An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(75)

“Don’t worry. Uh, can you just text Robin? Just tell him that I have very minor injuries and what hospital I’m going to and to spread the word to friends and family. And tell him to bring a laptop.”

I gave her my passcode, and as she tapped out the text she said, “You’re going to Bellevue, by the way.”

“Oh, neat!”

“Neat?”

“Yeah, it’s such a pretty building, I’ve always wanted to check it out. Though maybe I could have found a less painful way of getting there.”

She finished the text, and I heard the little whoosh noise of it flying off to the nearest cell tower and relaxed a little.

“Bad news, though, you’re going to the ugly building.”

“Figures. I suppose now I should talk to my parents.”

“I mean, I don’t mean to pry, but you’ve also got quite a few texts from a Maya who seems extremely concerned.”

I let out a long, slow groan.

“Never mind! Sorry. None of my business.”

“No, it’s fine. Just text her that I’m fine, it looked worse than it was. Send the same to my parents, tell them I’m going to Bellevue.”

Two more whooshes.

I shifted slightly on my side. “Whoooooa,” I said, suddenly dizzy again.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t be having you talk so much,” she said as she started pumping up the blood pressure cuff again. “What are you feeling?”

“Just dizzy. Also my mouth feels like it’s packed with dryer lint, I feel a little like I might puke, and I’m suddenly very sweaty. But that might just be being half naked in the back of a truck with a cute paramedic girl.”

“Good lord, they’re going to put you on morphine just to keep you quiet. Your blood pressure is low, but not dangerously. The pain is probably what’s pushing you toward passing out. Do let me know if you’re really thinking about puking, though.”

“It does hurt quite a lot. More when I breathe.”

“Well, don’t stop breathing.”

“I like you, Jessica.”

“I like you too, April May. Now shut up.” She moved around to sit behind me, lifted up the blanket, and placed the cold circle of a stethoscope on the injured side of my back.

After a few seconds she said, “The main concern is that your lung might be punctured, but I’m seeing no signs of that.”

“What would that feel like?”

“I have no idea, no one’s ever stabbed me in the back. Now seriously, be quiet.”

I tried to work up some spit to lick my lips because they felt super dry. My tongue came away tasting sweet, like I’d been wearing grape-flavored lip gloss or something.

“Can I have some water?”

Jessica handed me a bottle, saying, “Go easy on it, you don’t want to start coughing right now.”

New York ambulances can never really go very fast since there’s nowhere for the traffic in front to go. Luckily, you’re always pretty close to a hospital. The weirdest thing about being in the ambulance (aside from being half naked under the blanket and having just been stabbed) was the steadiness of the siren. You hear sirens all the time, but they’re always either coming or going—getting louder or quieter, and pitch-shifted by the Doppler effect. You never just hear a siren steadily for a long time. I guess Jessica and Mitty did, but it was one of those familiar but slightly off things that stuck in my head. That’s what I was thinking about when we took the last turn before we arrived at Bellevue and the siren turned off.

“Can you do me a favor?” I suddenly asked.

“Probably not.”

Moving my arm as little as possible, I carefully reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the flash card. “This is extremely important. Can you take it to the checkin desk or whatever and tell them to hold it for Robin Vree?”

There was a long pause. The ambulance was stopping in front of the ER and I could hear people talking outside. She grabbed it and tucked it into her uniform just as the ambulance doors opened, and she launched into a monologue, directed at the hospital doctors: “Twenty-three-year-old female, shallow stab wound to the left upper back between shoulder blade and spine, third and fourth ribs possibly fractured. No sign of spinal damage or lung puncture. Wound is packed but still bleeding. Blood pressure one twenty over eighty, cap refill good, no sign of internal bleeding . . .” It went on like that for a while. And then pretty immediately I was swooped into the system. X-rays, pain meds, shots, swabs, stitches.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


A lot of people came to my hospital room over the next couple of days. The first (that I remember, at least—I was on pain meds for some of the time) were a couple of guys from the NYPD.

“Ms. May, I’m Officer Barkley, this is Officer Barrett, we need to ask you some questions about your attack.”

“I don’t actually know that much, but I’ll do my best.”

“What were you doing when you were attacked?”

This didn’t seem particularly relevant, but they were police, so I just told the truth. I was there shooting a video about the July 13 attacks and also about the demonstration going on on 23rd. Did I think it was a dangerous thing to do? Yes, but I wanted to do it anyway.

We went through the details of the actual event: the thousand-pound fist of the knife going into me; the body collapsing on me; the weird, disgusting, formless body dead on the ground.