I try to turn my head and can’t. There’s a collar around my neck, hard plastic, locked tight, holding my head in place. It digs into the base of my skull when I try to move. I can’t look left or right.
I’m staring straight up at a ceiling I don’t recognize. The only thing I can move is my hands.
I hear breathing that isn’t mine. Close. To my left. A chair creaking under too much weight. Then the sound of someone leaning forward, and a shape moves into the edge of my vision, a big shape, filling the space above me. I know who it is because I’ve known the sound of Tex’s heavy breathing since we were kids.
His face appears over mine. He’s leaning in so I can see him.
I’ve never seen this look on his face. When you’ve known someone since seventh grade, you’ve seen every version of their face. I’ve seen Tex happy, angry, drunk, heartbroken, asleep on my couch with Cheeto dust on his shirt. I’ve seen him in love with Stormy and I’ve seen him hold a man by the throat in a parking lot without blinking.
This face is what happens when what he’s most afraid of actually happens.
“Hey,” I say. My voice sounds like it’s been scraped over gravel.
“Hey.” His voice is steady, but he’s gripping my hospital bed rails tightly.
“You look terrible,” I say.
“You should see the other guy,” Tex says.
“Which one?”
“The one with the gun. He’s got a jaw held together with wire right now. He’ll be eating through a straw for a long fucking time.”
“I’m glad. How long have I been out?”
“About five hours. Surgery took three. You’ve been in recovery since. You’re in a room now.”
“Surgery.” I repeat the word. “What happened?”
I remember pieces of it. The hallway. The sound of my own voice saying “Everybody on the ground.” The car show guys on the floor. A hand sliding inside a jacket. And then a quick step to the left. A man on the floor behind me that needed to be protected.
Blue-gray eyes.
I remember his eyes. On the floor, looking up at me through blood and tears. A torn shirt. Blonde hair dark with sweat. A face that even bloody and broken was...
The drugs won’t let me hold the thought.
“You were shot,” Tex says. “At the bar. One of the car show guys had a gun in his jacket pocket. It went off.”
“The bullet,” I say. “Where did it hit?”
“Lower back. Left side. Above the hip. They got it out. Missed the organs.”
“What else?”
Tex looks at me. We’ve been having conversations without talking for twenty years and this one is the worst one. He’s deciding what to say and what to hold back. Trying to decide how much truth I can handle right now with the fog and the IV and what we both already know because I’ve been lying here trying to move my feet and they won’t move.
“There’s swelling,” he says carefully. “Around the spinal cord. The bullet passed close. Didn’t sever anything butthere’s swelling and until it goes down, they can’t tell what’s temporary and what’s not.”
“I can’t feel my legs, Tex.”
Saying it out loud makes it real.
Tex doesn’t flinch or glance away. He holds my eyes and every ounce of what that’s doing to him is right there on his face.
“I know,” he says. “The doctors said that could be the swelling. They said when it goes down, the feeling could come back. There’s no way to know until the swelling goes down.”
“Could come back,” I say. “Could means maybe. Could is what I say to a victim’s family when I don’t want to say what I actually think.”
