Tyler opened his eyes again. He didn't want to, really. Watching behind his
eyelids, his mother used to say. He just knew he should- he heard someone
else in the room, breathing, and it would be stupid for him to pretend to
sleep and wait for the person to leave. He had been doing that, off and on-
faking sleep when the nurses came in until real sleep came.
He opened his eyes.
Mia sat there and he looked at her for a moment. She looked beautiful, her hair up and her eyes closed. She was wearing the reading glasses she didn't like to admit she needed, a magazine draped across her legs- a Red Book dated years ago; she must have removed it from the waiting room. She was leaning back in her chair, he thought she was sleeping. For a moment he wondered how long he had lay here. He moved his legs; they rustled under the papery sheets, the soft blanket. No boxers. No pants. Tyler bit own on his panic. It was ok, he could get those, no one was going to- he stopped, stopped his thought. Well, tried to. It came out anyway- like if he tried to stop a penny from falling from his hand, or tried to halt a bullet after it had exploded from the chamber, and he breathed the words into the air, expecting to see the words written in cigarette smoke (his lungs felt filled with pus during some breaths and scraped clean during others), not being able to keep them in and stop them from living, from being true. 'No one is going to touch me, to rape me.' Especially now that he heard them in the air, they sounded feeble. They sounded stupid.
Tyler directed his attention to his wrist, his left, no cast hindering its movement. There was a needle taped into his flesh, the needle attached to a wire, attached to a screen, attached to an electrical plug that fitted into a socket. For a moment Tyler felt like an electrical socket. He wondered, if he stuck if his fingers in his mouth, would he be electrocuted? Bringing his left wrist over to his right hand he tried to bring the thumb and index finger together, to remove the plug. But the plaster hindered the fingers' connection so he brought his wrist to his mouth and plucked the needle out with his teeth. Immediately blood welled up, but not too much. Fluid gathered at the tip of the needle and dripped in a long drop that landed on Tyler's nose, as he held the needle up for inspection.
He placed the needle back onto the cover sheet and watched it begin to form a small puddle rivaling the pinprick on his wrist.
He shook his head to scatter the drop off, felt it shift and slide down his nose and off his lips instead. Tyler shifted his glance to the window, the drawn curtains that were like gauze. Mia stirred and he turned back to her, watched as her eyes opened. Their gaze met and Mia startled. "Tyler?"
"Hey Mia."
"Tyler, you're awake? How are you? How do you feel?"
"Could I have clothing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Boxers. Pants. Shirt. Please?" Tyler didn't mean to sound desperate but it still came out scared and whiny. Tyler hated sounding whiny. That was up there with begging. Being scared. Crying. He thought he had been doing a lot of that lately.
"Sure, anything." She looked a little shocked, a little uneasy talking to him. He supposed that of late he had resembled a corpse of some sort.
"Uh, how long have I been here?"
"A little more than a week and a half."
"When did I talk to Jesse?"
"Yesterday, about midnight he said. Today's Tuesday, it's about 11 in the morning. Are you hungry?"
"A little. I didn't think visiting hours went to midnight."
"They usually don't but your first night here, Brian just flashed his badge and we all piled in here, everyone- Dom, Vince, Jesse of course, Brian, Letty and me. Since then the doctors have just said ok, just not to all of us in the room again. The first night, that was scary. Your breathing, it was so erratic. You kept spitting up blood."
"What do the doctors say is wrong with me?"
"Well, your wrist. It's pretty badly broken. They said it should take about 12 weeks to heal, 9 weeks in you can have a soft cast if all goes well."
"What's that do?"
"It just allows more mobility."
"Oh."
"You knee was. they think it was just strained, stressed. But that should heal soon. Ty, the doctors said you were rap-"
"Do you think I could learn to be ambidextrous?"
"What?" Tyler couldn't blame Mia for being confused. He had cut her off but they both knew what she was going to say. He looked at the wall, then back at the puddle of his sheet. It had grown larger where as the puncture on his wrist had not. He scratched the cut with one finger on his right hand, the plaster itching against the base of his finger, drawing up blood.
"Or maybe I could try drawing by holding the pencil in the crease of my elbow or I could, I could take photos or do film or something." Tyler knew he sounded like he was coming unglued. He was pretty sure he wasn't unglued, not yet anyway, which must mean there was the possibility.
"Tyler? Are you ok?" Mia gently touched Tyler's hair, brushed a bang off his forehead. Tyler flinched a little and Mia sighed, removed her hand. No, thought Tyler, willing Mia to go back to touching his forehead; it had felt nice, her cool hand had, wiping, smoothing away the pain and anger he was bottling up, he had been bottling up. "Each of your ribs is pretty much cracked."
"Yeah, I feel that."
Mia smiled. "Would think you do. If you couldn't, that could mean something."
"Probably something negative, huh?" Tyler tried to smile too. Tried to make her laugh. She got up.
"I'll go get you some clothing, k?"
"Alright. Thank you." Mia nodded, bent down and kissed Tyler's forehead and left, closing the door quietly behind her.
*A little later*
"Tyler? Tyler?" Tyler raised his head. He must have fallen back to sleep, drifted really. Dom and Mia stood there, looking down. Mia held up a pair of Tyler's jeans and a pair of his black cargo pants. "Your choice."
"The black Gucci Mia."
"And for shirts, Mr. Rivera?" She held up a gray T Shirt with black sleeves that Tyler had never seen before and his graying green Guster shirt.
"The gray black, dahling." Tyler drawled the dahling and Dom smiled shook his head in mock disbelief. Tyler chose not to let himself feel stupid; he wanted to smile so bad for once.
"Distinguished taste sir. And for the over shirt?" She held up a gray green sweatshirt that said, 'Go to Idaho' on it and a blue zip up made for runners; neither shirt looked familiar.
"The gray green."
"Marvelous Tyler. Now, do you need help?"
"No!" Shit, thought Tyler. He shouldn't have sounded so rushed, so pushy. Mia and Dom stiffened and Dom nodded.
"We'll be outside if you need us," he said and Tyler nodded, looked down at the clothing Mia had laid across the bed, the package of new boxers, dark blue. She must have run to the store. He struggled to sit up and stopped, gave out a short yelp. Oh God. His ribs cried out and the burn lingered for a few moments. He breathed slowly and then tried again to sit back up. He gave a short scream. No, no, no. Anything that hurt that much was not good. Dom knocked and entered as Tyler flopped back down, his forehead sweating from the exertion.
"Tyler? Are you all right?" Dom came over to rub Tyler's shoulder.
"Can't, can't sit up."
"Alright, so here's what we'll do." Dom fumbled around beside the bed and picked up the switch that controlled the parts of the bed. "I'll elevate the top half, and you tell me when it hurts alright?" Dom started to push the switch and Tyler bit the inside of his mouth, resolving not to grimace, biting until he was sitting straight up. "As your ribs heal it should be easier for you to move about."
"I know." Tyler remembered for a minute other cracked ribs, other pained breaths and clinics, a lot of clinics.
"OK, so do you want help with your clothing?" Tyler looked down at his clothing and then at any other place than Dom as he whispered, 'yes. Please.'
"All right." Dom slid his hand behind Tyler's head and untied the string that held the top of his paper gown up. Tyler closed his eyes and tried to close his ears at Dom's gasp as Tyler's bruises were revealed. "Can you raise your arms?" Tyler obliged and felt Dom start to slide the shirt over his arms, over his cast and, Tyler felt Dom's hand against the base of his back, levering him forward and sliding his shirt over the gauze and bandages wrapped around Tyler's chest, under his arms to over his navel.
Tyler leaned back against the bed and closed his eyes. A shirt. Why could something so simple make him feel so tired? "Do you want to try. boxers?" Tyler nodded; stubbornly refusing not to think about looking at Dom. Dom started to move the sheet down.
"NO!" Tyler swallowed dry spit and went back to feeling stupid. That seemed to be common enough to be working.
"OK. Tyler, it's ok. We'll think of something."
"You could really give Mr. Rogers a run for his money right now, you know that?" Dom laughed and paused for a moment and then laughed again. Tyler smiled and then laughed a little, picturing Dom in room filled to the sandbox with kindergarteners.
"Alright, so what if maybe we turn you around so your legs are hanging off the bed and then maybe you could just slide up the boxers on your own. K?" Tyler mumbled 'ok' and tried not to breathe as Dom moved him to the edge of the bed, tried to ignore the fact that he was pretty much sitting on Dom's arm. "Tyler? Tyler, you can open your eyes now. I'm going to turn around, alright." Tyler opened his eyes and stared at Dom's back. For a moment he wanted to cry, he wasn't quite sure why exactly though. Drawing in one breath he leaned down quickly and yanked up the boxers as far as they would go- to his mid thigh where the edge mattress began to press against his skin, hindering the process. He couldn't stand up on his own, not without someone first putting him on his feet and then he wouldn't be able to bend down far enough to lift his boxers. And he couldn't hold himself above the mattress with one hand and pull them up with the other. Damn it.
"Dom? I... need help," said Tyler quietly. Dom turned around and assessed the situation.
"How about. I'm gonna pick you up and.. do you think you could stand?"
"Yeah. Think so."
"Alright. I'll pick you up and then.I'll pull them up all right? Cause I know it's hurting you like hell to move- no one breathes and gasps like that if they're not in pain."
"It's just. I don't want you to look." For a moment Tyler was reminded of JuV group showers, where everyone could see what you had, what you didn't have, what you were never going to get. Of scrubbing in the corner and praying to god no one tried to touch you or steal your towel or your clothes.
"I won't. Look, I'll lift you out and then close my eyes. Do you trust me? I mean, if you want. Mia could-"
"No. I. I trust you." Tyler rocked for a moment. Dom picked him up and Tyler tried not to flinch. He really did. Especially when Dom pulled up his boxers- he knew Dom's eyes were closed, he could see how Dom was over exaggerating the action. He still couldn't keep his breathing from shaking and racing, couldn't help the fact he wanted to curl into a little ball in a corner of a small room that locked from the inside though.
"Ready for the pants?" Tyler nodded and lifted his feet, one two, then closed his eyes as Dom pulled those up too, screwing with his boxers but damn it, he'd fix those later no way Dom was helping him there. He'd have to start learning how to do things on his own. Mia knocked on the door and opened it a little.
"May I come in?"
"Yeah," said Tyler, sitting back down or a moment on the edge of the mattress.
"Stylish Coda."
"Coda?"
"Means elbow in Spanish- three years of it and that's what I remember." Tyler forced a smile and looked at his elbow. 16 weeks should be a long enough time to learn how to draw with his left hand. Or his elbow.
16 weeks was also long enough to get really good at faking sleep.
He opened his eyes.
Mia sat there and he looked at her for a moment. She looked beautiful, her hair up and her eyes closed. She was wearing the reading glasses she didn't like to admit she needed, a magazine draped across her legs- a Red Book dated years ago; she must have removed it from the waiting room. She was leaning back in her chair, he thought she was sleeping. For a moment he wondered how long he had lay here. He moved his legs; they rustled under the papery sheets, the soft blanket. No boxers. No pants. Tyler bit own on his panic. It was ok, he could get those, no one was going to- he stopped, stopped his thought. Well, tried to. It came out anyway- like if he tried to stop a penny from falling from his hand, or tried to halt a bullet after it had exploded from the chamber, and he breathed the words into the air, expecting to see the words written in cigarette smoke (his lungs felt filled with pus during some breaths and scraped clean during others), not being able to keep them in and stop them from living, from being true. 'No one is going to touch me, to rape me.' Especially now that he heard them in the air, they sounded feeble. They sounded stupid.
Tyler directed his attention to his wrist, his left, no cast hindering its movement. There was a needle taped into his flesh, the needle attached to a wire, attached to a screen, attached to an electrical plug that fitted into a socket. For a moment Tyler felt like an electrical socket. He wondered, if he stuck if his fingers in his mouth, would he be electrocuted? Bringing his left wrist over to his right hand he tried to bring the thumb and index finger together, to remove the plug. But the plaster hindered the fingers' connection so he brought his wrist to his mouth and plucked the needle out with his teeth. Immediately blood welled up, but not too much. Fluid gathered at the tip of the needle and dripped in a long drop that landed on Tyler's nose, as he held the needle up for inspection.
He placed the needle back onto the cover sheet and watched it begin to form a small puddle rivaling the pinprick on his wrist.
He shook his head to scatter the drop off, felt it shift and slide down his nose and off his lips instead. Tyler shifted his glance to the window, the drawn curtains that were like gauze. Mia stirred and he turned back to her, watched as her eyes opened. Their gaze met and Mia startled. "Tyler?"
"Hey Mia."
"Tyler, you're awake? How are you? How do you feel?"
"Could I have clothing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Boxers. Pants. Shirt. Please?" Tyler didn't mean to sound desperate but it still came out scared and whiny. Tyler hated sounding whiny. That was up there with begging. Being scared. Crying. He thought he had been doing a lot of that lately.
"Sure, anything." She looked a little shocked, a little uneasy talking to him. He supposed that of late he had resembled a corpse of some sort.
"Uh, how long have I been here?"
"A little more than a week and a half."
"When did I talk to Jesse?"
"Yesterday, about midnight he said. Today's Tuesday, it's about 11 in the morning. Are you hungry?"
"A little. I didn't think visiting hours went to midnight."
"They usually don't but your first night here, Brian just flashed his badge and we all piled in here, everyone- Dom, Vince, Jesse of course, Brian, Letty and me. Since then the doctors have just said ok, just not to all of us in the room again. The first night, that was scary. Your breathing, it was so erratic. You kept spitting up blood."
"What do the doctors say is wrong with me?"
"Well, your wrist. It's pretty badly broken. They said it should take about 12 weeks to heal, 9 weeks in you can have a soft cast if all goes well."
"What's that do?"
"It just allows more mobility."
"Oh."
"You knee was. they think it was just strained, stressed. But that should heal soon. Ty, the doctors said you were rap-"
"Do you think I could learn to be ambidextrous?"
"What?" Tyler couldn't blame Mia for being confused. He had cut her off but they both knew what she was going to say. He looked at the wall, then back at the puddle of his sheet. It had grown larger where as the puncture on his wrist had not. He scratched the cut with one finger on his right hand, the plaster itching against the base of his finger, drawing up blood.
"Or maybe I could try drawing by holding the pencil in the crease of my elbow or I could, I could take photos or do film or something." Tyler knew he sounded like he was coming unglued. He was pretty sure he wasn't unglued, not yet anyway, which must mean there was the possibility.
"Tyler? Are you ok?" Mia gently touched Tyler's hair, brushed a bang off his forehead. Tyler flinched a little and Mia sighed, removed her hand. No, thought Tyler, willing Mia to go back to touching his forehead; it had felt nice, her cool hand had, wiping, smoothing away the pain and anger he was bottling up, he had been bottling up. "Each of your ribs is pretty much cracked."
"Yeah, I feel that."
Mia smiled. "Would think you do. If you couldn't, that could mean something."
"Probably something negative, huh?" Tyler tried to smile too. Tried to make her laugh. She got up.
"I'll go get you some clothing, k?"
"Alright. Thank you." Mia nodded, bent down and kissed Tyler's forehead and left, closing the door quietly behind her.
*A little later*
"Tyler? Tyler?" Tyler raised his head. He must have fallen back to sleep, drifted really. Dom and Mia stood there, looking down. Mia held up a pair of Tyler's jeans and a pair of his black cargo pants. "Your choice."
"The black Gucci Mia."
"And for shirts, Mr. Rivera?" She held up a gray T Shirt with black sleeves that Tyler had never seen before and his graying green Guster shirt.
"The gray black, dahling." Tyler drawled the dahling and Dom smiled shook his head in mock disbelief. Tyler chose not to let himself feel stupid; he wanted to smile so bad for once.
"Distinguished taste sir. And for the over shirt?" She held up a gray green sweatshirt that said, 'Go to Idaho' on it and a blue zip up made for runners; neither shirt looked familiar.
"The gray green."
"Marvelous Tyler. Now, do you need help?"
"No!" Shit, thought Tyler. He shouldn't have sounded so rushed, so pushy. Mia and Dom stiffened and Dom nodded.
"We'll be outside if you need us," he said and Tyler nodded, looked down at the clothing Mia had laid across the bed, the package of new boxers, dark blue. She must have run to the store. He struggled to sit up and stopped, gave out a short yelp. Oh God. His ribs cried out and the burn lingered for a few moments. He breathed slowly and then tried again to sit back up. He gave a short scream. No, no, no. Anything that hurt that much was not good. Dom knocked and entered as Tyler flopped back down, his forehead sweating from the exertion.
"Tyler? Are you all right?" Dom came over to rub Tyler's shoulder.
"Can't, can't sit up."
"Alright, so here's what we'll do." Dom fumbled around beside the bed and picked up the switch that controlled the parts of the bed. "I'll elevate the top half, and you tell me when it hurts alright?" Dom started to push the switch and Tyler bit the inside of his mouth, resolving not to grimace, biting until he was sitting straight up. "As your ribs heal it should be easier for you to move about."
"I know." Tyler remembered for a minute other cracked ribs, other pained breaths and clinics, a lot of clinics.
"OK, so do you want help with your clothing?" Tyler looked down at his clothing and then at any other place than Dom as he whispered, 'yes. Please.'
"All right." Dom slid his hand behind Tyler's head and untied the string that held the top of his paper gown up. Tyler closed his eyes and tried to close his ears at Dom's gasp as Tyler's bruises were revealed. "Can you raise your arms?" Tyler obliged and felt Dom start to slide the shirt over his arms, over his cast and, Tyler felt Dom's hand against the base of his back, levering him forward and sliding his shirt over the gauze and bandages wrapped around Tyler's chest, under his arms to over his navel.
Tyler leaned back against the bed and closed his eyes. A shirt. Why could something so simple make him feel so tired? "Do you want to try. boxers?" Tyler nodded; stubbornly refusing not to think about looking at Dom. Dom started to move the sheet down.
"NO!" Tyler swallowed dry spit and went back to feeling stupid. That seemed to be common enough to be working.
"OK. Tyler, it's ok. We'll think of something."
"You could really give Mr. Rogers a run for his money right now, you know that?" Dom laughed and paused for a moment and then laughed again. Tyler smiled and then laughed a little, picturing Dom in room filled to the sandbox with kindergarteners.
"Alright, so what if maybe we turn you around so your legs are hanging off the bed and then maybe you could just slide up the boxers on your own. K?" Tyler mumbled 'ok' and tried not to breathe as Dom moved him to the edge of the bed, tried to ignore the fact that he was pretty much sitting on Dom's arm. "Tyler? Tyler, you can open your eyes now. I'm going to turn around, alright." Tyler opened his eyes and stared at Dom's back. For a moment he wanted to cry, he wasn't quite sure why exactly though. Drawing in one breath he leaned down quickly and yanked up the boxers as far as they would go- to his mid thigh where the edge mattress began to press against his skin, hindering the process. He couldn't stand up on his own, not without someone first putting him on his feet and then he wouldn't be able to bend down far enough to lift his boxers. And he couldn't hold himself above the mattress with one hand and pull them up with the other. Damn it.
"Dom? I... need help," said Tyler quietly. Dom turned around and assessed the situation.
"How about. I'm gonna pick you up and.. do you think you could stand?"
"Yeah. Think so."
"Alright. I'll pick you up and then.I'll pull them up all right? Cause I know it's hurting you like hell to move- no one breathes and gasps like that if they're not in pain."
"It's just. I don't want you to look." For a moment Tyler was reminded of JuV group showers, where everyone could see what you had, what you didn't have, what you were never going to get. Of scrubbing in the corner and praying to god no one tried to touch you or steal your towel or your clothes.
"I won't. Look, I'll lift you out and then close my eyes. Do you trust me? I mean, if you want. Mia could-"
"No. I. I trust you." Tyler rocked for a moment. Dom picked him up and Tyler tried not to flinch. He really did. Especially when Dom pulled up his boxers- he knew Dom's eyes were closed, he could see how Dom was over exaggerating the action. He still couldn't keep his breathing from shaking and racing, couldn't help the fact he wanted to curl into a little ball in a corner of a small room that locked from the inside though.
"Ready for the pants?" Tyler nodded and lifted his feet, one two, then closed his eyes as Dom pulled those up too, screwing with his boxers but damn it, he'd fix those later no way Dom was helping him there. He'd have to start learning how to do things on his own. Mia knocked on the door and opened it a little.
"May I come in?"
"Yeah," said Tyler, sitting back down or a moment on the edge of the mattress.
"Stylish Coda."
"Coda?"
"Means elbow in Spanish- three years of it and that's what I remember." Tyler forced a smile and looked at his elbow. 16 weeks should be a long enough time to learn how to draw with his left hand. Or his elbow.
16 weeks was also long enough to get really good at faking sleep.