The ground shakes underneath me, and I brace against the door of the van, holding myself steady against the vicious onslaught. Another loud crack. A boom. My ears ring against the violent noise, my head rattles and an ache starts to form at the base from the jarring.
A crackle comes from the speakers of the radio, a frantic voice. “Coco, are you there? Can you hear me?” Connor, I would recognize his voice anywhere. I reach for the com and grasp it tightly in my palm, the plastic creaking.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I say, panting against the pain.
“Get back to base, now. NOW!” He screams the last wordand a shiver goes down my spine at the genuine terror I hear in his voice.
“Connor-”
“NOW JERICHO!” This time it’s the commanding officer, his voice tight with tension.
I obey, putting the comm back in its rightful spot and changing the gear to drive. I put my foot on the pedal and ease it into drive. The sun is shining down mockingly, deceptively tricking me into the idea that everything is fine. If it would have been any other day, I might have believed it.
A sense of foreboding floods my body, my adrenaline picks up and my arms break out in goosebumps. The calm before the storm. As I approach camp, I exhale shakily, seeing my destination so close I could reach out through the front windshield and touch it.
Black smoke covers my windshield, blocking out my vision. I slam on the brakes, feeling the force of the brakes working overtime to slow me down. The world around me shrinks down to a pinprick of light barely visible out of my passenger side window before the loudcrackhits me. The blow physically hits the van, and it starts to tip. The passenger wheels coming off the ground while the drivers side stay firmly planted on the ground. I grit my teeth, preparing for impact but nothing could have truly prepared me for the force.
My shoulder collides with the door as the van rights itself. I exhale a deep breath and rush to open my door to get out.
The hot, dusty air coats my lungs and every breath is akin to a thousand needles punching themselves into the organ. My feet meet the dirt and I collapse to the ground as a wave of nausea bubbles in my stomach.
“COCO!” The ground upends under my feet and my body levitates for a minute. A flash of hot pain bursts through my lower body and into my chest and head before my body meets the ground again.
Darkness swims in my vision and all I can feel is pain.
My mind is sluggish as the reality sets in. But it’s too late to fight against the unconsciousness as I slip away.
Two months later
“How does that feel?”The doctor asks me, adjusting the slip on my leg and adjusting the hard plastic at the bottom.
“Fine.” I respond instinctively. It doesn’t actually matter how I feel, it only matters what they want to hear. If I voiced the maniacal ramblings in my head they would have me moved from this room and into a psych unit as soon as humanly possible.
“You can’t answer fine every time I ask you how the prosthetic feels. This is just a temporary one until all of the swelling goes down, but we still want to make sure it fits comfortably and doesn’t irritate your leg any farther.” I glance down at the leg in question, if you could even call it that at this point. The bottom is still red and swollen, and the scars from my stitches will probably never go away.
I don’t say anything, staring at the painting above his left shoulder. The swirls of dark gray and black feel very fitting with the black thoughts currently swimming through my mind.
I wish I wouldn’t have survived. I wish it wasn’t me in the van. I wish. I wish. I wish.
Those thoughts are selfish though, and I’m not typically a selfish person. At least, not usually. This is an exception. I think I’m granted an exception.
“Have you talked to Dr. Mobbs? She mentioned stopping in to see you.” He remarks offhandedly and I tense at the question. Because he and I both know I have not talked to her. And I will not.
“I don’t need someone to try and look in my head and figure out what’s wrong with me.”I’ve already lost a lot, I want to scream at him. Why can’t I mourn the loss of a limb in peace without one of the doctor’s thinking I’m going to off myself at the first chance? Why does every action I do and every thought in my brain need to be analyzed down to a molecular level to see what’s wrong with my psyche?
“That’s not what she’s here for. She just wants to help.”
“And I don’t need it,” I say bitterly.
“I don’t think you do. But you mightwantthe extra help to integrate you back into civilian life when you leave this hospital. You’re going to your parent’s house, right?” I nod, and he continues prodding at the end of my leg and fiddling with the plastic until he smiles to himself and pushes himself up into a standing position.
“Well, this leg will be the first stepping stone into improvement. I’ve sent your file over to Dr. Case and she’ll take over everything else whenever you’re home. In about six months, there will be a conference call and I’ll see you then to discuss more permanent options for a prosthetic. If you have any problems, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.” He steps back, giving me the space to stand on my own from the examination table. I twist my body on the table and hang my legs over the edge. There’s a shoot of pain in my left leg, the missing one, and I flinch. Dr. Wright smiles sadly at me, but doesn’t make a move to help me. I appreciate it, because if he offered to help me off this table, the little bit of pride I have left would be out the window.
I stabilize my good foot on the ground, making sure my shoe is situated before I shift my left hip and maneuver my leg until the shoe around the plastic foot hits the ground. It’s clumsy and not fluid, not like how walking should be. It feels unnatural.
The sock covering the bottom shifts, bunching up slightly and a sharper bite of pain nearly crumples me.
“Wait,” Dr. Wright says. Stepping close to me and guiding me to sit on the edge of the table again. He tugs the top material of the prosthetic back, and then detaches it, and works on righting the sock covering my limb. “I’ll get you a smaller size on order, and that’ll help make sure it doesn’t bunch up at the site.”
