Trigger warnings in this chapter include discussions of physical and sexual assault however, no graphic depictions.
Chapter 28 – What to Do When You Are Dead
Rachel P.O.V.
My first thought after being separated from my mother and sister is to concentrate very hard on where I am going so that when it comes down to it, I will be able to find my way back.
We take turns that we hadn't when I was here earlier. It's hard to follow them laying down. Sometimes, I have to concentrate very hard on breathing and I miss a turn entirely while my vision is still swimming.
It takes forever, at least I think it does, but eventually, we turn inside of a room that is several shades darker than the hallway. The lights are dim in here. Everything moves slower yet faster at the same time.
There is a lot of yelling and orders and people scrambling for a direction. Here, people talk about me without ever actually talking to me. It is a strange feeling, being scrutinized so carefully yet never being spoken to once.
While being the center of attention has always been a dream of mine, this isn't exactly what I had in mind.
Hands start to reach out and grab me unexpectedly. One has me by the shoulders, another by the ankles. I am lifted into the air as though I were made out of paper. Their hold on me makes me feel constricted. My brain channels inward to a pin-point vortex of panic. If I couldn't breathe before, I certainly can't now.
"Rachel…" I hear my name, sharp against Andrew's tongue. His voice is deep and raspy and as it gets closer, I can feel a hand sliding deeper and deeper into the front of my pants. "Relax."
"Rachel, you have to relax."
I snap back into reality with an unproductive gasp that brings no relief. I am not on the stretcher the paramedics carried me in here on anymore. Instead, I am laying against a hard bed, staring straight up at a blinding light. Around the glow, I see only silhouettes. A hundred people drift into and out of my vision in quick bursts, shifting with the tide.
I can't see their faces, but I can feel their stares. They're starting to make me uncomfortable, so I settle to concentrate on the light. I focus on the center beam illuminating around me like an eyeball. It is a welcome relief to be stared at so scrupulously by something that can't possibly pass judgement.
A faceless voice above me wills me to calm down. I try desperately to listen. I lay here and try to beg my solid lungs – the firm foundation of everything I have ever lived for – to hold on for the sake of the rest of my body. I beg them not to fail me now, not after everything they have ever done for me, but every time I try to take a breath, I barely get anything in and the feeling of suffocating is disempowering.
"Don't let me die," I plead with my own body.
"Rachel, you're not going to die." Somebody promises me from above. I hadn't even realized I spoke out lout. "I need you to focus for a minute, honey, can you do that for me? Can you tell me what's hurting?"
My eyes shift away from the light. A single woman hovers above me, closer than the rest. Her familiar face comes slowly into focus. I try to tell myself that this is a comfort.
"My… My…" I try to manage the words but can't find the breath. Instead, I settle to lift my hand and rest it against my chest, which is hot and swollen and feels like it is going to explode any minute.
"Chest?" she questions. I manage a nod.
"Ribs."
"Okay, I'm just gonna take a look." I hear the distinct tearing of fabric before I feel the cool air against my bare skin as my clothes are sheared off my body.
"No," I fight the intrusion, but my protest is weak.
"Rachel, you're okay," I hear the promise swim inside of my ears. "You're safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you. I need you to try your hardest to calm down. Concentrate on your breathing."
I try desperately to follow her advice, but I feel captured, like I am being buried alive. What are you supposed to do when you're trapped? I can wait for somebody to rescue me, although I doubt they'd make it in time, or I can dig myself out.
"No, please," I ignore the pleas to relax. Andrew told me to relax and he had hurt me. He had pulled away my clothing just like they are here. Vulnerable and naked, I have no choice but to fight.
My pleas fall on deaf ears. It used to be that I was brave. It used to be that I was strong and independent. It used to be that I would fight back and people would listen. I used to matter. Now, I am a specimen. Microscopic. Humiliation pours gasoline over the flames of my desperation.
"I don't want this. Please, I don't need it."
"Jesus Christ…"
My protest fades to silence, drowned by a background murmur of surprise. It is an utterance that slips between the lips of somebody who can't bite their tongue fast enough. I don't blame whoever it was.
The chaotic nature of the room seems to freeze with the exposure of my mangled, battered body. I can't see it, but I know what they're looking at. Marks in various stages of healing represent every color of the rainbow along my torso. There is the deep purple of fresh bruises, the dying-grass-green of older ones. Red scars of all different shapes and sizes, licking lengthwise across my body like train tracks.
In three seconds, they expose a secret I have been hiding for three weeks. Nobody knew how bad it really was, not even Santana. Now everybody would know. Then what?
"Rachel how long have these been here?" I feel the stretch of latex as a set of gloved hands presses gently around my lower obliques. I can't see but I know that she is outlining the pink, raised welts that wrap in a series of thin lines all along my left side.
"I don't know," I lie pathetically. My throat is so dry. It feels like I had just swallowed a furry animal. I am overwhelmed with the urge to cough, but my chest hurts so badly, I can't even breathe without it hurting. To risk a cough sounds nothing short of suicide.
Rendered mute by my injuries, I shake my head and seal my eyes shut tight and my lips even tighter. I continue to protect all the answers that have been stuck for too long at the base of my throat to ever possibly understand how to reach for freedom now.
My secrets are exposed. I am not stupid enough not to believe this, but there comes a point where it is not quite as simple as talking, even if that is all I want to do. As an aspiring actress, I have long since learned that sometimes, it is hard to pull yourself out of a role once you have already started playing the part.
"How about these, Rachel?" Her hand slides to my hip, brushing across the scabbing burn marks stretched tight in a lattice framework across my skin. They come to a rest right at my naval, four circular cigarette burns as angry and red as they had been on the day I received them. "These look like pretty bad burns. Can you tell me where they came from?"
I have no means for cover. There is a stick of adhesive glue against my bare chest. Moments later, a relentless beeping mimics the racing tempo of my own heart, revealing the last of my secrets to the world.
"N-nothing," I gasp through a forced breath. I still can't breathe. Why won't they do anything about that?
The room seems to be glowing brighter. The light is starting to make my head pound. My chest feels seconds away from explosion.
The walls start to cave in around me. I can physically see them press inward from as far back as the eye can see. It seems unlikely that I will ever be able to breathe easy again.
"I want to… go home…" I twist violently and suddenly. I need to get free; free from all these tubes and wires restraining me, free from all of these people claiming they are trying to save me even though I am well beyond saving, free from these walls which are starting to feel more like a prison than a hospital.
I regret moving so violently the moment a colossal explosion erupts inside of my chest. I feel something pulling from the inside and a nuclear blast goes off behind my eyes. My head spins. My vision grows hazy around the edges and for a second, I am welcome to the idea of losing consciousness.
"Rachel, you need to keep still."
My vision starts to return to me as a group of people hold me down. I feel at least four pairs of hands although I am so small, and they are so big, it probably only would have taken one.
Nobody is telling me the truth. Instead, they stare at me and tell me to sit still like I am a child. Meanwhile, I still can't breathe. Am I dying? Is that why they're not even bothering.
"Moving around is only going to aggravate your injuries more, Rachel. You need to stay here. You're hurt. We can help you. Let us help you."
I wonder if she is aware of just how much she is asking of me. The weight of her pity feels like a heavy rain.
I sniffle so loudly that it gets caught inside of my chest, ringing in another lurch of pain. Tears spring to my eyes. I hate being seen like this. I hate being like this.
"Dr. Medina, she has no breath sounds on the left side. She's tachycardic and her pressure is falling. She's also running a low-grade fever. 38 degrees." The nurse running my vitals doesn't even bother lowering her voice. It is like I am an inanimate object, a boulder in the middle of the road.
I am no doctor, but I am not an idiot either. People thing that I am. The kids in my class, and even some of my teachers think I am a hopeless moron. Historically, I had been a straight-A student. I had brought home one B in my entire life and in my defense, that was in gym class. These days, I struggle to find middle ground. I haven't been any better than a C average since moving to Lima. But I am not an idiot. I had paid enough attention in my broken down, middle school anatomy class last year to understand that up until this point, my ribs have been held together by the biological equivalent of Scotch tape and used chewing gum. I am smart enough to realize that those temporary reparations have finally given way. Like a ratty old car, you ignore the problem long enough and its only a matter of time until you're stranded on the side of the road.
"Alright, quiet. Everybody be quiet!" The voice is loud and commanding enough that it dangles high in the air. On command, the room silences. Even the machines around me seem to quiet down. I stiffen. I don't know if I am included in that order but elect to fall silent anyway.
I feel the cool compress of a stethoscope against my bare chest and submit to a shudder despite myself. Being here, it is like living in one of those full-body X-Ray machines at the airports, the ones that people are always complaining about out of fear of the wandering eyes of strangers behind a screen. I used to feel relatively indifferent to the topic. Now, I am starting to understand where all those people complaining are coming from.
"Her left lung is collapsed. There is a lot of blood in there. Somebody call upstairs for a CT." The commands are sharp. Even I pick up on every word. "She's got pleuritis in the right lung, too. It's going to have to be drained."
A nurse nods her head and detaches herself form the rest of the group. I follow her with blurred vision. Her body moves, fluid as a wave as she approaches the telephone connected to the wall by a coiled, white cord. I have never seen a telephone like that before in real life, only in the movies.
"I want my mom."
For some reason, the image of this stupid phone sets me off. Tears spring to my eyes and I start to blubber like an imbecile. For wanting to be treated like an adult, I sure as hell am acting like a child.
"Please, I want my mom or my sister," I choke on the dryness of my own words, the lack of oxygen inside of my chest. I force myself to speak. This is worth fighting for.
Why hadn't I just told my mother when I had the chance? All of this could have been so easily avoided if only I spoke up on that very first day. Now, my mother and sister will have to hear about what happened to me from the mouths of total strangers. What will they think of me then?
"Set up for a chest tube, we need to get the blood out of her chest."
The doctor raises herself tall. I wonder if she had even heard me. I can't seem to suck in enough air to make my voice go any louder. The oxygen mask certainly isn't helping.
I feel my eyes bulge fearfully at her order. This time, when the air I am breathing gets stuck in my throat. It doesn't even reach my lungs, not that it would do much good there.
I gasp blindly on nothing. I am a fish out of water. My head begins to spin, my eyes water. I feel the same way I had felt every time Andrew had shoved a fist into my stomach or a boot to my ribs. These people are not helping me. They are only making it worse.
"No!" I force myself to be heard this time. "I'm fine. Please, I'm fine. I just want to go home."
"Rachel, you're not fine." I squeeze my eyes shut and attempt to drown out her voice. Why can't she just believe me? Why can't she just move on? Everybody else does, so what makes her so different? "Your ribs are hurt pretty badly. There is a lot of swelling inside of your chest that sounds like it has been there for quite some time. That swelling is causing your lungs to fill with fluid and when that fluid sits in there for too long, it gets infected. You're running a small fever today, which is why I think that is the case with you. On top of that, you're left lung is collapsed, which is a big reason why you can't breathe. You have a lot of broken ribs, Rachel. Sometimes, pieces of those ribs hit the lung and cause it to fill with air and blood."
I crack open my eyes, evaluating the doctor's intentions carefully. I don't want to be here, but at the same time, that sounds serious. I never considered that the injuries I had sustained from Andrew might be able to kill me, but that certainly sounds like what the doctor is saying.
"W-what will happen if you don't?" I ask despite myself. I sound like a child again and I hate that.
"You're at a very high risk for developing pneumonia," the doctor tells me with a brutal honesty. "With your left lung collapsed, your right is doing all of the work. Unfortunately, your right lung is damaged as well. The pressure of over-working it combined with an increasing build-up of fluids can make your right lung collapse as well. If that is the case, you will have nothing to fall back on. It can cause irreparable damage to your heart, your kidneys, it will lead to asphyxiation… I don't want to scare you, Rachel, but right now, this is not a problem that is so big we can't fix it. We can reverse this right now. If we do not fix it soon however, it will be too late, and you could die."
"Will it hurt?" I swallow. I am not sure I want the answer.
"We're going to give you some medicine so that you don't feel it," the doctor shakes her head. "When you wake up, you will have a tube right here." I feel her gloved hand press slightly into my side between two of my ribs and resist the urge to flinch. "The tube will sit in the space between your lungs and your chest wall for as long as you need it. When your lungs are healed, we can take it out. Okay?"
I nod despite my better judgment. This seems to be all of the confirmation that Dr. Medina needs.
"Start her on a morphine drip," I hear her whisper to the nurse beside her. "Use a peds dosage. There's no way she weighs more than fifty kilograms."
"No drugs," I beg quietly. I don't want to be sedated. I don't want to be rendered vulnerable in a room full of strangers where they would be left able to poke me and prod me and put tubes in my chest without anybody to defend me.
I am breathing fast and shallow. The colorful spots start to blink inside of my eyes again. There is a convincing voice already whispering in the back of my head just to give in and pass out already.
"It's okay, Rachel," the doctor tells me.
The world speeds up and slows down at random intervals, making it impossible for me to keep up. There is a strange buzzing in my ears, like a bomb had gone off right next to me. This time when I try to speak, nothing happens.
I feel the slip of a needle as it slides into a thick vein along the back of my hand. Moments later, there is a rush of warmth like I am being swaddled by the warmest, thickest blanket in the world. My muscles relax. My chest expands and contracts, but my lungs feel like clouds. They are soaking in water like a sponge. For the first time all day, this doesn't bother me. Suddenly, I am having a hard time remembering why it is so important for me to fight, or even to care.
Everything around me looks blurry like I am watching the world through a dirty camera lens. My eyes are wide, but they stare at nothing. I allow them to lose focus and wait to pass out.
My chest feels heavy, but it doesn't hurt anymore. Through the buzz inside of my ears, I imagine that I can hear the gentle hiss of air and blood trickling inside of my lungs where it isn't supposed to be.
Asphyxiation. That is the word my doctor had used. I know what it means. It had been a vocabulary word on a quiz I had in early October, before the word was even relevant to my life. To cause to die or lose consciousness by impairing normal breathing as by gas or other noxious agents; to choke, suffocate, smother, drown. That's what it meant. I realize now how on target that definition is.
This time when I close my eyes, I don't even bother trying to get them open again.
When my eyes flicker open again, the first thing I notice is that the room is much calmer than it had been the last time I remember it.
I have no idea how long I have been asleep for. Situational awareness tells me that it couldn't have been too long because I am in the same place I had been in before. At the same time, it had to have been some substantial chunk of time, because there is nobody hanging over me as they had been before. In fact, I don't see anyone at all.
Try as I might, I can't seem to remember anything that may have lead me to this moment. I remember being at home. I remember Andrew knocking at the front door. The rest is – what's the word I'm looking for? – fuzzy.
There is a warm feeling burrowing inside of my veins. Pain meds. Why do those sound familiar?
I am flat against my back. I don't have so much as a pillow to prop me up. Aside from being very uncomfortable, I am also struggling to evaluate my surroundings from this angle. I attempt to shift, to prop myself up, but I barely make it a couple of inches before a painful tugging in between my ribs pulls me right back down again.
"Careful."
The second that I fall back against the mattress, a warning floats above me. The voice is distantly familiar, and it is definitely female, but my brain is too clouded to place it. I am hoping for Santana or at the very least, my mother, but as I slowly gain more control over my senses, I realize that it is neither. It is my doctor.
Doctor.
The word seems to jog my memory. That is where I am. I'm in a hospital.
"You've got a chest tube in your side, Rachel," the doctor explains slowly. "You may feel a little groggy for a while from the drugs, but the tube is clearing some of the air and blood from your lung. You should be breathing a lot better now."
Subconsciously, I take a deep breath, testing that promise. Breathing too deep or too sharply still makes my ribs quiver painfully, but this is not lungs filling up with air and blood pain as much as it is broken rib pain and I realize now that there is a difference.
"How long was I asleep for?"
"About forty-five minutes," the doctor tells me. Her voice is casual, like this is nothing, but to me, that is forty-five minutes of my life that I will never get back. It feels like much more of a loss than what I know it actually is. "You did very well, Rachel. There were no complications."
Of course I did well, I think to myself. All I had to do was lie here.
I keep my comment to myself and bend slightly at the waist trying to evaluate how well I am truly doing for myself. The first thing I notice is that somebody had the decency to cover my otherwise naked body with a pale yellow hospital Johnny covered in outlines of… are those dinosaurs?
"Really?" I look up at the doctor. This experience is already humiliating enough.
"I'm sorry, Rachel," she frowns. "The smallest adult size we had was still too big on you. We had to pull from our pediatric stores. We'll see what we can do for you when you get moved upstairs to a more permanent room."
I am not pleased with the idea but recognize a fight not worth having. Instead, I concentrate and try to focus on the task at hand. I try to lift the fingers of my left hand, but for the first time notice that somebody has put a splint around it. I have a flashback to Andrew stepping hard on it. I cringe, remembering the feeling of the bones snapping underneath his boot.
I settle to use my right hand. Reaching over, I graze underneath the thin edges of the cloth gown designed for children no older than ten. Groping blindly, I find the tube in my side. A thick layer of gauze protects it, but the tube itself is no wider than my thumb. I try to follow it, to see where it leads to, but I see nothing.
"When can you take it out?" I groan, falling back down onto the bed.
"When we're confident that your body is strong enough to sustain your lungs on its own," she tells me, which is not much of an answer at all. "We took nearly a liter of fluid out of your right lung today, Rachel. Your left is going to take some time to remove all of the blood and the air. Your body is also fighting an infection, which means it has to work much harder than normal. This tube will take that load off your body. It will give you an opportunity to heal. It might take a couple of days. You have to be patient."
"When can I go home?" I ask, all but ignoring her. "When can I see my mom and sister?"
"Rachel…" the doctors voice drops solemnly. I watch the woman pull a small stool directly into my bedside. She sits down so that she is at exact eye-level with me. She stares with such a precise focus that I couldn't look away if I tried.
"How long have your ribs been bothering you?"
I swallow. The little saliva that my dry mouth is producing does little to ease the fire inside of my throat. My tongue feels as though it is made of sand paper. When I run it along the underside of my chapped lip, it finds the hole in the back of my mouth where a tooth used to be. I can taste the blood still on my lips from the punch.
"Can I have some water?" I croak. I am not trying to avoid her question on purpose, although it works to my advantage all the same.
'Sure," the doctor nods. She doesn't seem annoyed by my request. Instead, she puts her magnitude for patience on full display.
Pushing herself up to her feet, she walks to the tap at the far corner of the room. It is a menial task, but she takes her time filling the cup with water. I appreciate the breathing space, but I am still far from trusting.
Leaning back over me, the doctor presses a straw to my lips. I suck down the water greedily, like I haven't drank anything in years.
"Easy," the doctor warns me. "You're going to have to get used to taking things a little bit slower than what you're used to for a while."
I sink, but nod cooperatively as I settle back against the mattress in a silent indication that I'm finished.
"Better?" she asks. I nod again. The woman places the cup down on an empty tray besides her before sitting back down. She takes her time. I watch her nervously as she rings her hands together in a way that people sometimes do when they have absolutely no idea how to string together the right words.
"Rachel, the reason I ask you about your ribs is because we have to know exactly how you got hurt in the first place," she finally tells me. "We need to know where you're hurt, how long you've been hurt."
I freeze, swallowing against any answers. The calm patience inside of her eyes is remarkable. It is almost enough to make me angry. I want her to yell at me. I want her to tell me that I am being ridiculous for still not being able to answer her questions even though the jig is clearly up. I want her to shake me until my neck is sore and my head aches because apparently, that is the only way to get me to respond. Except she never does, and somehow, I feel worse because of it.
"Maybe it will be easier if I ask you something specific," she suggests. "How about those lacerations on your side? Where did those come from?"
I glance up at her. Subconsciously, I graze my hand along my left side, just underneath the chest tube. The reminder of what Andrew did to me with his belt just over a week ago is still there. The last time I had built up the strength to check, the swelling was starting to go down, but it remained an angry red color that burned when touched. My fingers find the injuries, surprised to see a patch of fresh bandages. I look up at the doctor, waiting for an explanation.
"A few of those cuts were fairly deep," she complies. "They're old but one of them was so infected we had to break open the old wound to drain the pus and place ten stitches in total."
I feel the color drain from my face. All of this feels like too much at once. I have waited for too long. The idea that my body can recover from so much at once seems impossible.
"It looks like you will make a full recovery," she tells me, reading my face. "That IV in your elbow is a broad-spectrum antibiotic. We were concerned about the infection in your lungs as well as the one in your injuries. There will probably be some scarring, but in the long run, they should heal without complications."
I nod my head. It seems that that is about as all as I am good for lately. I feel like a robot, programmed to provide short, silent responses and only when prompted.
"We also had to put four stitches in your forehead from a cut there. Your knee is also split. It didn't require stitches, but there is a lot of swelling. I will want to do an MRI on it just in case. Your wrist is badly broken. When the X-Rays come back, we will see if it will require surgery. We had to replace the stitches you had placed in earlier today. We're going to have to an MRI to check on your concussion. What I'm most concerned about through, Rachel, is your ribs. That's why I'm going to ask you again. How did you hurt them?"
I tighten my lips, considering my answer.
"I got kicked," I finally settle. "Hard."
"Rachel, I want to show you something." I watch the doctor push herself up to her feet. She grabs what I immediately recognize to be an x-ray. The stiff plastic film appears to be all black until the doctor holds it up to the light in front of me so that, like magic, what appears to be my very own ribcage appears before my eyes.
"These are the chest x-rays we took after we placed your chest tube." She raises a hand, moving her finger along the image like a pointer. "Do you see these tiny shadows here? They are what we call complete fractures. These two breaks right here, in your sixth and seventh ribs, they're brand new. These fragments are what punctured your lung and caused it to collapse. We can tell they're new because there is no evidence of healing yet. But these two…" The woman trails off, her finger dragging across to the right side of my x-ray. There, she points out the same, distinct shadow of a fracture, except this one is different. "This is an incomplete fracture on the seventh rib on your right side. This is not a new fracture, Rachel. Judging by the buildup of callus bone, I would guess that it is about two weeks old."
"Oh." It is all I can think to say, and it makes me feel incredibly stupid.
"Do you think you can tell me about it?"
"It… it never hurt like this before," I tell her, flushing a deep shade of red. I feel myself talking willingly, despite the wonder whether or not it is such a good idea. It is these drugs. They are making me tired and loopy, impeding my filter. My verbose vocabulary is useless, trapped within the fog of my mind. All I can think of are simple words, stupid excuses.
"Like what, Rachel?"
"Like…" I pause, trying to concentrate on finding the right words. "Like there was a balloon inside of my chest, pushing everything out. It felt like it was ready to explode at any second."
"That was probably the fluid building inside of your chest," the doctor acknowledges. "That in combination with the swelling pressed up against the fractures in your ribs… You must have been in pretty significant pain for a long time."
I pull my bottom lip in between my teeth and jerk my shoulders in a shrug.
"Well, your vitals are stable," the woman presses, trying to brake things up with a little bit of good news. "And as soon as we get the opportunity to take you upstairs to Radiology, we'll have a better picture of what is happening on the inside. Now, I know that you're tired and frightened and in pain, but there are a couple more things I saw today that concern me."
The woman pauses purposefully. Her head tips sideways as she glances at me in a careful, calculated manner. I brace myself, expecting the worst.
"Rachel, I know that you have been through something terrible. I also know that you have been living with this terrible thing for some time. I know that it's hard for you to believe me when I tell you that you did the right thing by coming here today. This is a safe place. There are people here who are going to want to talk to you, who are going to want to put together everything that happened so that they can do their best to protect you. They are here to help you. I am too." She pauses again, takes a deep breath. I know what is coming before she even says it. Still, I am not prepared for it. "We found some concerning cuts and bruises on your hips and on the insides of your thighs, Rachel."
Her words rob what little breath is left out of my already ailing lungs. My blood turns over, cold as ice, creating little more than a frozen pond inside of my veins. The doctor is watching me carefully, waiting for a response. When it becomes apparent that I am too shell-shocked to speak, she tries a different approach.
"When you were brought in here today, we noticed that your jeans were open. Can you tell me about that?"
Her words are chosen with incredulous care. We both know what she is implying, but she dances around actually saying it. The anticipation alone is enough to make my chest heavier, the pressure implosive.
"I… I can't… Please don't make me." Tears spot along the undersides of my eyes. "He'll kill me. He told me… He said…"
"Rachel, breathe." It is a reminder that I have needed a lot today. Even so, dry, heaving noises continue to escape the back of my throat.
"I… I'm gonna be sick." I only just get out the warning before my stomach begins contracting so violently I am afraid it is going to knock the chest tube right out of my side.
The doctor moves with an impressive haste. Somehow, she manages to slip a pink, plastic emesis basin underneath my chin just in time for the contents of my stomach to defy gravity and pulse out of my mouth. For the most part, it is just water, still, it is laced with enough stomach acid to leave that characteristic bite against my tongue, the kind that you can never wash out no matter how much water you drink or how many times you brush your teeth.
My doctor is patient. She waits for me to finish, allowing me to work through the attack on my own. When there is nothing left for me to spare, she calmly and quietly disposes of the soiled basin before moving to the sink to refill the same cup of water I had drunk out of before.
"Here you go." She offers me the cup, which I accept and sip down greedily. "Slow sips, Rachel," she adds quickly. "Or you'll just make yourself throw up again."
I nod and take deliberate care to pace myself. The doctor lets me take my time. She watches me carefully until the straw scrapes the bottom of the cup and I am completely finished drinking.
"Feel better?" she asks. I nod, but it is through a grimace. This is such a loaded question that even if I wanted to answer it honestly, which I don't, I wouldn't know how to.
"Rachel, I understand that this isn't an easy thing to talk about," she prompts. "But you're safe here. I know I keep saying that, but you need to know that it's the truth."
Safe. The word seems bruised and tender inside of my ears. I know that it is meant to be comforting, but sometimes comfort can cut just as sharp as any knife.
"We have a nurse here in this hospital," she continues. "She specializes in treatment for people who have experienced a sexual assault. She can also gather evidence that can be used for prosecution."
My heart hiccups and sputters inside of my chest like a car running out of gas. To hear it worded so officially is like a punch. It makes this entire experience too real, and I have gotten along these last couple of days simply by pretending it wasn't.
"I don't need that," I insist. "Nothing happened."
"Maybe so," the woman shrugs. "But Rachel, but just in case it did, there are things that, as your doctor, I need to know if I should be looking for. Things that may have a negative impact on your health and recovery. We can do this later, but in situations like yours, the faster we have somebody look at you, the better it is. We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that whoever did this to you will be punished for it, but we're going to need a little bit of help from you, too."
I close my eyes and concentrate very hard on keeping the tears threatening to fall where they belong.
"I want to talk to my mom and my sister," I say, not an answer at all.
"I'm sorry, I can't do that for you right now." Her tone is sympathetic, yet firm in the idea that she is not willing to budge on it. I feel my lower lip begin to tremble.
"Can I just talk to you then?"
"You can," the doctor nods, but her tone slants so that I know that will not be good enough. This is a situation that is entirely out of her control. She is talking to me right now, because she is trying to prepare me for the storm. "But there are other people here whose job it is to come together as a team and ensure you're safe and healthy and taken care of. I'm only one of those people, Rachel."
"Who else?" I ask. "A shrink or something?"
I scoff at the idea even though I know that it is not as ridiculous as what my tone might suggest.
"Maybe," the doctor nods honestly. "But there will also be others. Police officers, social workers, Child Protective Services will be sending a welfare advocate…"
My eyes widen at the mention. Inside of my chest, I can feel my heart twist and skip a beat. I hear the break in the pattern of the monitor above my head at the same exact time.
"It wasn't my mom," I insist. "She didn't do this. She didn't even know it was happening."
"You need to calm down, Rachel," the doctor warns. She places a calming hand against my shoulder. I ignore it and wrench myself free.
"No!" A searing pain breaks through my ribs. Determined, I push through it. "They can't take me away from her. You have to promise that they won't. She didn't do anything."
"Rachel, I can't promise you anything about what might happen with your mother." I appreciate the care that she makes in avoiding promises she can't keep. Still, her lack of ability to answer me does nothing for my nerves. "What I can tell you is that there will be a lot of people working to get to the bottom of this. They are professionals. They will be able to decide what is best for you."
"I'm old enough to know what's best for me!" I narrow my eyes, trying to make myself appear as strong as a petite fourteen-year-old wearing a dinosaur patterned hospital gown can possibly look.
"That might be true, but the fact is you are a minor who was brought into the Emergency Department twice today displaying clear signs of abuse and neglect." She is no-nonsense. It's a good characteristic to have, but it is really rubbing me the wrong way right now.
"Neglect?" I question. This is a fresh term, one that I hadn't considered before. I don't like the implications it leaves.
"You are underweight, malnourished, dehydrated," she explains, ticking my conditions off of her fingers one by one as though this were a competition. If it was, I am definitely winning. "Your body has been harboring an infection for some time and you have been hiding a substantial number of injuries for upwards of a couple of weeks. I promise you that the social services team will work very hard to determine what is best for you, but you're going to have to speak with them and when you do, it is in your best interest to be honest. But like I said, my job is to take care of you physically. It is to make sure that you are healthy and that you are being taken care of."
"I am healthy!" I roar, but the way that my ribs scream at me to calm down speaks volumes otherwise.
"Dr. Medina…" A tiny woman with sloppy hair pulled behind her in a loose bun peers her head into the doorway. She looks unsure whether she should be interrupting. If she had heard my outburst, she doesn't say so. "Lucy Sherman from Child Protective Services is here. She wants to know if Rachel if available to speak to her."
The doctor turns to me, searching for clues that might gauge my capacity to speak to yet another stranger about something I would much rather forget. I know that physically, there is nothing preventing me from speaking to her. I'm not dying although earlier when I had passed out inside of my mother's bedroom, I thought that I might be. I am hurt, but mostly, I am just overwhelmed. I give the doctor a small shake of my head, begging her to give me something.
"Rachel can't speak right now," the doctor turns towards the woman in the doorway.
"Dr Medina-"
"I can't keep her vitals stable," she lies. My situation, while dire, is not life or death. I glance up at her and offer her a deep look of appreciation. "We need to put a rush into Radiology. Tell them I want her there now."
"I'll let Mrs. Sherman know," the nurse shrugs with no sign of an argument in her. "And I'll call Radiology."
The nurse disappears. I watch the doctor turn to me and offer me a short nod. It is all that I can do to return it.
"Thank you."
I am situated and ready to be moved upstairs to Radiology within minutes, but by the time it happens, I am so exhausted from the exertion of the day that I can't do much of anything aside from go along with the ride.
I lay on my back and watch the whir of the ceiling tiles blurring together like a lullaby. The patterns of them make my eyelids grow heavy. Or maybe that's just the drugs.
The medication has tightened its hold around me to the point that I have grown okay with the idea of allowing it to take control. I drift off, finally comfortable with the idea of closing my eyes when a familiar voice finds its way in between my daze and reality and I perk. That was Santana.
Before I can remind myself of the tubes snaking into and out of my body, chaining me to this gurney, I attempt to sit up, trying to prove to myself that I hadn't made Santana's voice up. My eyes are unfocused with pain, but they are determined. I spot them before they even know I am there.
Santana's back is turned towards me. She is propped against the wall, her arms folded loosely across her front. Her eyes look sad, like she had been crying as she talks quietly to my mother, who is standing in an open door, squared towards me so that I see every detail in her rapidly aging face.
My mother seems withered in a manner that tells me just how tangled up she had gotten inside of my own best intentions. Only now do I realize how badly I had hurt her trying to protect her. Only now do I realize that I had only made it worse.
I want to call out to her, to tell her that everything is going to be okay, but my body is too weak to hold this position for so long and I fall back down, flat against my back. By a stroke of luck, my mother sees me anyway. Through the corner of my eye, I watch her heart catch inside of her expression as she tenses, struggling to process my abysmal appearance. The second she realizes that I can see her, her mouth softens. She taps into something deep inside of herself and she forces a smile that is just a little too brilliant to be anything other than forced.
She is impressively calm. She will lose her cool eventually, I am sure of this, but my mother is a professional. She will not do so here. I accept this because right now, I need my mother. I need my strong, confident, always-has-an-answer-for-everything mother. What I don't need is the emotional shell I know she is capable of becoming.
It does not take long for Santana to notice the shift in our mother's demeanor. She follows her expression, turning over her shoulder until her eyes find mine. A smile ghosts across her face but unlike my mother's, it is not so much forced as it is relieved.
My mother is the first to see me, but Santana is the first to move. She doesn't hesitate like my mother does. Instead, she bounds towards me as quickly as her feet will allow. My mother is a little more tentative like she is afraid of me.
Santana reaches me, out of breath from moving so quickly. Her hands clutch the gurney rails until her fingers turn purple. She looks like she has a lot to say, but she takes one look at me and her face falls.
"What's wrong with her?" she demands of the doctor.
"Santana…" I cut in to stop her, but Santana stops me.
"It's okay, Rachel. I'm going to make this okay." She sounds more like she is trying to convince herself that this is true. There are tears stinging inside of her eyes as she leans forward and combs her fingers through my hair, wary of the stitches punctuated in various places along my skull. I try to find comfort in her touch, but the promise somehow makes me feel even more afraid, like this is the beginning of something that is only bound to get worse. I don't feel like Rachel Corcoran. I don't feel like a person at all. Instead, I only feel disposable.
"Where are you taking her?" my sister challenges, looking back up at the doctor. I know what she is doing. She cannot help me in my current state, so she is trying to compensate by trying to convince herself that she is in control.
Santana is a lot older than most people thing she is, but that is only because she has learned through experience, to carry herself with a confidence that makes her look a decade older than her actual years. Not for the first time, I wonder what will come of her after all of this. Even if I didn't make it, eventually, she would go off to college, I assume. She would study art or science or history or maybe just punch blindly into a liberal arts college as an undeclared major as she tested the bumps and edges of her life, trying to see which groove fit best. There would be a hole without me, that's for sure, but she would find a way to thrive.
Santana used to be a reserved girl, but life has made her a goddess of war. In a way, I guess that I was too, but while battle killed me slowly, Santana found a way to thrive off of it, to love it, to survive on it. She has adapted to the point that she needs it. War has brought out the best of her in recent weeks, not because she was willing to kill, but because she was willing to sacrifice.
Nothing scares me more than seeing Santana scared. The thing is, even with that empty, terrified look in her eyes and tear tracks running down her cheeks, Santana still stands up with strength left to spare.
"Santana…" my mother warns, coming up beside her and imploring her to remember our surroundings. She places a hand on Santana's shoulder, steadies her, tries to keep her notoriously short fuse in check.
"We're taking her upstairs to Radiology," the doctor tells Santana calmly. "Her left lung collapsed, and her right was filling with fluid. We are going to check to see if the chest tube is doing its job. While we are there, we are going to make sure that her concussion has not been aggravated and whether or not her wrist is broken badly enough to require surgery."
"Surgery?" my mother perks. She sounds frightened. The doctor nods her head sympathetically.
"It's possible," she warns. "If the bones need to be set, an orthopedist will have to do it surgically, but I assure you that Rachel will be in the best care possible."
I watch the doctor's eyes wander. They slide past Santana, past my mother, and towards the people who are waiting impatiently for me to be moved. I get a good look at them, attempting to evaluate their facial expressions and see whether or not they have already placed their judgments on my family. Would they blame us, or would they blame him?
The doctor turns her eyes down on me. She has a look like she feels as though she owes me. At the very least, I feel like it is the other way around.
"I can stall for a few minutes," she offers out of the corner of her mouth. "But that is the most I can give you."
She gives a subtle nod at all three of our expressions, deep with gratitude and leaves us to ourselves, walking towards the group.
"Radiology just informed me that it will be another five minutes before we can take Rachel," the doctor tells the orderlies, loud enough that everybody who is eavesdropping behind them can overhear. "We need to leave that trauma room clear. Just keep her to the side until they are ready."
The orderlies do not ask any questions. It is not their jobs to do so. Instead, they push me out of the middle of the hallway and off to the side. My mother slides to the head of my bed. She leans over me so that her face is all I can see. Then, she reaches out and cups my cheek, pressing her cool palm against my warm skin. The feeling of her against me is vital, key to my survival.
"Honey…" she breathes. Her voice is so soft that she is practically mouthing the words. "I am so sorry."
She has that look in her eyes, the one that seems perplexed and terrified that the girl that she had put to bed last night and woken up this morning is not the same one who is lying here in front of her. I am a stranger and she has absolutely no idea what to do with me. She is trying her hardest to mask this, but I can still see it.
I wonder how much she knows. Probably everything. Dr. Medina said that I had been brought into the ER with my pants open. I can't remember if anything happened a second time, but it is enough to make assumptions. Santana probably told her a lot of the rest. I can see the regret, sincere inside of my sister's eyes. Besides, my mother is looking at me differently now. It is a look that breeds from nothing aside the realization that your little girl is not such a little girl anymore. I wonder what she will look like after she knows the whole truth, after Child Protective Services gets to her. The idea makes my heart harden with fear.
"It's not your fault," I breathe because that is what she needs to hear right now. It still doesn't ease the regret on her face over the idea that you can lose track of your child in the same amount of time it takes to blink. There are so many unanswered questions inside of her eyes. How had she let this happen? Why didn't she take more time to pay attention to us? Why didn't she tell us she loved us more? Why hadn't we?
She shakes her head sadly, silently telling me that I am not to let her off the hook so easily. Then, she swallows a couple of times and forces a smile that would be more convincing if it wasn't punctuated by tears.
"You're going to be okay," she tells me without one ounce of a question in her tone. I wonder if she knows that the grip that she has on my hand is fiercely contradicting her words.
"Mrs. Corcoran, I'm afraid that you're going to have to let go now."
Dr. Medina comes up behind us sooner than either one of us would have liked. My mother turns to the doctor as though to tell her if only it were that easy, but she listens. She lets me go like she always does when she knows she is about to send one of her children out into the wild, with a gentle kiss on the forehead and her eyes closed, winging a prayer.
"I'll see you soon," she promises but with a face that suggests that she knows she can't promise that. I think that that is our family's greatest flaw. We patch over our insecurities with confidence. The thing is, that this is not about being professional, it's about being a family, and when a family cannot separate the two, it is destined to become flimsy.
I watch my mother put on the same face she wears when she is coaching. It is the face of somebody who is cool and collected. It is the face of somebody who can come to reasonable conclusions and face bad news without getting hysterical. It is a total fabrication.
I look over towards my sister. She looks angry that we are being separated. I can tell she is trying her hardest to keep her composure.
It'll be okay, I mouth to her quietly and she forces herself to nod.
The doctors waste no more time after that. I am moved quickly through the hallways and shepherded into a small, quiet room, eerily similar to the one I had been in earlier today before my life fell apart.
The plastic bed of the MRI machine is stiff despite the doctor having put extra sheets and pillows around me, trying her hardest to keep me comfortable. My ribs feel compressed uncomfortably upwards. I am shifting with pain before we even get started. I wonder if I will be able to lay here for a whole hour.
"Okay Rachel, you know the drill. Just try to relax and let us do all the work, alright?" The technician smiles politely as he gives me the instruction. His eyes are so pale that they are almost colorless. I can't tell if that is a comfort or not. "We'll be right on the other side of this door. There's a microphone on the inside of the machine so if you need anything, just speak and we'll be able to hear you. Try not to move around too much though, or we'll have to stop in the middle of the scan and start all over."
I nod obediently, silently begging myself to listen as the bed lurches and slides backwards into the white, plastic MRI tube until nearly my whole body is submerged.
I close my eyes and try to let the mechanized humming and buzzing put me to sleep, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am sitting inside of a machine designed to find pieces of me that I never knew existed. I realize that there are pieces of this puzzle that I don't want to know.
My eyes snap open. Shame burns bright through me. I wasn't supposed to let anybody see the things I allowed Andrew to do to me. Here, they would see everything. They would know everything.
The walls enclosing me inside of this tube are starting to tunnel in as a heavy clunking echoes deep and loud from the inside. It sounds exactly like a fist does when it hits the hollow insides of a torso.
"Rachel. are you okay in there?" The voice comes out of the sky, or so it seems. It is the technician, talking to me through the speaker. I remember that they can see my vitals, on display on the screens inside of the control room. The MRI hasn't even started yet, and they are already reading me like a book.
I can't find the words to respond. I try to sit still, but the harder I try, the more anxious I grow. I feel sick. I am sick of being reduced to the shell of my former self. I am sick of allowing myself to lose control in front of perfect strangers.
"Rachel, we're going to pull you out of there. Just give us one minute."
I barely register the voice over the pounding in my skull.
"What's going on, Rachel?" my doctor asks, hovering over me.
"I… I can't breathe," I choke. "Something's wrong."
In my panic, I picture only worst-case scenarios. I envision the chest tube failing, my lungs flooding with water like a dam that had just been breached, shriveling up. The oxygen mask is still pressed tight against my face. The air is flowing, I can feel it, but it provides little relief.
The doctor moves quickly. She places her stethoscope against my heaving chest, listening for signs of failure from the inside. I am expecting her to tell me the worst, but all she does is look at me and shake her head.
"Rachel, look at me. Nothing is wrong." My eyes widen. Obviously, there is something wrong. Can't this woman see that I am dying? "You're having a panic attack, okay? What I need for you to do is to relax."
"I- I want my sister," I insist. If the doctors aren't going to listen to my plea, I need the one person in this world who will. Santana. "I want to see Santana."
"Rachel, you can see Santana as soon as we're done here."
"No!" I give a violent jerk out of the hands of the technicians trying to hold me down. I feel the tube in between my ribs tug painfully. The hands holding me grip even harder. It is my fault that they have to do this. It is my fault that they have to hurt me in order to control me because I can't control myself. Andrew said it himself, I just never listen.
"Rachel, you have to calm down. If you pull out your chest tube, it will be very bad for you." My doctor tells me. Her voice is stern now. "If you don't relax, then we're going to have to sedate you."
"I need to see Santana," I talk like I haven't heard a word she said, watching the doctor carefully as she purses her lips and pauses, her eyes scanning all the people who are trying to hold me down.
"Get her sister in here."
"Dr. Medina…" The warning sounds severe, but this woman has been on my side from the moment I met her.
"If she pulls that chest tube out, she runs the risk of being in respiratory failure. Do you really want that on your hands right now?" The doctor hisses quietly through her teeth. "If her sister is the only person who can calm her down, then I want her here. She's just downstairs. Go get her."
The technician scowls like he is not pleased with the idea. He mutters something under his breath about policies and procedures, but nods through his scowl and turns from the room anyway.
I settle slightly beneath the hands that are holding me down with the promise that Santana is on her way, but my chest is still tight, and my head is throbbing.
"Rachel," the doctor leans forward. She is whispering, trying to get her calm to resonate onto me. "She's coming, okay? Your sister is on the way."
As promised, Santana bounds inside of the room moments later. The radiology technician is supposed to be the one guiding her, but she takes complete charge. She is at my side in an instant.
"Rachel?" she asks, coming up to my side. Her voice is soft despite her confusion. She shoulders through two orderlies and grabs onto my hand. I look up at my big sister and try to suck the tears back down. I don't want to cry in front of her. I want to be brave. You never hear fairytales about knights and superheroes breaking down in the middle of battle. They never bed for mercy.
"I can't do this, San," I cry despite my best effort.
"Yes, you can," Santana insists. "I know that you're scared, but you have to try your hardest to relax. The doctors are just trying to make you better again. You have to let them."
"Don't you get it, Santana?" I ask her. My breathing is speeding up again. I feel the entire room tense. "Nothing is every going to be better again."
"We're going to have to sedate her," I hear my doctor whisper inside of Santana's ear. It is low, so I know that I was not meant to hear it, but I do anyway.
"Please, just give me a minute to calm her down," Santana begs. She is being cautious. She sounds like she understands that she has been granted a favor just by being allowed in here. Now, she is asking for just one more. "I swear, I can get her to relax. I just need one minute."
"One minute." The doctor slants her eyes and looks at Santana cautiously. Santana nods in accordance and turns back to me.
My eyes are starting to feel heavy. It is a combination of the pain meds and the distress and the lack of oxygen. I feel so pathetic. My entire life I have struggled to be as strong as my older sister. Santana doesn't seem to notice. She only squeezes my hand tighter.
"Rachel?" she notices me crying and leans in closer so that I get a good look at her for the first time. A prominent bruise is formed over her eye. For the first time, I realize that my mother and Santana must have gotten Andrew out of the house somehow in order to find me. I wonder what that story is. A part of me wonders if I am better off not knowing. "Please calm down. You have to or else the doctor is going to have to put you to sleep. I know you don't want that so please talk to me. What's going on?"
Her voice is rushed. She is trying to control her emotions for my sake, but it is not particularly effective. I try to pretend like it is for her sake but every sob that slips out of my mouth sends a fireball of pain through my torso, which in turn makes me cry harder. It is getting harder and harder for me to breathe. The machines above me are starting to whistle and roar in warning. The noise is making me anxious. Santana fighting for control is maxing me even more anxious.
Every time I inhale, it feels like I am taking in not air, but shards of shattered glass. I know that it is only a matter of time before the doctor intervenes. She is going to sedate me just like she said she would, it is no longer a question. I have to tell Santana what is on my mind while I still have the opportunity because it seems more and more likely that I am going to die right here.
"Santana," I force out. "Mom… mom knows everything, doesn't she?"
"I'm sorry, Rachel," Santana shrivels. Tears spill alongside her words. The room stiffens, saturated by the chaos and emotion and confusion. It is suffocating.
"I'm so, so sorry…" Santana continues to apologize because no matter how many times she says it, I know my sister well enough to understand that she will never be satisfied that it is enough. I can see her break a little bit more every time she says it. "There were social workers and police officers and they were talking about Child Protective Services coming to investigate mom… I couldn't lie anymore. If they think we're hiding something, they'll take you away. Please forgive me."
"Santana," the doctor warns. My sister pulls her lower lip between her teeth but stops talking. She is taking her inability to calm me down as a personal failure. She is taking this entire experience as a personal failure.
"Don't be scared, Rachel," she insists. "It's all going to be okay. The doctors… they're just going to put you to sleep for a little while so they can help you."
"No…" I beg, watching the doctor come in closer with a large needle that I know is designed to put me out of my misery.
I feel Santana's hand leave mine and the last of my composure disappears. I wrench away from the doctor and her drugs. I feel an explosion of pain deep inside of my chest, a flash of white light and then, one second later, I don't feel much of anything at all.
