. She pressed a kiss against my knuckles. “You’ve just had a lot of information dumped on you right now. You should be resting so we can get you out of here and back home. We can talk about this later.”
What had the doctor said? The seat belt had saved my life, but the others—he made it sound like the others hadn’t... Oh my God. There were others in the car with me.
“No.” The beeping in the machines picked up, matching my heart rate. Trying to sit up, I felt like I was being dragged down through the bed. “I want to know...about this... I want to know what...happened right now.”
Tears filled Mom’s eyes. “Baby, I don’t think we should talk about this right now.”
Someone screamed—Megan?
“Yes,” I gritted out. “Yes, we should.”
Mom closed her eyes briefly. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Just say it,” I pleaded as my heart thudded so fast I thought it would rip through my chest. Was it Megan? No. Abbi? I couldn’t breathe. Sebastian? Oh God, Sebastian had given me a ride to the party in his Jeep. Oh God.
I tipped my head back, struggling to get enough air in my lungs.
Mom carefully lowered my arm. “You weren’t in the car by yourself.”
Oh God. Oh God.
Pressure clamped down as my gaze moved frantically from Mom to Lori. My sister looked to the small window, squeezing her eyes shut. “You were in the car with Megan and...and her cousin Chris. Phillip and Cody were with you, too.” Lori blinked as she faced me, and then I saw them—the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Lena. They...they didn’t make it.”