Under Zenith

by Shannen Crane Camp

  “Baby, can you hear me?” she asked.

  Despite the exhaustion I felt, I slowly opened my eyes, wondering what my heavenly surroundings would look like and excited to see my family one last time.

  Blinding white lights directly above me made me flinch the second I opened my eyes, which in turn hurt my head so I quickly closed them again.

  “She’s awake. She’s really awake,” Daddy said, sounding choked up over this revelation.

  The emotion in his voice made me wish I could do something more impressive than just opening my eyes for two seconds. I wanted to sit up and give him a hug, or tell him to stop worrying because I was fine now and I'd watch over him from heaven. Instead, I settled for opening my eyes once more, determined not to close them again.

  The world went in and out of focus, the lights were too bright, and the faces of my family seemed entirely too tired and worried. Each one of them looked like they hadn’t slept in years, but they were happy anyway. That was a sentiment I could relate to. Despite my exhaustion it felt amazing to finally see them again.

  “Isla, can you hear me?” my mom asked slowly, her voice much too loud for my headache.

  I tried to tell her I was fine. I opened my mouth to form the words, but no sound came out. It was just too tiring.

  Still, the warmth I felt in my stomach, just being this close to them again, was overwhelming. Despite the dark circles under their eyes, they were beaming.

  “Don’t tire her out, Molly,” my dad said, never taking his eyes off of me. “They said she’d tire easily when she woke up.”

  I blinked my eyes a few times, trying to get rid of the blurriness. It was odd seeing my parents again when I’d thought they were gone forever, but it was even odder to have them talking about me when I was laying right there.

  Since it seemed like the only thing I could do without wanting to collapse into a heap was move my eyes, I let them wander around the room that was anything but heavenly. I tried to make sense of what I was seeing and suddenly, I wasn’t so positive that I had died.

  I was lying in a hospital room with machines whirring and beeping all around me. The smell was sterile, the lights were far too bright, but it definitely wasn’t heaven.

  But nothing about this situation made any sense. If I hadn’t died, where had I been before this? Had I been stuck in some sort of limbo while my body decided if it was going to die or not? And what did that make Hayden? The angel of death?

  My mind was completely overloaded with questions and nothing seemed to make sense. All I wanted to do was ask my parents what was going on, yet I couldn’t even form a sentence. Maybe I had died and this was what hell was like; all sorts of questions with no way to answer them.

  Trying to set aside my frustration at the lack of control I had over my voice, I tested out the rest of my body. It took some effort, and my bones felt stiff, but I was able to wiggle my fingers and toes a bit. In fact, it seemed like I would have been able to move all of my muscles if only I wasn’t so tired.

  “Tuck, go wake up the doctor,” my dad instructed.

  Wake them up? I guessed if it was late at night that would explain the tired looks on my family’s faces. How long had I been unconscious? I’d crashed my truck pretty late, so really it could have been any span of time. Two hours, maybe four or five before the sun came up?

  As Tuck disappeared, I attempted to lift my arm up, remembering the horrific scene in the cab of my truck after it had crashed. There’d been so much blood, how had I survived that and what on earth did I look like now?

  “Honey, just try to rest,” my mom said, glancing down at my hand that I was desperately trying to lift.

  I knew she was right. I knew I needed to take it easy, but I had to see if my face was completely gone or something else equally as awful.

  It took all of my strength, but I managed to bring my hand up to my face, feeling the sore skin there. I gingerly ran my fingers over the place that gave me the most pain: the left side of my forehead, right at my hairline. My eyes widened as I felt the bristly stitches poking through my skin and my mom instantly grabbed my hand and pulled it away.

  What did I look like and why couldn’t I talk? Was I forever damaged because of that stupid dog in the road? I should have just waited until I got home to listen to my new CD. My mind instantly filled with even more questions and I suddenly felt dizzy, like my entire hospital bed had suddenly turned to one side and was about to dump me onto the floor.

  “Just relax,” my mom soothed, looking over at my dad who, in turn, looked behind the curtain at the bed next to mine.

  Why was he looking at the patient next to me?

  “Is he awake?” Daddy asked Tuck, who suddenly reappeared.

  Even my doctor was sleeping in the room with me? I must have been in pretty bad shape to warrant around the clock surveillance.

  “Yeah,” he answered simply, nodding at the doctor as he approached.

  “Dr. Temple, she’s moving around, but she still hasn’t said anything,” my dad informed the man on the other side of the curtain.

  It didn’t escape my notice that he’d called him Dr. Temple and I involuntarily held my breath, waiting to see if he was who I thought he’d be, or if my imagination had made him up all together.

  “That’s to be expected at first Mr. Edison,” the doctor told him with a thick English accent, bringing my heart rate up a few more notches, which normally wouldn’t have been embarrassing, but the beeping machine next to me sped up as well. Talk about humiliating. “It’ll take her a bit to get acclimated and we won’t know just how difficult it will be for her to recover until we test things out. Every case is different.”

  A second later he was by my bed side, sporting blue scrubs and a white lab coat rather than the all black ensemble he’d worn during the tasks. He looked exactly the same as he had when I’d kissed him only moments before that, though his eyes seemed more tired and his face was a little scruffier.

  “Miss Edison? Blink twice if you can hear me?” he asked, looking down at me with a look of concern, his thick eyebrows knitted together.

  It was Hayden. My Hayden.

  I blinked twice and attempted a smile at him, though I wasn’t sure what it actually ended up looking like.

  Did he remember me? Or had I completely made up a relationship with him through pieces of conversation I’d heard in my unconscious state?

  “Why does she look like that?” Tuck suddenly asked.

  “Tucker!” my mom reprimanded.

  “What, Mama? She’s got a weird look on her face.”

  “Ah, yes. Well...” Hayden began, looking a bit flustered and glancing at my dad quickly. Maybe he did remember me and was now embarrassed that he’d have to tell my family how terrible he always was to me. I’d love to see the look on Daddy’s face as Hayden tried to explain that one. He’d be lucky if he didn’t pull out the shotgun and chase Hayden away. “She might be experiencing some confusion as she tries to cope with what she experienced while in the coma and what she’s seeing now.”

  Coma?

  “Miss Edison,” Hayden said slowly. “You were in a car accident three weeks ago.”

  My brain went fuzzy again as the room tilted to one side. Three weeks? I’d been in a coma for three weeks?

  “You’ve got a broken arm that’s still healing and you had a pretty nasty head wound, but you’ve been healing up beautifully. You were in a coma for that period of time, but we have high hopes for your recovery.”

  Oh yeah, there was no way this was my Hayden. He was being way too gentle. If it was my Hayden he’d say, “You got hurt. It’s no big deal. Why don’t you just suck it up and stop whining?” But did that mean I had completely made him up and now I was stuck with feelings for someone who I hadn’t actually spent any time with?

  “I,” I said, trying desperately to form a sentence. My brain was just so fuzzy.

  My mom’s eyes widened at this attempt. Apparently they hadn’t expected me to be able
to speak. I’m sure Hayden would have been fine if I never spoke again since I bothered him so much with my incessant whining, but that would only be true if this guy really was who I remembered.

  “That’s great, Miss Edison,” Hayden said encouragingly, freaking me out to no end with the nice-guy act.

  Even if this wasn’t really my Hayden, it was odd to see someone who looked exactly like him acting so nice and responsible.

  “Stitches?” I asked, and instantly my brother burst out in laughter, causing my mom to hit him on the arm for his outburst.

  “Leave it to my sister to ask about her looks first thing,” Tuck said, still laughing and smiling at me fondly.

  I’d missed him, and it felt amazing to actually see his face again. Tuck just got me.

  “I won’t bother you with the details of your injuries since they’re healing quite well,” Hayden began, still sounding much too professional.

  “Your scalp was kind of pulled away from your head,” my brother elaborated, and while normally I’d be grateful for his honestly, at that moment it just made my stomach turn.

  “Son,” my dad said warningly.

  Even Hayden gave him a disapproving look.

  There it was. Seeing him look like he disapproved of something was much more familiar.

  “That’s not important right now. What is important is that by the time you’re healed, you’ll just have a small scar along your hairline. Not much bigger than the one on the nape of your neck.”

  For a moment I was convinced that this one statement proved that Hayden had been real the whole time. I’d told him the story of when I’d hit my head on the rock in the river and gotten a scar on the nape of my neck. How else would he know about that?

  Unless of course he was my doctor and had examined me and seen the scar…which was the more likely explanation.

  “The best thing for Miss Edison right now is rest. It’s a good sign that she’s speaking a bit, but we don’t want to overwhelm her.”

  My mom looked like she wasn’t about to get kicked out of the room by a doctor, but Hayden gave her a meaningful look that, apparently, overruled her desire to be with me.

  “You guys will want to be well rested when you see her tomorrow. I think a good night’s rest in your own beds will do you a world of good.”

  “But,” Mama began.

  “I’m here all night and I promise I’ll check in on her so excessively that the nurses will worry about my sanity,” he assured her with a smile.

  I didn’t want my family to leave already. My heart ached at the thought of being away from them again.

  “Thank you, Dr. Temple,” my mom said gratefully, looking over at me with a warm smile.

  They continued to talk about me while I laid there motionless, and I tried desperately to tell them that I wasn’t tired and didn’t want to go to sleep, but my eyelids involuntarily closed and no matter what I tried to tell myself about how awake I was, I let sleep take me.

  Chapter 23

  Despite how tired I was, my sleep was restless and sporadic. I kept waking with a start and had to make sense of my surroundings when I found myself in a hospital room instead of a safe house.

  It felt like I’d been alone in my hospital room for days, though the little digital clock on the wall informed me that my family had only been gone for a few hours. I couldn’t seem to understand how I’d woken up seven or eight times in such a short time span, but eventually, I got bored with being alone and tried to make myself speak.

  There was no way I was going to face Hayden again without being able to ask him some serious questions. Plus it would be nice to actually tell my family I was okay so they’d stop worrying so much about me.

  I took a deep breath, gathering my thoughts and thinking my sentence through over and over again. It shouldn’t have been so hard to utter one simple sentence, but suddenly it seemed like a monumental task.

  “My name,” I began, trying to form each word perfectly. “Is Isla Edison.”

  There.

  That wasn’t so hard.

  Granted it had taken all of my brain power to say one sentence, not to mention how long the build up to that one sentence had been. Still, it was much better than not being able to talk at all, and with a broken arm and stitches in my forehead, I’d cut my losses and take what I could get.

  “My name is Isla Edison,” I said again, this time with no pause in the middle.

  That was definitely an improvement. It still didn’t quite flow, but it was a complete sentence with no weird breaks. I was sure that with one more try I’d be able to master it.

  “My name is--.”

  “Isla Edison,” Hayden finished, coming in to the room with a clip board in his hand. “Yes. I heard you the first two times,” he joked.

  At the sight of my Guide who wasn’t really my Guide I clammed up, suddenly unable to speak again.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just need to check a few things then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  I nodded my head slowly (which I instantly regretted when I felt the shooting pains there) and followed his movements with my eyes.

  He studied the various machines I was hooked up to, checked my IV bag, then placed his fingers over my wrist and looked down at his watch to check my pulse. The feeling of his warm fingers on my cold skin sent little shivers through my body, and I suddenly felt a significant sense of loss over our relationship.

  Even if the tasks were something I’d made up in my mind, I still felt like I knew him. It was a terrible feeling to look at someone so familiar, yet feel so distant from them. At that moment I would have given anything for him to say some rude or snarky comment to me, just so that I knew it was really my Hayden.

  Instead he continued to scribble down notes on his clip board.

  I gathered my thoughts together, trying to ask him a question. I wanted to be witty and funny. Maybe dry and sarcastic like he had always been, but all I managed was a pathetic, “Will I live, Dr. Temple?”

  My question came out much too serious. I was trying to be lighthearted, but my broken speech just made it sound like I really thought I might die at any second. Not to mention the fact that the words “Dr. Temple” should never have escaped my lips. All the times I’d joked with Hayden about being a doctor, I’d never actually thought he was one.

  Hayden couldn’t be something as serious as a doctor. He was just Hayden.

  Still, I melted a little when he looked down at me with his blue eyes crinkling in the corners as he smiled.

  “Yes, Miss Edison. You’ll live,” he assured me.

  Miss Edison.

  I hated the way he talked to me. So formal. It was just one more confirmation that whatever had happened to me for those three weeks in the coma were completely in my mind.

  “We did an MRI when we first brought you in to rule out a subdural hematoma, but it looks like you just had a concussion…though I’m still not sure why you slipped into a coma for so long, but the mind is a curious thing,” he said quickly, sounding so smart and important.

  “English?” I asked with a small smile, which Hayden returned.

  “Right. We wanted to make sure you didn’t have any bleeding in your brain or swelling that needed to be monitored, but you were fine,” he began. “Although once I had a patient with some swelling and we had to take a piece of his skull off while we waited for the swelling to go down. To keep it viable we placed it in his abdomen,” he finished, looking amused at the idea.

  I crinkled my nose in disgust at his story.

  “Sorry. Probably not very interesting if you aren’t a doctor. I should have realized how gross that story is,” he quickly said, backtracking and sounding a bit nervous.

  He definitely wasn’t talking to me with any familiarity. It almost seemed like he wasn’t sure how he should act around me. It would have been cute if it wasn’t so sad.

  “I’ll just…,” he said, turning to leave and not finishing his sen
tence.

  I watched Hayden walk to the door, but he stopped once he reached the doorway. His head turned from side to side as if examining the hallways before he slowly closed the bedroom door and came back to my bedside, taking a seat beside me.

  He looked at me with a completely different expression than the ones I’d seen him wear since waking up. His brow was furrowed, his lips pursed, and he seemed troubled. He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly shut it again, as if trying to think of how he should phrase whatever he had to say, and suddenly, I worried that I might actually be dying. Maybe he didn’t want to say it in front of my family, but I really only had a few more days to live.

  Great.

  I’d finally come to terms with the fact that I was alive after thinking I was dead all this time, and now I was just about to find out I really was about to die and I’d have to reassess everything again.

  “Isla, do you remember me?” Hayden finally asked, still looking conflicted.

  I looked over at him with wide eyes. What was he really asking me? My immediate thought was that everything was real and I really had experienced all of those terrifying and wonderful things with Hayden. But then I wondered if he was simply asking to make sure my short term memory was intact.

  Unsure of how to answer, and hoping I could effectively convey my message when my speech was still so shaky, I kept my answer short and sweet. Thinking about what phrase would be vague enough that I wouldn’t sound crazy if I had made everything up, yet still be specific enough that Hayden would know about everything if he really was who I thought he was, wasn’t easy.

  It was a task more monumental than the six I’d faced in the coma.

  “My Guide?” I asked, knitting my eyebrows together despite the fact that the skin on my forehead felt too tight.

  Hayden’s face instantly melted into a look of relief as he let out a breath I hadn’t even realized he was holding. He nodded his head, a smile forming on his lips.

  “What do you remember?” he asked.

  That was a bit of a loaded question with only one easy answer.