A/N Hey, I'm sorry that this update took me so long to get to you! I was really busy this past week and I am afraid that updates will continue to be slow, as NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow and I will still be juggling at least three fanfics while working on my NaNo. Thank you for your impending patience, and thank you for reading! I love you all!
When Max opened his eyes, his vision was blurry and his ears were filled with the cliché beeping of the hospital room. He struggled to remember what had happened that would have landed him in the hospital, but all that he could recall was a headache and traces of an nightmare. He looked around, frowning as he took in the bleak room.
"Max, my god!" Max jumped slightly as his mother swooped down on him. "What happened to you?" She put her hand on Max's forehead. "How do you feel?"
"I feel fine." Max shrugged. "And I don't know what happened – just had a headache, then I woke up here." Max pulled away from his mother's hand.
"The doctor said that you passed out on the sidewalk." She sighed as she pulled up a chair next to Max's bed. "When the hospital called, we didn't even know you were out – we thought you were in your room."
"Shocking," Max muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Max, something could have happened to you! I mean something did happen to you, but it could have been a lot worse, you can't just sneak out like that!"
"Mom, I'm fine." Max rolled his eyes. "Leave me alone."
"I'll just…I'll just get the doctor then?" She stood up, leaving the room, returning a couple of minutes later, doctor in tow.
"Hello, Max, I'm Dr. Schwartz. I'd like you ask you a few questions." Max just shrugged, so the doctor continued. "Can you tell me what you know about how you got here?" The doctor sat down and Max barely even looked up as his mother back out of the room, leaving the two alone.
"I had a headache, then I was here, now I'm fine." Max shrugged again. "That's it."
"So just a headache?" The doctor asked. "No seizing?"
"Not that I know of…" Max shook his head.
"Alright then, just a headache?"
"Just a headache." Max nodded. "So can I go?"
"Well actually, Max, I'd like to run a test or two. I don't mean to scare you, but headaches that lead to unconsciousness aren't normal and they can occur as symptoms for some pretty serious things."
"Whatever." Max shrugged yet again. He didn't want any sort of tests run on him, but he knew that his mother would force it upon him anyways.
"Good." Dr. Schwartz smiled. "We'll just do a routine CAT scan, make sure that everything's how it should be, and if that comes up normal, we shouldn't need to do anything else."
"Ok." Max nodded. "Fine." CAT scan. He'd heard of that. CAT scans found brain tumors, serious head injuries, things that could be fatally serious or absolutely nothing at all. Thoughts of what could be wrong with him filled his mind, though he chose to mask his fear, hiding behind his monotonous 'whatever' attitude.
***
"Well, Max." Dr. Schwartz smiled at the boy as he entered the room, carrying with him the results of the CAT scan. "It looks like you really are perfectly healthy."
"Ok." Max kept his relief shrouded in nonchalance, shrugging to emphasize how little he cared – or how little he pretended to care. "So, I can go?"
"I don't see why not." The doctor nodded. "Your clothes are on the chair behind me, you can dress while your mother checks out."
"Ok." Max pulled himself into a sitting position.
"Goodbye, Max, I hope never to see you again." Dr. Schwartz joked, laughing at his own cleverness as he vacated the room.
Max got to his feet slowly, taking time putting on his plain white shirt, loose jeans, socks and sneakers. By the time he had pulled his sweatshirt on, he had realized that, while he had his wallet and phone, his iPod was gone. He assumed that the device had fallen onto the sidewalk when he had passed out, and who wouldn't have picked up a stray music playing device? Max let out a deep sigh, knowing that he would have to revert to the use of burnt CDs and his old disc man until he received Christmas money from his grandparents in the mail.
When Max got home, his mother ordered him to bed, and the boy was too overwhelmed by a mixture of confusion and fatigue left over from his 'accident' that he did not have the strength to argue. He went to his room, flopped down on the mattress and crawled beneath the blankets. Max lay on his bed for hours, afraid to try to sleep, afraid to close his eyes, even, though he was not sure why.
The next several days were spent in his room, in bed, sleeping little, despite his knowledge that lack of rest would hinder his healing process. He would stay awake for as long as he could, entirely unsure of what he was dreading should he drift off. During the time he was asleep, he found himself captured in a nearly comatose, dreamless, motionless state, which, aside from its physical aid, soothed the teen little.
He knew that there had been something that had caused him to pass out that night, something strange about the incident that he couldn't quite remember, something important. He knew that there was a large piece to this puzzle that he was missing, and if he could only recall it, he would be able to understand what happened to him, perhaps. Max spent hours of his time in bed pulling at his brain, begging himself to remember any small detail that might bear any impact on what had happened, yet he found that, as he so often was in his life, he grasping at the empty straws of a memory repressed for his own protection. What Max did not know was that when that memory broke free of its confines, it would reign over him once again.