The Girl He Used to Know(75)

My brother revisits the theory: that Jonathan is not in the rubble but has instead been transported to a hospital. “He may be injured and unable to communicate,” Will says.

“We went to all the hospitals,” I say.

“You went to them two days ago, when it was utter chaos. Some of those people have died. New patients have been brought in. There’s been a lot of confusion. Let’s check again.”

I agree, because Will’s idea has merit and there’s nothing else for us to do. I’ll be fine as long as we keep moving, keep trying to find Jonathan. “Where do we start?” I ask.

Will smiles. “I’ve always found the beginning to be a good place.”

I smile, too, because the beginning is, indeed, a good place to start, and for the first time in our lives, it seems Will and I are on the exact same page.



* * *



The sheet of paper I pull from my pocket lists the hospitals Janice and I already visited, a check mark next to all fifteen of them. It’s gray from our dirty hands and tattered from being folded repeatedly. I hand it to Will, and he studies it. He turns the paper over and scribbles the names of nearby landmarks and streets, and draws a circle around it and an X to indicate where we are. He adds the names of the hospitals whose locations he already knows and numbers them in the order of the likelihood we’ll find Jonathan there. He points to number one.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s go.”



* * *



My resolve is starting to falter. We’re standing in the hallway of the ninth hospital. My feet ache and I want nothing more than to go back to Janice’s and collapse into bed. But I can’t sleep until we’re done.

“Can we sit down for a minute?” I ask.

“Sure,” Will says. There are no chairs in the hallway, so I slide my back down the wall until my butt hits the hard tile floor. Will does the same.

I don’t even care that at the moment, we’re accomplishing nothing. We’ve been turned down so many times today, and I need a break to recharge.

I want to be strong for Will because he’s been so nice to help me, but I have reached my limit, and the tears slide down my cheeks. Soon, the floodgates open and I’m sobbing. Will puts his arm around me. We can check again at the remaining six hospitals on the list, but if Jona than isn’t in any of them, it’s over. As soon as they lift the travel ban, I’ll fly home.

A nurse pokes her head out of a room at the end of the hall and walks toward us. “What did you say he looked like?”

I scramble to my feet on shaky legs. Will stands up, too. “He has dark brown hair. Blue eyes. A couple inches over six feet. He has a scar on his knee from a torn ACL.”

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Wait here,” she said.

I forget how to breathe. I tell myself not to get my hopes up, but they soar anyway. Will reaches for my hand and we stand there like that until the nurse returns and says, “Come with me.”

We follow her down the hallway and onto an elevator. I’m afraid to open my mouth, because the words are right there, waiting to tumble out in a frenzy of “Where are we going, what are we doing, do you think it’s him?”

The door opens two floors below, and we follow the nurse out of the elevator. “One of my friends works in intensive care on this floor. She mentioned a John Doe they’re keeping under sedation for breathing difficulty and pain and that a few people have come to check his identity, but so far there hasn’t been a match. She said he has dark hair. He matches the height and age. No clue about his eyes because they’re closed. I can only let one of you in at a time.”

“Go, Annika,” Will says when we reach the doorway of the patient’s room. “I’ll be waiting right here.”

Once we’re inside the room, I hesitate because whoever this is, he’s in rough shape. Medical equipment surrounds the bed; a cacophony of whooshes and beeps. The antiseptic smell seeps into my nose, reminding me of my own hospital stay years ago, and I gasp for fresh air. That only makes it worse, because there is none.

In the dim light of the room, I can make out the shape of a man. I don’t think it’s Jonathan, because the hair looks wrong—dull and gray instead of dark brown—but the nurse motions for me to approach the bed. She’s been so nice, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful or cowardly, so I do it.

This man has been gravely injured. The hair looks wrong because it’s coated in ash and concrete dust, but underneath it I can see that the color is, in fact, a deep dark brown. It’s also dotted with dried blood. He’s on a ventilator, the tube down his throat held in place by some sort of white adhesive tape.

I look closely, feeling a glimmer of hope as I mentally catalogue the planes and angles of Jonathan’s face, and I try to identify them under the bruises and the blood and the dirt. I don’t want to touch him because it would surely bring him pain, but I trace those planes and angles, my finger hovering inches above his skin. Jonathan’s face is like a Polaroid picture that slowly develops into something recognizable right before my eyes.

It’s him. I know it’s him.

Lastly, I lift the sheet and cry harder when I see the scar on his left knee. It’s also apparent that his legs and maybe his pelvis are badly broken.