Chapter twenty-seven:

 

 

It’s the beeping that wakes me. Not the crying and screaming or the prostitute banging some guy upstairs. But a soft yet annoying beeping.

Ain’t that always the way?

My eyes open.

My mouth is dry.

My lips crusted.

My tongue flaccid.

I look around and see that I am alone. I look up and see my two bags—one clear and one red—are almost empty. I look down and see that I am not restrained anymore.

I lick my lips and I try to sit up. Everything spins and twirls like I am on a fair ride. I don’t like fairs. Carrie always did though. But not me. I took her though, rode the rides with her. Because I wanted her to have what made her happy. That’s the kind of guy I am. I’m a good guy. But I hated the rides. And she knew.

‘I want to get off,’ I would cry. But she’d make me stay on. She knew. Sometimes I thought that maybe she wasn’t good like me. She was bad. Like my mother and father said.

But she couldn’t be bad. I loved her.

The spinning slows and I take a steady breath. A nurse opens the door and comes in, and I close my eyes. She moves around the room and I feel her by my side, then I hear her footsteps and she leaves the room. When she is gone, I open my eyes again. I need to go, I need to get back to Carrie.

How long have I been here?

An hour? Two?

I look around the room, trying to find a clock. But there is none. Just four cream walls that used to be white. Just signs that say to wash your hands and others that have the hospital policy on them.

There is a painting on one wall. A white house, probably in Greece. High up on a mountainside, with the blue ocean below it. People are on the yellow beach, their towels spread wide open as they sunbathe. Children are playing in the sea; their shrieks are loud. The sun is bright and cheery, warming everything. Everything but me.

I blink slowly. My eyelids feel heavy. I want to sleep some more, but Carrie is waiting for me. I said I wouldn’t be long. She was knocked out; she won’t even know where I am when she wakes.

This is all her fault, but she’s not the one to blame, of course. And I don’t want her to be scared that I’m not there with her when she wakes.

I sit up further, slower this time. Testing my muscles out.

Move move move...

They tingle when I stretch them.

They seem stiff when I bend.

I pull back the covers and see I’m in a paper hospital gown. Carrie would laugh if she saw me in this. Maybe I can sneak it out with me and show her when I get back. We can laugh about all of this.

The floor is cold when I stand on it. I wriggle my toes. I don’t feel dizzy anymore. I look at my hand and see a bandage, and I pull it back to see angry stitches underneath. I flex my fingers and move my wrist. It hurts, but it’s bearable. I look in the small cupboard next to my bed and see my clothes are there. I pull them out and drag on my jeans. My sneakers aren’t there, and that sucks. I have socks though, so I pull them on. It takes a long time. I’m out of breath when I’m done.

My muscles feel tired and weak. I try to shake the feeling off because I don’t have time to be tired and weak. I need to go. I need to get to Carrie. I shouldn’t even be here. It was just a small wound. And she didn’t really mean to do it. I understand that, of course I do. If anyone was going to understand it, it’s me. Because Carrie and I understand each other. We always have.

I’m still attached to the drips—soft, flexible pipes leading into me. But it’s time to pull them out now. It hurts when I yank on them. When they slip out of my flesh, a droplet of blood lands on the floor, which is soon joined by another. I grab my sweaty tee and pull it over my head, noting the blood on the front of it. My blood. And then I lean against the bed for a moment to calm myself.

To focus.

To breathe.

I take slow breaths and feel my pulse returning to normal.

When I think I’m ready, I go toward my door. I crack it open and look both ways as if I were crossing a road. And in a way I am. I’m making sure that my path is clear before I cross. Before I leave my room. Before I make my escape and go back to Carrie.

God, I hope she’s still asleep, I think.

No one is coming, so I leave the safety of my room, my feet padding down the hallway quietly. Hospitals are always noisy, I think as I walk. The beeping, the talking, the elevators, the carts with the rickety squeaking wheels, the arguing, the crying, the paper shuffling, the tapping of keyboards. The list is endless.

I can’t wait to get back to Carrie. Can’t wait to take her back to my apartment where everything is the same, a constant in an inconstant world. Where I know what to expect, and I don’t wake up in a hospital covered in my own blood with no sneakers.

Where the whore upstairs fucks all night and I hear the thump, thump, thump on my ceiling. Where the walls bleed tears and the doors scream terror. Where the paint is peeling and the televisions are too loud. Where my soup is in my cupboards, and my bleach is under the sink, and I know where my money is so I can go and get some new sneakers.

And Christ, Carrie, why is everything always so complicated when you’re in my life?

I stand in the elevator, my back against the far wall. I am on level eight. I watch the little light blink on each level until it reaches the ground floor and it lights up the big G. The elevator pings and the doors slide open. A police officer is there. He looks at me, his blue eyes searching my face thoughtfully before he steps inside. He doesn’t see I have no shoes on.

“Evening,” he says.

I brush past him as I step out, trying not to swallow down the fear too loudly. “Evening,” I reply.

I step away from the elevator, waiting for his hand to land on my shoulder at any second. But it never does, and the doors shut behind me. So I move to the exit, my chin to my chest, my eyes to the floor, and my hands in my pockets.

And then I am outside. And it is raining again.

But more than that, it’s nighttime.

And I have no sneakers so my feet are already getting wet and my toes are already cold.

I have no idea where I am, and it’s raining and it’s nighttime. And Fuck! I think. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

It’s nighttime and I’ve been gone long enough that Carrie must have already woken up and I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t fucking there.

And she’s scared.

My Carrie is scared.