Author's Note: Well, it's been awhile for this one. Hope you guys enjoy.
My parents bought me a pocket calendar to count down the days until I get out of here, but really it's been the worst thing they could have done. With each neatly drawn X in the 2x2 inch box I'm only reminded of just how long I've actually been here. I tell myself they meant well, but my mom is usually the only one looking at the thing and marking days off. She isn't here today—work—and dad's caught up in some last minute business meeting; the stupid little calendar lays, open, on the chair next to the bed so I figure she must have stopped in on her way to work while I was still asleep. Five X's indicate what's passed of my sentence in here; today's little box has the number "6" written in amethyst. A different colour for everyday, a sickly little rainbow of irony to remind me why I'm here in the first place—I pause for a moment and consider if she even realises what she's done. Of course, the logical fraction of my brain places a megaphone to its mouth and shouts protestations at the cynical little bump on my frontal lobe responsible for such accusatory thoughts. Of course she hadn't done it intentionally; get yourself together and move on now.
I reach for the little booklet and my shoulder creaks and groans. My body still feels heavy from sleep, but I know attributing my stiff, sore movements to being tired would just be silly and naïve. The bastard that yanked on my arm until he dislocated my shoulder was probably far more responsible than a few hours of rigid sleep. Nevertheless, it's still a hindrance to what should be a simple task and my only logical attempt at a solution is really a very simple one.
"Fucking damnit!"
Outside my room a tray clangs to the floor, cheap silverware ricocheting off of the linoleum, and a pair of squeaky sneakers—I'm willing to bet they're white as white can be—approach so rapidly the sound melds into a sort of silly hiccuping sound. It's only about 5.4 seconds before Nurse Ariel—a fiery red headed girl in her mid-twenties that I honestly don't know the name of at all—appears in the doorway, cheeks flushed and quizzically out of breath for someone who couldn't have been more than a few feet away.
"Everything alright in here, Blaine?"
How she knows my name is a mystery. But, then again, someone must be responsible for the trays of "food" I wake up to beside my bed everyday. And a person like that would certainly have access to something as trivial as a patient's name. I nod my head once and a tired smile skitters across her features. I think of how exhausting it must be to pretend to be so happy all the time around people who are sick and dying and decide she at least deserves a little recognition for her efforts so I simper right back at her.
"Well, that was your food I dropped out there so it might take me a few extra minutes to get something over here for you. Sorry, sweetie. I'll be right back, okay?"
Have I really never been awake in her presence? Or perhaps the first few days in and out of consciousness have sealed away any memories of her. I take an ice pick to my heart, thaw it out a little and offer another small—but genuine—smile in her direction. I must remember to at least learn her name. She disappears and my mind scrambles for a moment, trying to recall what I was doing before she came to the door. My eyes fall on the calendar and as I'm reaching out again in another attempt—
"Okay, so you are never going to believe the sort of day I've been having—" I twist my head back to the door and a pair of bright blue eyes stare back at mine. "Well, you're not my mother."
He's tall and thin, his face bearing the lovely resemblance of a china doll, and I can't place his age. He looks young, but very well put together—like he's trying to make himself seem older than he actually is. It takes that little logical fraction of my mind that I mentioned earlier a little longer to tell me that I'm staring at this pleasant surprise; my dry tongue leads me to the conclusion that my mouth is open, for how long I couldn't tell you. He gives off a warm presence, even giggles a little while I try to compose myself, and suddenly that little cynical bump has excelled to the size of a watermelon, telling me how much of an idiot I must have looked like to him.
"Sorry about that, I seem to have found myself in the wrong room, uh...?" He lingers and really I'm just not at the top of my game at all today because, for the life of me, I can't figure out what he's waiting for me to say. "My name's Kurt." Kurt. Name. Oh!
"Bl—I'm Blaine. My name's Blaine," and my voice is not my own. Some hoarse, rugged excuse of an unknown octave has offered its unwanted services and no amount of throat clearing seems to help. "Sorry, I'm—" Ahem. "My voice—" Ahem, ahem. "Fuck."
"Maybe you'd like some water? I passed a vending machine on my way up here," Kurt offers. Like we're old friends and he really did mean to stumble into my room. The situation reeks of an awkward stench that permeates my bones but the sudden soreness in my throat has me nodding before I've even realised it. He walks away and no sooner than he's disappeared, Nurse Ariel is back with a food tray and a bottle of water.
"Sorry about the wait," she apologises sincerely and sets the tray down. I want to tell her to catch Kurt before he wastes his money on another drink but I can't get a word out. I massage my throat for something to do and she takes to checking all the monitors that kept me awake most of last night. I reach for the water bottle but she snatches it up before my fingers even come close and twists off the cap. She pours a small amount into a clear plastic cup and holds it up to my mouth but something possesses me and makes me recoil as if she was holding out a hot coal instead.
"I see," she says. Though I don't know what revelation she's reached. "You want to do it yourself." And I realise she's right. Even my subconscious wont allow me to be babied.
"Sorry."
And I am.
"Think you can manage alright without me, sweetie?" She smiles her understanding. "I'm a little behind on getting everyone else on the floor their food."
I nod and she sets the cup next to my tray before standing up. "Oh," I suddenly remember. "What's your name?"
"Forgotten me already, have you, little devil?" And I wonder when she told me. "It's Julia."
"Julia." Now that I'm repeating it, it does bear somewhat of a familiar taste on my tongue. "Thanks, Julia."
She smiles at that. "I'll be back a little later, Blaine. Please try to eat something." And as she disappears into the hallway I decide: okay, today I will.
"They have the Little Mermaid working you? You have the Little Mermaid looking after you? Lucky," Kurt waltzes in empty handed. "Sorry, the vending machine was sold out of water."
"She brought me some, it's okay," I hold up the plastic cup and grimace when my creaky shoulder fills in the spaces of silence between our conversation.
"Are you okay?"
"Right as rain." I never understood the the use of such silly expressions; maybe it's my concussion that makes it seem appropriate now. Clichés to combat hostility.
"What happened to you?"
Rude. What a blatant disregard for privacy. But those baby blue puppy dog eyes of his have a hold on me and lying to him–stranger or not–just doesn't feel... right.
"Some kids jumped me and my date after a school dance." Brazen statement on my part, but I can't quite translate the depth his eyes have adapted into words.
"...he get it as bad as you did?"
There's something in his voice that wasn't there before. The playfulness is still in tact, but some new element has attached itself.
"I don't know. Nobody will tell me anything." It feels almost impossible to stop talking. "I think his dad blames me for it. He's never liked me much."
"You blame yourself though."
It isn't even a question. He states it like he knows me, like he can just see into my head so there wouldn't even be a point in posing it as an inquiry because he would already know the answer.
"Yeah."
"You can't blame yourself for the world's ignorance, Blaine." His eyes flicker seriously for one fleeting moment before they're back to the innocent ones he first walked in with. "Otherwise that'd be an awful lot of weight to be carrying around on your shoulders."
"I suppose you're right." It's easier to just agree with him; it's something to linger on later when I'm not distracted by that toothy grin or the electric blue tint to those eyes that I can't stop overanalyzing.
"I should get going, my mom is waiting."
"Oh." I guess later is a lot sooner than I expected it to be.
"It was very nice to accidentally make your acquaintance though," he adds with another open mouth grin. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you around again."
I don't think to ask why his mom is here; I don't think to ask for his number or how he's holding up; I don't think to say much of anything really aside from a short, strangled, "Bye." And with that he's out the door and I'm left alone again with nothing but rushed thoughts, tumbling over each other at a million miles a minute. The rest of the day proves to be pretty uneventful. So when my mom shows up, three hours later, and asks if anything interesting happened I consider telling her about the boy with crystal eyes and Jack-O-Lantern smile.
"No," I finally say. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
The boy with the china doll face can be my secret. For now.
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