by S. P. West
“He’s…”
I don’t know what’s said next, my hearing seems to fade in and out. I’m only catching snippets of the conversation around me.
“Good responses. Excellent. We’ll….”
My body is gently forced upwards into a more upright position, I open my mouth to speak, to ask what’s going on but I find that I can’t.
I can’t get the words out.
My throat is sore, my lips dry, my mouth feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton balls.
“It may take a while before he’s fully…”
There’s that strange voice again.
I just want to know what’s happening.
Why can’t I move? Let alone can’t speak, can’t fucking see and I feel like I’m coming down from a high.
I try to remember what I was doing before I woke up here. I vaguely remember driving home from the game with Becks and Lyssa.
Did we get drunk? Did I pass out and that asshat pranked me?
“You’ll be okay Alex. I’m here.”
Summer?
I try to prize my eyes open again, blinking furiously against the painful light desperate to see who is beside me holding my hand. Goddammit my eyes won’t focus. I can kind of make out long blonde hair but as hard as I look, I can’t see her face. I know it’s her though. The powerful scent of peaches and vanilla washes over me. It’s a perfume that I’d breathed in millions of times when we were together and missed more than humanly possibly when we were apart. It was unique to her, it was Summer’s scent.
“Oh thank god. His eyes are opening.” She sounds excited, happy even. Her English accent is stronger than I remembered, it’s definitely her. Maybe, I’ve died and gone to heaven or is this another one of those awesome friggin dreams I’ve had because there is no way in the world that Summer would voluntarily be sitting next to me with her small hand in mine.
Is it wrong that I just want to see her face, just once after all this time?
I breathe out her name, or what I think is her name, my throat so sore that whatever I say comes out as more of a rasp.
“Did he say something? What did he say?” I recognize my mom’s voice this time.
Something bad must have gone down if my mom’s here.
“Sssss….um…. mer” It takes a lot of effort as I try to say her name again. It comes out a bit more successfully this time but I still don’t sound like me. As I say her name, everything starts to slowly shift into focus and then I’m staring up into her bright green eyes. She’s wearing her long blonde hair down; it flows around her shoulders messily like I remember.
Like I loved.
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was an angel and I was dead.
“Summmeeeeerrr you…are... heeerrre.” Just saying those few words leaves me feeling exhausted and my eyes start to drift closed again.
The squeal of a chair being suddenly moved across the floor stops me falling asleep. I open my eyes to see that Summer has started to back away from my bed. I can just make out that her face is contorted in a weird mixture of anger and sadness.
“I have to go.” She says abruptly, disappearing out of my sight.
“No stttaaay please.” My voice sounds slurred as I try to make a last ditch attempt to get her to stay with me. I try to lift my arm to reach out to her, nothing moves.
“I can’t,” she whispers.
“Hon, please stay…” The pleading in my mom’s voice breaks my heart.
Does Summer hate me that much that she can’t stand to be in the same room as me?
In the background, the steady beep of some machine starts to increase in speed; which in turn causes a flurry of activity in the room.
Why does she hate me so much?
Where the fuck am I?
Why isn’t Becks here? Were we in an accident? Shit, are they okay?
All these questions swirl in my mind as I desperately try to make sense of everything.
“Mr. Thorson you need to try and calm down.”
“Alex, baby, try and calm.” My mom lays a gentle hand on my forehead, gently stroking back and forth with her thumb in an effort to sooth me. The familiarity of an action from long ago does its job as I start to calm. It’s something that she always did when I was a kid when I was upset, “Shush, shush…. that’s better.”
Suddenly I feel totally fucking beat: I think I’d feel better if I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson that, and Summer being here then not, is enough to make me never want to open my eyes again.
“I’m tired… mom.” I can barely keep my eyes open.
“I know honey, I know.”
“Where am I?” It takes all my energy to try to keep myself awake. I need answers to the hundreds of questions floating around my head. Unfortunately, my mouth and my brain haven’t quite synched up again but it seems to get better the more I speak.
“You’re in the hospital honey. You were in a bad accident…you’ve been in a coma.”
Coma?
“Coma? How…long…have I--”
“Nine days, Alex.” She smiles, “You started coming round a few days ago.”
Nine Days in a coma? What the fuck happened?
“I was so happy when you squeezed my hand that first time.”
“I don’t, uh, remember.”
“The doctors said you might not remember much, it’s normal. It’s been a very slow process bringing you back to us.”
“Is that why…was Summer here?”
“Yes, it is baby.” She says quietly.
Jeeze, it must’ve been really fucking bad if my ex-wife flew all this way just to sit in a hospital with a man she hates. Why isn’t she with Lyssa or Becks?
“Have… you… seen the others, mom? Are they okay?”
“Hush, why don’t you sleep now baby.” I’m not so out of it that I can’t detect the sadness in my mom’s voice.
“What’s wrong? What... happened?”
My mom turns her head away from me, her lips tremble - as though she is forcing herself not to cry. I’ve seen it before, usually when she was trying to hide how upset she was after some shit my bastard of a father pulled. When she turns back to look at me I can see that her eyes are bloodshot and red rimmed, a fake smile is plastered on her face.
“Mom, why won’t you answer…my…question?” My voice sounds weak even to my own ears as my energy slowly slips away.
“I will Alex, I promise, not now honey. You need your rest.”
I want to ask why she’s being so damn evasive but I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.
“Please,” I beg one last time as the darkness starts to consume me, “please tell me.”
“Tomorrow,” Is all she replies.
With a heavy sigh, I let eyes finally close as I drift into a dreamless sleep.
NINE WEEKS LATER
“I’m not a fucking invalid!”
“Alex please…”
“I said I’m not a fucking invalid.” I bark. I’m so tempted to take one of these crutches and shove it up Zane…Danes… whatever his fucking name is, ass.
“Alex.”
“Just leave me alone.”
“If we don’t do this then you won’t walk again. Do you hear me?”
“Fuck off.”
“Okay,” the sadistic bastard says holding his hands up in defeat, “okay, I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll try again.”
“Don’t bother.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow Alex,” he answers cheerily. The asswipe gleefully ignores my growl before he disappears out of the door, finally leaving me alone.
Why can’t they all just leave me the hell alone?
Yeah, I know that I’m acting like an asshole. I also know that they are only trying to help me but they’re doing a piss-poor job of it. I’ve been stuck here for four very long friggin’ weeks because they can’t, or won’t, let me out. Apparently, my recovery will take ‘some time’, so I’m in no fit state to leave this hellhole.
On the bed lie countless leaflets that the on-call psychiatrist left me. For some reason they think that I need to talk to someone about my feelings over the accident. How I feel about the loss of…of…
Every time I think about him, I have to let out a long steadying breath, just to try and get my emotions under control. Otherwise, I’ll bawl like a baby.
I can’t believe he’s gone.
It just doesn’t seem real.
I keep thinking that the big ginger jerk will bound through the door with a smile on his face and a six pack in his hand…
I missed his funeral because they said I wasn’t well enough to leave the hospital.
Becks was my best friend…my buddy, my brother and I missed his goddamn funeral because I caught an infection, because I’m a weak ass excuse that can’t recover quick enough. I didn’t get to say goodbye to him, the man who’d stuck by me all my life…I couldn’t attend his funeral for fucks sake. Why the fuck couldn’t it have been me? What fucked up god decided that I should live and Becks should die? Huh? He’s a father to a beautiful, strong little man and he will never know it.
Furiously, I wipe away the tears that fall down my cheeks. Becks would laugh at me if he knew. Would have…. he would have laughed at me. Especially when he found out that I’ve got to sit in a fucking therapist’s office for the foreseeable future because he had to go and get himself killed.
Bastard.
Physically Lyssa’s doing well; she’s visited me a few times when she’s visited Will. Mentally? I think she’s just about holding it together. If she didn’t have little Will, then I don’t know what she’d do. I lost my best friend; she’s lost her husband and father of her son. How do you come back from that?
I’ve made a point of visiting Will as much as I can. I sit next to him in his incubator and tell him all the shit that his dad and I got up to. Will lies there blissfully unaware of the crap I’m telling him. I always thought that he’d end up looking like Lyssa but the poor little fucker has ended up looking like his dad with his flaming red hair. The good news is that the doctors have said that he should be able to go home soon, unlike me. I think I’m stuck here forever.
Brad, Joe and some of the guys from O’Malley’s Garage have swung by to keep me from going insane. That’s cool, least I know they like me. I’ve been told that Summer has sat with me a few times when I’ve been sleeping, leaving when I’ve started to wake. I’ve tried to catch her a few times but I’m never successful. I’m going to have to face the fact that she doesn’t want to talk to me, not that I blame her. It feels good just to know that she cares enough to stay with me.
A quiet cough draws my attention to the doorway and the fact that Summer is standing in it, looking right at me.
Speak of the devil--or angel in this case.
My heart begins to race like it did when we first met…
I need to think of something awesome to say, something that won’t make me look like a dickwad who’d just been bawling his eyes out.
“Summer…”
Well that was impressive, dickhead.
“Hello Alex,” she whispers.
We stare in silence at each other, neither willing to make a move. I take the chance to look at her in the flesh for the first time in years. Absorbing everything about her just in case I’m hallucinating and she disappears again.
She looks good. Really, really good. So good in fact that the blood rushes down to my balls giving me an insta-erection.
Great.
My best buddy is dead and I’m getting turned on by my ex-wife. That’s not part of the grieving process, is it?
I have to shift my position to hide possibly the hardest wood I’ve ever had so that she doesn’t see it and think that I’m a perv as well as a prick.
If Summer has seen that I can’t control my dick around her then she doesn’t let on.
She’s still as beautiful as I remember. The freckles on her nose haven’t faded, hell I’ve missed those fucking freckles. I’m happy to see that Summer still wears her hair slung back in a messy bun. She’s thinner than I remember; her green eyes duller. The love that she had for me used to shine from them every time she looked at me but now that’s gone, replaced by a sadness that didn’t belong anywhere on her lovely face. She looks tired. Totally exhausted, and yet she’s still the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen.
“It’s good to see--”
“Am I disturbing--”
Summer and I say at the same time.
“Sorry,” she says with a wry grin. “you go first.”
“I was going to say that it’s great to see you.”
She doesn’t say word; a simple nod of her head lets me know that she heard me. I don’t know what I expected to say or do. Her running over to me, flinging her arms around my neck and telling me that she’s missed me would have been my preference. Somehow I don’t think that will happen. Not in a million… hell, not even in octillion years.
“You look good,” I press on. A slight blush creeps up her neck as she twirls a stray strand of hair around her index finger before unwinding it and tucking the hair behind her ear. A gesture that was as familiar to me as breathing, it’s something she always did when she was flustered.
“This was a stupid idea,” she mutters, so quietly that I only just catch what she says, giving me a tight smile.
Seems that my girl is uncomfortable with being in the same room as me while I’m awake. The realization sends a sharp jolt of pain to my heart. I’d hurt her that much that she can only just bear being with me.
“I should go.”
“NO.” It comes out with more force than I intend, making Summer take a step back. “No.” I try again, gentler this time, gesturing to the chair beside my bed. “Please… please stay. I could do with the company.”
She hesitates for a minute, biting her lip in a gesture of indecision. What I wouldn’t give to be the one biting her lip right now. I know what she is thinking by the expression on her face. Summer is weighing up her options:
‘Do I a) bite the bullet and sit with the asshole, having an actual conversation with him that might mean letting him back into my life or b) walk away and never look back like he deserves’. I pray that she picks the first one.
Summer cocks her head to one side, studying me before slowing walking over and taking a seat in the chair.
“Okay, I can’t stay long.”
“Thank you.”
An uncomfortable silence sits between as us as we look at each other. Part of me wants to reach out and take her small hand in mine; the other part of me knows that would probably earn me a punch in the balls.
It hits me how much I fucked up with her. We used to talk all the time about anything and everything. Talking late into the night as we laughed at each other’s jokes and held on to each other when things got tough. I used to know everything about her and now we are strangers.
“How are you? How are you feeling?” She asks, the concern on her face genuine.
“I’ve been better.” I smile, glad that she’s finally broken the ice.
“Your mum said that you should be getting out of here soon.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, “once Doctor Doom gives me the all clear and the sadistic asshole that they call the physiotherapist says that I’m good to go. Then I’ll be home free.”
She smiles at me then, actually smiles.
“I’m glad. You had everyone really worried for a while.”
“Even you?” I can’t help myself. It just slips out.
“Alex…” She says in warning.
I clear my throat and look to the ceiling. I can’t afford any slips ups with her, not now.
“I’m sorry about Becks, Alex. He was a good man.”
I can’t bring myself to look at her; my vision has become blurred with tears at the thought of losing my best friend. I’ve done a good job so far of shutting away the pain that his loss causes me every time I think about it. Boys don’t cry, right? That’s what my ba
stard father used to tell me.
“Thanks.” I’m taken by surprise as she takes her hand in mine. Her skin is as soft as I remember.
“I went to his funeral; it was a…a beautiful send off.”
Please don’t talk about it…
“Summer,” I look at her then. We’re just close enough that I can pull her in for a kiss… “I can’t…I don’t. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Her eyes widen as she realizes the distress that her words are causing me. “Oh, Alex…”
“It’s all just…raw you know?” I know that I have tears in my eyes but fuck it.
Becks, man, why was it you, not me?
“I… understand.” I count it as a small victory when she makes no move to remove her hand from mine. “Let’s start this conversation again, shall we?” Summer flashes me another small smile. I dopily nod my head in agreement.
‘Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up.
“Okay, I’ll agree to a do over. Only if we can play Kyss Mig.” Summer rolls her eyes at this. It was a stupid game that we invented one day when we were stuck in a tent. We’d gone to England for a vacation. My brother-in-law Seth had gotten hold of tickets for Glastonbury, he couldn’t go at the last minute so gave them to us, along with a leaky tent and some camping shit. The festival itself was awesome; the weather was not.
It rained the whole damn time.
Summer and I had come up with Kyss Mig while we drank a bottle of whiskey after we got bored of playing I Spy.
One-line question, one-line answer and usually one shot. It ended with Summer on her knees with her wrists bound by her panties, while I pounded into her from behind.
It was a good game, one we played often. From the blush that’s creeping up her neck, I say Sum remembers it too.
“Nope, we need alcohol to play.”
“Alcohol-free version?”
She lets out a sigh, “Alright, I’ll play but I’m warning you Alex- nothing sexual, no cute little nicknames, no touching. You ask me straight questions and I’ll give you straight answers. You deviate and I’ll walk out,” she says pointing at the door behind me.
