All This Time(53)

28


It’s night by the time I wake up again. The whole day drifted by in an agonizing blur, the medicine barely taking the edge off.

I hear a knock on the door and turn to see Dr. Benefield, strands of her red hair slipping from her loose ponytail after a long day.

“How are you feeling? You slept a long time,” she says as she pulls a chair over to my bed and slides into it, resting her arms on her legs.

“You really doped me up,” I say.

She shrugs and nods. “You were hurting.”

I’m still hurting. Just not the kind of hurt she’s talking about.

I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s pretty late.

“Do you live here or something?”

She snorts. “First few months on a new job, you spend a lot of time at the office.”

My mouth drops open. And she’s the person who operated on my brain? Is that why I’m so fucked up?

“First few months at this hospital.” She smirks, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “I’ve been digging around in people’s brains for a long time now. You’re in good hands.”

She nods to my broken leg, the white sheet outlining the huge cast.

“You have any idea how lucky you are you didn’t reinjure this?”

I turn my eyes to look out the window, not wanting to think about last night.

Besides, I’ve already healed this injury. With Marley. This is insane. How can no one know where she is? Who she is?

“Charts say they’re still going to remove the cast tomorrow, even after that little stunt you pulled. Good news, huh?”

Good news?

I open my mouth to say something, but my words get cut off as thundering footsteps sound from the hallway, quickly approaching my room. Both of us turn our heads as the door almost flies off its hinges and Sam bursts inside.

“Bro, you’re awake! That’s what I’m talking about.” He starts doing his football touchdown dance, grooving around the room, his arms and legs moving to an imaginary beat.

For a moment I remember him crying, placing those tulips on Kimberly’s grave. It’s such a stark contrast. Besides… he’s not even supposed to be here. He should be at UCLA.

He stops mid-hip-thrust when he sees Dr. Benefield and quickly straightens up, clearing his throat. “Oh, uh… I’ll come back.”

“You stay right here, bro,” she says, standing and looking over at me. “We’ll talk more later. Any symptoms and you have one of the nurses call me, got it? Don’t move.”

When I nod, she heads out, closing the door quietly behind her.

He spins around to look at me, absolutely ecstatic. “Dude, this is so—”

“How long have you been in love with Kim?” I ask abruptly, figuring the only way to get the truth is to shock it out of him. His mouth falls open in surprise, which tells me I was right. I couldn’t have just made it all up. I knew it.

He recovers quickly and gives me a skeptical look, pointing to the IV drip next to me. “What kind of drugs are they giving you?”

I stare at him for a long moment, but he still refuses to fess up.

I let it slide and try to smile, pointing to my forehead. “Coma brain. Sorry.”

His shoulders ease, and he plops down in the chair Dr. Benefield was just sitting in. “Dude, you’ve been out for weeks. Where the hell did that come from?” he asks, eyeing me.

I pause. He’s probably going to think I’m crazy, but… everything is already so crazy, what does it matter? I have to be dreaming anyway. I’ll wake up soon and be back with Marley.

“You told me at football one Saturday. After Kim died,” I say, his eyes widening. “In the accident.” His mouth drops open and he starts to speak, but I keep going. “I woke up, Sam. I woke up an entire year ago in this room, and you were here and you didn’t say anything but you were crying and—”

“That’s insane. Kim’s fine—”

“Just listen,” I say, cutting him off.

Then I take the leap and tell him everything. About Kim being gone. About the months lying around wishing I was gone too. Our fight in the park. The tulips. How we realized what we had to do, who we had to be. What we had to let go of.

Mostly, though, I tell him about the girl at the cemetery in that yellow pullover. The girl who saved me. The girl I fell in love with. I tell him about Marley.

He listens as I finish, his face stunned.

After a long, silent moment, he says, “A hallucination? A dream, maybe?”

I start to argue, but he stops me.

“Nothing you just said really happened,” he says. “You were in a coma. I was here. I saw you, dude, and I promise, you didn’t leave this bed.”

I shake my head, my heart pounding loudly in my chest. He’s wrong. “Still feels real,” I say, thinking of Marley. “She feels real.”

He snorts and pulls his phone out. “Easy way to find out,” he says.

Yes. Of course. I sit up, watching as he opens a browser, typing out the letters in Marley’s name and looking up at me expectantly.

“Marley…”

I freeze. Marley…? What’s her last name? I know I know it. I rack my brain, trying to remember a moment when she said it.