Page 90

IV pole.

And suddenly I'm not standing in a rage room in Wyoming anymore.

I’m at the hospital, Damiano’s arm covered in bruises.

A bag of blood hanging beside his bed.

The constant beeping of machines.

His skin burning beneath my hand.

Doctors standing at the end of his bed, speaking in voices that were too calm while my entire world was falling apart.

Sepsis.

Kidneys.

Too weak.

We can't start treatment like this.

I don't realise I've started walking toward the bed until I'm standing in front of it, my fingers wrapped so tightly around the bat they hurt.

Then I swing.

Metal screams when the bat connects with the rail, the vibration shooting painfully through my hands.

I swing again.

Harder.

“Fuck you!” I don't even know who I'm talking to anymore. The bed, the hospital, cancer, God, death. Maybe all of it.

I swing again and again until the sound becomes deafening, then turn on the IV pole and hit that too.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Until the metal bends.

I grab the tray and throw it against the wall, and something inside me tears open with it.

I'm screaming now.

I don't know when I started.

I don't care.

I grab anything that looks medical and throw it, hit it, crush it beneath the bat until the room around me becomes nothing but noise and broken pieces, until I can barely hear the music anymore over the sound of my own breathing.

Then I turn.

The crib.

My body goes still.