No Air
Artie's Point Of View
****************************************Chapter 7****************************************
"Hey mom?" I ask turning from the window to face my mom as we drive down the highway away from Grandma's house. "Can I get a big bar of candy?" I don't want the little one because the little ones are for babies. I'm old enough to know that I have rights to a big bar of candy.
"Honey," my mom says smiling, "of course you ca-" but her words are cut short by the sound of her scream, crunching metal, shattering of glass, horns blaring, and tires screeching. My world is thrown into a whirlwind. It felts like it is flipping over and crashing in on its self.
I can feel my bones breaking and everything is in slow motion. I can feel the exact moment where the arm breaks and not soon after I feel my leg bend the opposite direction. It's about 30 seconds later that the pain radiating from my leg is replaced by pain in my lower back that fells like someone is stabbing me. After that, my leg doesn't even bother me at all.
"Mom?" I try to choke out but my voice gets caught in my throat. "Mom?" I start to cry but I don't want to. Big boys don't cry. I'm scared and I have every right to be. "MOM!" I scream but suddenly, like it was too much for me to do I feel my head beginning to throb.
Suddenly everything stops. Every sound, every smell, every feeling, there's nothing.
I open my eyes with a start, but what I see instead of a doctor's face is Tina's. I'm confused because I clearly remember, after opening my eyes for the first time after the accident, the first thing I saw was a doctor's face.
"It's okay, Artie, it's just me," Tina says. She doesn't sound that scared but I can tell that she is trying to hide it. I'm trying to figure out where I am. I know that I am in a hospital but after the accident it was a doctor not Tina. I didn't even know Tina back then. Suddenly I realize it was a nightmare, nothing more than that.
"Tee?" I ask but it comes out more like a sigh.
"Yeah, Artie, it's me," she says and I can tell that she is really happy. "Are you okay?"
I immediately back peddle. Tina can't know. She just can't! I already seem weak to her, like I can't take care of myself and this, this will only prove that more to her. I'm on my side so that I don't have to face her but it is kind of pointless because with legs don't follow and my stitches don't allow me to turn my torso that far, I can't really move. "Yeah, I'm fine," I say hiding my face in the nook of my arm.
It's about a minute before I feel Tina's hand on my arm. "Artie, what's the matter?" She asks quietly.
"Nothing," I say still a little to blank for my liking. "It was just a bad dream. It's nothing."
"Why are you pushing me away?" Tina asks hurt. It's hard to try and cover something like that up.
That hits me hard. It's not that I want to push her away, it's just I don't want her to see me like a cripple. It's hard enough that I can't even get up and walk around the hospital with her but now she sees me as helpless. I shudder and I can feel my breath catching.
"Artie," Tina says softly touching my arm again. I don't want to push her away. I put my hand over hers.
"The accident," I whisper like it's a sin to say that word. "It was the accident – the one that…" I trail off not willing to accept that fact, and unable to say the word. "I'm okay, it just – hurts to remember."
Tina lies down along my back and gently wraps her arm over my chest while she puts her chin into the curve of my neck. I relax a little and I pull her a bit closer not wanting her to disappear.
"It hurt," I say forgoing my pride. "A lot." It's funny how I've never talked about it before. Even when I went to a therapist while in the hospital, somehow I always managed to get out of talking about the actual accident. "I don't really remember a lot of it. One minute everything was normal, I was turned to talk to my mom, and then she screamed. After that it was just a lot of pain. I felt my back getting cut up and then I couldn't feel anything except the cuts on my arms and face."
I take a breath to steady myself then I tighten my grip on her hand, knowing this is what she wanted to hear. "In my dreams, everything is slow motion," I whisper. "It takes a lot longer for the pain to start going away. And I can feel the break, even though I'm pretty sure I didn't really feel it when it happened."
"The scars on your back?" Tina asks quietly and I tense. Even after the accident, when my parents would help me shower and get dressed, I would make them promise that they wouldn't look at them. Now that I think about it, the only ones who have seen them are a couple doctors, a nurse, and myself. "That's where they're from?"
Just hearing the word scars makes be think about them. There are I don't know how many, all running across my lower back. They're lighter than the rest of my skin tone and slightly risen so when I run my hand over them, it reminds me of Braille.
"Sir, when the other car came in contact with yours, your son's body came out of the upper portion of his seatbelt. The rolling of the car caused his spine to be pulled and misaligned. His has three broken vertebrae in his lower back." I can tell that whoever is talking is a doctor. He used a lot of big words.
My dad's breath caught in his throat.
"Depending on how well the surgeries go, and the extent of the damage will decide if he will ever walk again." The doctor says.
"Who many surgeries will he need?" my dad asks.
"It all depends. It could be just one or there could be numerous more. It all depends on the amount of damage to his spine and the vertebrae."
I want to cry but I can't. The tears just don't come and there is nothing I can do.
"When will you do the first surgery? He has already been here for a week."
"When he arrived we did a surgery to fix his arm and leg and also put in a chest tube to help remove the blood from his lungs and help him breath. We had to wait until his body recovered enough from that operation before we were able to continue. Judging from how well he has progressed so far, I can safely say that we will be able to do the first surgery by the end of the week."
"I just want my son back." My dad says his voice even more pained than before and I can just imagine him crying. "I just want him back."
I nod. "The accident, and the surgeries." I pause. I don't want to think about it anymore. "I'm okay," I say suddenly. I smile a bit. "Really, I am. The dreams, they just don't come back much anymore and when they do it feels like they sneak up when I'm not expecting it. But I am okay."
"You sure?" Tina asks obviously worried.
I smile. "Yeah," I say and squeeze her hand comfortingly. "It's just being in this place again. But I'm okay now."
"Okay," she says and I know she can tell that I don't want to talk about it anymore.
I turn my head to look at Tina and I smile again. "Thanks for listening."
"No problem."
I begin to play with the thing that is in my hand. I don't want to use it but I really have no other choice. After turning away from her my chest really hurts. I push it into Tina's hand and I see the realization on her face.
"Tee, can you do it? I can't," I say and Tina nods then pushed down on the morphine button. I watch her hand making sure that she does. After a little while I can feel the effects kicking in. I start to relax and Tina moves so I can lie on my back again. I keep hold of her arm and she moves in closer to me. I wrap my arms around her back and she lays her head down on my chest, careful of the stitches.
"G'night, Tee," I sigh quietly.
"Night, Artie."