“Stevie.” The doctor pulls my attention back to her face.“You’ve been in a bad accident…” is all I hear her say, before the sound goes out.
An accident?
I look to the side at my mom, then notice my dad next to her, one big hand clamped onto her shoulder, the other one covering his mouth.How could I have been in a car accident?I inspect my parents again. They look fine.
“Stevie. Stevie, can you hear me? Do you remember my name?” a voice says from my left.
I blink hard, looking up again at the lady in a white coat next to me.
“Mary. Margie… MarrrrrrrRRRR,” I groan as a searing pain cuts through the back of my head.
“Is she okay?” my dad asks, worry filling his deep voice. I turn my head into the pillow, squeezing my eyes shut until the fog of pain clears enough for me to open them.
“Stevie. Can you hear me?” the woman asks again. I look up at her, and she continues. “My name is Maggie,” she says in the same calm tone of voice.
Maggie. Right.“You’ve been in an accident. Do you know what happened to you?” she asks. I just squint at her in reply, my eyelids feeling heavy. “You fell, and you hit your head. You’ve been in an induced coma for the past two weeks, healing.”
What the hell? A coma? No. That doesn’t make any sense. I was just with Savannah and Rory—
“Stevie, I’m going to do a few tests. Is that okay?” She takes a pen-shaped tool out of her pocket and holds it up for me to see. When I don’t answer, she moves closer, leaning over me.
She drags it over my arms, my stomach, and down my legs,across the bottoms of my feet, asking me again and again, “Can you feel this?”
I nod, tracking a light pressure running up and down my body.
“What about this?” She runs her fingers down my cheeks, across my forehead. I nod again, feeling frozen in place, like a slab of meat on a cutting board, being poked and prodded. I just want her to take her hands off me.
She sits down beside me on the bed and clicks the end of her pen. A bright white light moves in front of my eyes, making me squeeze them shut.
“Can you tell me your name?” she asks.Of course I know my name. I clear my hoarse throat and suck my lips into my mouth, trying to get everything to work right as my head aches.
“Stevie,” I finally get out. I lick my lips. “Stevie Green.”
“What’s your address?”
“Two fifty-four Fairfield Road.”
She looks over at my parents, who both nod.
“Good. How old are you?” she asks.
“Uh—uh…,” I stutter. The ache in my head grows and what should be an easy answer eludes me.
“Stevie?” She looks at me expectantly, her eyebrows arched. I trace the outline of her gold-framed glasses, the sharp, downward turn of her nose, just like my grandma’s.
“I’m…” I rack my brain for the answer, but all I can pull up are flashes of yellow brick and rows of maroon lockers.Central Catholic.“High school…,” I mutter more to myself than to her, everything feeling foggy.
“What’s that?” She leans closer to me.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I can’t think right now.”
Worry flickers across her face, but it’s gone as fast as it came. “Okay.” She clicks her pen off and slips it back into her jacket pocket.
“Okay?”my dad shouts, upset. I try to turn my head to look up at him, but I’m so tired.“How is that okay?”
“Her brain has undergone a major trauma. This isn’t abnormal. Sometimes it just takes some time. We need to be patient with her.”
Why is he acting like that? What does she mean? I just need a second…
