When We Collided(67)

I am bleak, and the sky is incongruously blue. If the weather walked into my hospital room, I’d slap her face and demand, How dare you?

I don’t know what day of the week it is. Maybe Saturday. Maybe it is someone’s wedding day and every person there is remarking: We couldn’t have asked for better weather! and How about this gorgeous day, eh? How nice for them.

But I feel betrayed. The universe usually understands me better. I need drippy rain; I need hurricane wind to rattle the windowpanes. I need gray skies and white snow, mucked over and melty from car exhaust.

Outside, it’s hot, hazy, eye-shielding summer. Inside me, it is parched earth and desolation, and nothing will ever rebloom.

Sleep now. Gone. My short-circuiting brain and me.



My mom is looking right into my eyes. It’s dark in the room now.

“Hey, chickie,” she says, squeezing my hand.

“Hey.”

A tear drops down her cheek. “I’m so happy to see you. We’re so lucky you’re okay.”

“How long have I been here?” My voice sounds like a scratched-up record.

“A little more than forty-eight hours. You had surgery, and you’ve been heavily sedated since then. The doctors eased up on that a few hours ago to see how you do.”

I press my palm against my face. I’m not sure why that’s my first instinct—I had a helmet on, right? There’s a splintering pain in my shoulder. A sling cradles the cast on my arm. “What did I have surgery on?”

“Your humerus. You also have two broken ribs and a lot of wounds up your left side, and they had to be irrigated. You’re on a lot of pain medicine, but it might still hurt.”

“It does,” I whisper. I look down at my hospital gown and wonder what my skin looks like under there, mottled and forming scabs. I tug at the hospital sheet to see my legs. I want to know that they’re okay. The side of my left leg is covered in gauzy bandages. Only a few little spots are uncovered, little pellets of wounds like someone shot me with a gun full of gravel. “God.”

Craning my head down, I can see more gauze peeking out, over my collarbone. “And here?”

“Stitches, baby. Probably from a piece of rock on the road that you landed on. I’m sorry.” She tightens her grip on my hand. “I’m so sorry. Do you remember what happened?”

I remember everything that happened, but not as if it was me in those memories. I remember everything like it’s a movie—something I watched as an outsider. I remember what I did and what I thought, but the logic behind it all? I could never even begin to explain, so I just nod.

“Are you mad at me?” I whisper to my mom.

“No, baby. No, of course I’m not mad at you.”

“But I lied to you. I lied to your face. I stopped taking my pills.” The dull ache in my shoulder and the fuzzed-over feeling in my brain . . . I deserve them. I lied to my own mother, who tries so hard to trust me.

“It’s okay, chickie. It’s all right.”

“Am I . . .” I glance at the IV. “Am I on medicine?”

“Painkillers and a few things to hopefully make you . . . steadier.”

That explains why I can be still—like, I have to be still. Even in pain, even sluggish, it’s a bit of a relief.

“Mom.” My voice creaks, but the tears won’t come out. The medicine in my veins has dried them up. Still, my breathing sounds like sobbing as I get out the words, a desperate whisper. “What . . . if this . . . ruins . . . my life?”

“No,” she whispers back. Her tone is fierce, eyes unblinking. “This is going to ruin a few days. It might make some weeks harder. A few hard weeks in a great, big life. You can do that. We can do that. Look at Uncle Mitch. He has really tough days, but his life is so great that we’re jealous of it!”

My little sob noise almost becomes a laugh. My uncle has severe anxiety. And a sweet little apartment in San Francisco and my cousin Pip and these great friends whose laughs sound like a big, cacophonous symphony together. My mom and I lived with Mitch for a short while when I was little. I used to fight to stay awake so I could hear the group of adults laughing around the kitchen table. Mitch has his work at the museum; he has Golden Gate Park runs and wonderful food. He has medication and therapy. He’s had some hard weeks in a great, big life.

“How much longer do I have to be in here?”

She presses down on her lips, so I know this isn’t going to be good news. “Not too much longer. They want to keep you under observation.”

“Oh my God.” My eyes flick all over the place. “Could I die?”

“No, no, no,” she says, shushing me. “It’s just . . . it wasn’t clear if you crashed your scooter or if you . . . jumped off, trying to . . . hurt yourself.”

Now it’s my turn to flood my eyes with tears. I can barely get the words out. “I wasn’t. Mom, I swear.”

“I believe you, baby. It’s just that you have a . . . history.”

That scar is now covered by a cast, the scar that runs down my left wrist like a scarlet S. But I was not trying to kill myself—I really hadn’t thought that far ahead—and I don’t know how many goddamn times I have to explain this. I didn’t want to die. I was just trying to feel something. It turns out feeling a cold blade slice into your flesh and then warm blood slopping onto the floor is actually infinitely worse than feeling nothing.