Oath chapter 9
Jay's eyes sprung open, he found himself screaming.
His vision was blurred and he saw nothing but colors and his body's sensations went from a slight sting to a writhing pain. He was in bed with a cold sweat, and couldn't move much. Trying to focus his eyes, he realized he was still screaming.
"I can't see!"
"Shh.. It will be ok. Don't worry Jason. Hang in there."
"The dead want me!" He shouted, still louder.
"Shh.. It will be ok."
Jay's eyes gradually opened, and slowly his eyes focused. His body burned chronically but not as bad as earlier. He let out a long, deep breath, and felt he could breathe for the first time in ages. Slowly he curled and uncurled his fingers. His vision was stuck on the ceiling. All white. He turned his head to the left. I.V. machine, a tube was attached to his left arm. Curtains were behind the I.V. He looked down. A sheet was covering his body. His heart started racing. A machine to his left started beeping faster in unison with his heart. A nurse peaked in.
"Mr. Wagner, how are you?"
Jay panicked. "What's going on?"
"Do you know where you are?"
"No." He exhaled his word shakily.
"Do you know why you're here?"
"No..."
"The doctor will be in in a minute to explain."
At least twenty minutes passed and Jay lay there prostrate waiting, listening to a heart monitor, and trying not to choke on the hospital smells, a man in a white labcoat came in.
"Mr Wagner. It is good to see you are getting well."
"Who are you?" Jay laid there, nervous, the monitor revealing his racing emotions.
"My name is Doctor Riley. Your parents have been notified and are on their way."
"What's going on?" He forced his hand to move from under the white sheet to his head. His forehead and his hand was bandaged.
"What do you last remember, Jason?"
"Going to the mall, work, eating with Ashley. I don't know.."
"Do you remember going to Hillton?"
The cogs in Jay's head quickly started spinning as he remembered all the images of the fire. His breathing became shallow and he already felt dizzy.
"Police found you lying on the first floor of a burnt down building. It would seem you fell through the floor of the second story. A piece of wood pierced your stomach, which we repaired through surgery. Your organs need time to heal from the shock of the fall. Also your right leg was broken and you sustained a head injury resulting in a coma that has lasted for eight days. I am surprised to see you are conscious, it will be a relief for the family.
"Why can't I feel anything, no sensation." His head ached but his limbs felt numb.
"We have you on a lot of medication to speed up your recovery. We can take you off of it now that you are conscious."
Jay found himself alone waiting for his parents arrival. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the pain.
Jay was laying down on his bed with the phone in his hand. He just changed out of the hospital gown and got home. His leg was stiff and sore in the cast. On the floor by his bed were crutches. He was contemplating calling Heather but he was scared also. His parents were quiet but he knew he'd be in trouble later on when he felt better. He dialed her number. Three rings.
"Hello?" The voice of a man answered.
"Is Heather there?" Jay closed his eyes and played with his hair.
"Who is this?" It was Heather's dad.
"Jason."
"Ah... One moment" He had a hint of hostility in his voice when Jay gave him his name.
Jay shifted uncomfortably in his bed while waiting.
"Jay? Are you ok?" Heather had picked up the phone. She sounded angry and concerned.
"Eh. I've been better."
"That was the dumbest thing you have ever done by far. You could have died. We didn't think you would wake up from your coma. And I'm fucking grounded for a month."
Jay opened his mouth in disbelief. Heather never swore. He breathed quietly into the phone, waiting.
"Did you at least find what you were looking for?"
"I don't remember everything yet. It's still coming back."
"Are you kidding? What do you last remember?"
"Remind me what happened while you were with me?"
"I wasn't with you long remember. You told me to wait in the car and you went deeper inside. After an hour of waiting, I went back inside and found your flashlight on the floor. You were unconscious right by a machine. One inch closer on the fall and you would have snapped your back on it."
Jay didn't want to remember what he saw in the factory but he tried to focus his thoughts and memories. His memory flashed back to prying wood off the window, then everything burning.
He shook his head.
"The oak..." He muttered to himself trying to recall what happened outside.
"What?" Heather asked this and waited a few seconds.
"Jay? Wha–"
"Shh, hold on." Jay remembered the field in the back of the building with the oak tree and the boy.
"I need to go back there..."
"No way Jay. No way in hell! I won't let you go back."
"I understand... Don't worry." Jay looked out his window. Snow.
"How can I not worry. Jay look at yourself."
"I'm cold."
"Don't change the subject. Look at what you've done in the past month."
"I'm really cold. I feel so distant. So far. Like my body is still lying in the factory. My body is numb from the drugs and my head hurts. But that isn't it. I feel cold even deeper inside. The pain is bad and I can't remember much right now but.. it's like..like.. I feel like a boy...locked away. I feel abandoned, like no one can help anymore. No one can understand. And that's what I need. I need someone to come into the room, or say they are there, or just turn on the light. I don't want to be in the dark anymore. I need to know what's going on. I need the answers. I feel like I've searched my whole life for someone I don't even know exists. I NEED to know he exists. I have to go back."
"I can't let you. I can't. You'll hurt yourself. You can't even walk right now!"
"I won't go in. I have intention of going back in."
"Jay.."
"I just want to look at the back of the building."
"I'm sorry. I can't. My parents took my keys."
"Am I crazy?" Jay asked himself this into the phone.
"Jay.. I thi.."
"I'm going now."
The door opened. Jay looked up. His dad.
"Jay your boss wants you to see him today. I'll take you in ten. Get ready."
Jay opened up the glass door, and stumbled in. His crutches got caught as the door closed and knocked him a bit off balance. Looking through the window on the wall in front of him he saw a class was going on and Jody was teaching with Erik. Jay went straight into his bosses office. Joe, his boss, was typing on his laptop and was on the phone. He looked up hearing Jay come in. Quietly, Jay sat down and waited for his boss to get off the phone. He felt nervous, sick. His boss had never requested to see him by calling his house, and more so he almost never needed to talk with Jay at all. Normally Jay went about his business, picked up his check weekly, and left without conversation.
Joe hung up the phone. It was quiet. A sickening quiet. The kind of quiet one gets when hearing news of a death.
"I see you are getting well." Joe broke the silence.
Jay looked at his crutches. He didn't consider this normalcy.
"So what's going on?" Jay asked trying to skip all small talk and eliminate all the anxiety.
"What's going on with you?" Joe asked back.
"Personal things." Jay uttered this under his breath in a whisper.
"So you don't wish to talk about it?"
"I can't." Jay thought his boss would think him crazy for one, and he didn't know he was gay either. But Adam was about more than sexuality. There was a connection between the two that Jay couldn't describe. Adam was there but he wasn't. Jay worked with Adam, yet he didn't. How can that be explained.
"What's been happening lately, it's not like you."
"Not like me?"
"You never went out looking for trouble before."
"Trouble!" Jay tilted his head in anger at the words his boss chose.
"Jay, I need my instructors to be role models for my students. Your story of breaking in made local news. You broke into private property."
"What are you getting at? Are you saying-?"
"I'm giving you time off."
"You're firing me?"
"Jay, come back when you feel you're ready to assume responsibility again. Sort things out first. You are one of my better instructors."
Jay grunted and walked out with the aid of his crutches.
The car ride home was silent as a cloudless night. Jay thought his dad was taking him home, but his street was passed. Jay got nervous.
The car stopped at the psychiatrist's office and his dad got out. Jay sat in the car. His dad walked around the car and opened up Jay's door.
"Come on!" His dad said sternly.
"His behavior was never like this before. I don't know what's gotten into him." His dad said to the doctor.
"I see. Jason do you feel you have been acting differently recently." The doctor got out his clipboard with Jay's files.
"Feel? I'd rather talk about how I feel right now. Like how I feel you two are ganging up on me. Why don't you lay off."
"I'm not trying to come off as offensive. Tell me, why did you go to the old clothing factory."
"Why do you want to know?"
The doctor glanced over at his father and sighed.
The doctor tried a different approach, "Have you been taking your medicine?"
Jay looked at the ground and did not answer, slowly shaking his head left and right.
"This is ridiculous. A waste of time." Jay looked up and shouted at the doctor.
"Don't you want to get better?" The doctor tried to act patient but was clearly getting agitated
"Better? From what? Schizophrenia? Give me a break and throw your diagnoses to the dogs."
"Jason, please." His father was motioned for Jason to calm down.
"Look, Jason. I can help you." The doctor put the clipboard aside.
"How?" Jay stood up in anger. "How can you help me? Can you bring Adam to me? Can you find me the second half of my mind? I lost it a long time ago. Can you take away the doubt? Can you take away the despair I feel. Can you tell me Adam is a lie or a truth? Can you tell me why no one knows who he is, and while you're there throw in why I feel like I've known him for my entire life."
"Jason I know you are confused. Please sit down. Your disorder is very complicated and you aren't thinking straight righ–"
Jay snarled in anger. His foot throbbed from standing on it without his crutches. The father watched as the doctor and his son went at it.
"Let's get one thing straight, doc. I don't have a problem. I will look for Adam until I die."
"Your search would be in vain," the doctor shouted, "if you would listen you woul–"
"I've had enough of this! Fuck your diseases and fuck your medicine. I'm not looking for someone to tell me everything I've lived for is a lie, ok? Dad we need to go."
His father felt pulled into the whirlpool of the battle at this second.
"Jason I don't want to see you like this."
"Dad you've known me for my whole life and you are at a crossroads. You can trust me here even though you have no idea what's going on, or you can trust a man you've only met for the first time who wants to see me in a straight jacket. Take your pick."
The doctor looked up at Jay's father.