Page 17 of Rock Me

CHAPTER FOUR

Jez

3 months later

I open my eyes. I’m greeted by the same damn sight that’s been greeting me for the last three months. White. Sterile white. Pops of random color from wilting flower bouquets and shit my bandmates leave every time they come and visit. But the rest, is white.

Like germs can’t stick to white fucking paint.

Just paint it white. Microscopic bacteria and viruses are only attracted to dark colors.

Apparently, that’s a thing.

White.

White walls, white shades on the windows, white bed linens, white floor.

White and white and more fucking white.

“I need to get out of here,” I say to the white room. And the white doesn’t respond.

Three months. I’ve been here for three whole months, ever since that car wiped me out on the night of the Grammys.

A broken arm, a shattered wrist, a fractured elbow, three splintered fingers, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, some random blood floating where it shouldn’t inside me and a concussion that went on for what felt like a decade.

I was in bad shape.

I was a comatose list of your body is broken as all out fuck.

Not that I remember much of the first month of it. That part is still kind of hazy. There was a lot of machines beeping and worried faces and people in blue and pink scrubs talking like I wasn’t in the room.

But then the fog lifted, and for the last two months, it’s been me, holed up in this room, while my bones weld back together and my mind is so bored it feels like it’s fracturing.

This room, in this supposedly exclusive hospital, which just means the chairs are padded, the TVs have cable and the nurse don’t give a fuck that you’re a celebrity. And I get seconds of the dessert jello if I ask nicely.

The only thing I can say is, thank god for my boys.

My rowdy, vulgar, bull shitting, annoying as hell, there for me every second of the way bandmates.

So, thank you, God. If you’re listening. Thank you.

Great. Now I’m talking to God. This is not a good sign.

Get me out of here, God. It’s time for me to go home.

There’s a commotion out in the hallway, and then a roar of laughter. I look at the clock, noon, on the dot. It’s time. They’re here.

“Oi, Twatmuffin! What do you call a woman who is paralyzed from the waist down?” Brad shouts at me even before he enters my room.

“What?”

“Married!” Brad cackles, holding his own stomach as he bends over in laughter.

“Why are you laughing? Don’t you have your own wedding coming up soon?” I ask him, and he freezes, mid laughter.

“Eh,” he shrugs, “Emily won’t be like that. She’s got something other women don’t,” he preens, flexing his chest.

“Her very own Pillsbury doughboy?” Sebastian asks, digging his fingers into Brad’s stomach, making him yelp.