Blink Once

by Cylin Busby

  She watched my face and then shook her head. She stood and walked to the windows, putting her hand on the glass. “And what about me? I’ll still be here, and someone new will be moved into your room, someone who’s been in an accident, someone who needs a friend. And I’ll have nothing left to give, because you will have broken my heart.” She sniffled and I could hear her crying again, quietly. “I guess I mean nothing to you. How I feel means nothing to you; you’re just going to do what you want—what they want. And I go back to being stuck here, alone.”

  I blinked no, but she wasn’t looking at my face. A memory washed through my mind. A girl crying, cleaning out a drawer in my room. Was that Olivia? Was she crying and taking out my things after … after I was gone? No, that was just a dream, the ghost of a dream, a nightmare. That girl was a child, smaller than Olivia, younger. It didn’t mean anything.

  I was going to come through the surgery, I was going to be okay, and I was coming back here for her. Whatever happened, I was coming back here for Olivia. She might not believe that now, but it was true.

  “I thought you were different. But you’re just like them.” She stood behind my chair and turned me toward the door. “I should have known better,” she said quietly, as if to herself.

  Who was she talking about? Her friends, the ones who never visited her? I wasn’t like them. Just because I was choosing to take a chance on myself, on the surgery, that didn’t make me selfish. I had to do it. But she was right about one thing. I had taken her for granted. The visits, reading to me, sneaking files, the whiteboard, her patience, listening to my dreams, taking me on midnight walks. I pictured her pushing my hair from my eyes—how many countless times had she done that? Curling up with me in bed, even if it meant the nurses might catch us. Telling me I could do it—that I could write, I could feel, I was still West. I was important, I was still alive. Olivia had done that for me. She had been my connection to the world of the living. Someone who I felt real with. The only person I felt real with.

  Olivia pushed me back to my room in silence, quietly and slowly put me back into bed, moving as if she were in a trance, an emotionless robot. After putting the wheelchair away, she lowered the bed back down so I could lie flat, and arranged my hands carefully. Then she leaned over me, pushing my hair back from my eyes, her hand trailing down my face lightly, along my cheek, a butterfly touch.

  “Good-bye, West,” she whispered, as if I were already dead. I blinked no, but she didn’t see it, or didn’t care anymore.

  Chapter 17

  When I woke up the next morning, it was a bright winter day—the kind of day where the sun seems too white, too stark, and you imagine for a second that you’re on another planet, in a sci-fi movie. The clock read only 9:30. Was it Sunday or Monday? I couldn’t remember at first. Then I did. It was Sunday. Yesterday was Saturday. Mom and Dad and Allie and Mike. And Olivia. Her face last night, that kiss, her telling me good-bye. But she didn’t mean it. I knew her, just like she knew me. And I knew that any minute I would hear the divider slide open, and she would be there, pulling her IV stand behind her, looking down at her feet, feeling shy because of how she had acted, the things she had said last night. She had told me she loved me. Not that it was a surprise—it was one of those unspoken things between us—but still she had said it, and that meant something. I knew exactly how much it took to say that to someone, to be the first one to say it, because of Allie.

  One afternoon, after school, we were walking to the bus stop—I didn’t really need to stay after school that day since my work on the sets was pretty much done, but I did anyhow. I used some excuse to stay and watch Allie onstage. She was good, I had noticed before, but now that we were hanging out, I felt this overwhelming sense of pride watching her move onstage, deliver her lines. She slipped into character so smoothly, from joking around backstage to really being the girl she was supposed to be in the play. I imagined her famous someday; it could happen, she was talented and really pretty. And there was just something about her, she had that special thing that made you want to get close to her. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who noticed it.

  When we left the school two hours later, it was freezing out, almost dark, and we walked close. Allie was wearing that puffy blue coat. She looked like a blue marshmallow with a white hat on; cute, even though I knew she didn’t think so. I kept grabbing her, squeezing her, hard enough to push the air out of the down jacket, but it would just puff right up again. “Knock it off.” She laughed. “Put me down!” but I kept doing it until she was almost actually annoyed with me.

  While we waited at the bus stop, I stood behind her and put my arms around her waist. She leaned back against me and we were quiet. Even though it was freezing out, I felt totally happy, just standing there with Allie, listening to the sound of the snow settling into the cold. When I look back on it now, I get it: we were alone. There weren’t any distractions, so she was mine, for that moment. I was thinking about Allie onstage, and the Allie I had in my arms. My heart swelled with pride just being with her. I felt overwhelmingly lucky—blessed. I saw the bus coming in our direction, slowly making its way up the slush-covered hill, and I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I love you.” She spun around, quickly, a shocked look on her face. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?” She smiled—this was an old joke, from the night that we met. We had talked and talked for what felt like hours at the party, and then, in the middle of a conversation—I think she might have even been mid-sentence—I couldn’t take it anymore. I just blurted out, “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?” She stopped talking and just sat there, shocked, as I leaned in and kissed her on the lips, our first kiss. Later she told me it was one of the sweetest things a guy had ever done with her. I didn’t want to think about the other guys, and how many she had kissed, but I took the compliment.

  I heard the whine of the bus brakes beside us, the door swing open, and we climbed on, holding hands. I didn’t realize until I had gotten home, until I was sitting at my desk doing homework and daydreaming about Allie, that she hadn’t said anything back. She didn’t say anything back for a long time.

  It took a while for me to realize that Allie was always a little reluctant to be my girlfriend. It seemed like she wanted to be chased, or maybe she wanted me to be unsure where I stood with her. Mike sometimes joked that Allie kept me on a leash, like her pet. When she snapped her fingers, I came running. When her ring tone sounded on my phone, Mike would sometimes make the sound of a whip snapping, as I scrambled in my pocket to answer before she hung up. Allie wasn’t the type to leave you a message if you missed her call.

  I guess that was part of the thrill, part of the excitement when she finally did give me anything—any sign that she genuinely liked me. But a lot of the time, especially lately, just before my accident, I felt like things weren’t solid between us. Like if I screwed up at all, if I didn’t call her back fast enough, if I spent too much time biking with Mike, if I did anything wrong, that she was going to dump me again and go back to that poem-writing asshole or to some other guy. It always seemed like there was someone else waiting in the wings. I didn’t know who they were—or even if there really was a guy, but it just felt like it. That’s how she made me feel, like I could be replaced. Like I always had to earn my shot at being with her.

  “How we doing today?” The bitchy nurse pulled me from my thoughts as she leaned over me and checked my pulse. I couldn’t believe it, she actually said something. She never spoke to me, well, almost never. She must have been in a good mood. She touched the tube on my IV, adjusting something, then wrote some numbers on my chart. When she was done, she left without so much as a smile. But at least she said something.

  The nurse was the first person in my room today. I knew she would go into Olivia’s room next. If she was still asleep, the checks would wake her up. So I could expect her any minute. I heard some talking in the next room, but it was too soft for me to make out who was speaking, what was said. When the talking sto
pped, I stared at the wall and waited for the sound of the divider. Instead, I just watched as the shadows grew longer and the sun moved across my window. Then it was afternoon, and still Olivia didn’t come, didn’t open the door, didn’t do anything in her room—I would have been able to hear her.

  The sound of a cart in the hallway on rattling wheels, the noise of my respirator pushing air in and out, in and out. I listened to everything, waiting to hear—anything from her. Moving in her bed, talking to a nurse. But she was quiet. I could picture her, in her bed, exactly how she must look, her cheek on the pillow, one hand tucked underneath, looking out the window, her long dark hair spread out behind her. Her face would be pale, the color drained, the way she looked sometimes when she had been pulling out her IV a lot. Her lips a light pink, making her eyes seem even darker.

  I knew she was thinking about me right now, while I was thinking about her. If I closed my eyes, I could see her face so well, imagine it, how she looked right before she smiled, how her eyes would light up first. Her hands, small and white. I could feel her thoughts, and I knew they were of me. Olivia was right, we were connected on some other level. We didn’t need to always talk. We could just know. It wasn’t like what I had felt for Allie, that constant chase, the missed connections. Something about being with Olivia felt complete. A quiet calm. It was love, real love; I finally understood what people meant when they said they were in love with someone. I got it now. This was it. I had found it, with Olivia. Or maybe she had found me. Whatever had happened to bring us together, I was thankful for it. I knew how crazy that sounded, because it wasn’t like I was thankful for my accident, for going through all this, but in some way I was thankful. How else would I have met this girl, and been in this place long enough to know her? It was meant to be.

  As the light in my room turned from golden to dusk to dark, I didn’t feel anxious. I let go of that feeling. I waited, but I knew she would come. And if she didn’t come today, she would come tomorrow. I knew it because I knew her and I loved her, like she loved me. It wasn’t just a word, like it was with Allie. It wasn’t just a sometimes feeling.

  I heard Norris’s voice in the hallway, at the nurses’ station, and I knew that night had come; a whole day had passed without Olivia. I closed my eyes and pictured her, standing by my bed, touching my cheek. It was only a matter of time.

  Chapter 18

  I can hear her breathing. She’s here with me, beside me, asleep. All dark and white, her pale skin with hair tangled around her shoulders, spread over the pillow. She’s wrapped in the sheet. The room is so cold, I want to pull up a blanket for her; it’s at the bottom of the bed, but I can’t reach it. My arm won’t move; it’s numb. I try to hold my hand up to my face but I can’t—it’s tied down. I’m tied down on both sides. “Olivia,” I whisper. “Olivia.” Something changes in the corner of the room—something moves. Out of darkness, I can see an outline of someone, a man. I can see the light at the end of his cigarette as he takes a drag, and I smell the smoke. His face in profile is not normal—it’s distorted, blackened with burned skin. His nose is gone, his eyes bulge from lidless holes in his face, staring at us. His lips are pulled back, burned away in a menacing grin.

  The bed feels hot now. It’s too warm; it’s burning, black smoke pours from under us. It’s not his cigarette I smell; it’s us. We are on fire. The room is on fire, the bed. Still Olivia doesn’t move, she’s curled up but so deeply asleep. He just stands there, watching us, as flames crawl across the floor, darting out from under the bed like snakes. “Olivia!” I try to roll, to shake her, but she’s motionless. I can hear the fire now, it’s under the bed, licking at the sheets, sucking air. Over the sounds of the flames, I hear laughing.

  “You can’t smoke in here! You know that.” The voice came from the next room, Olivia’s room.

  “Oh, pardon moi, I’m so sorry, really,” I heard Olivia’s mom say in her accent.

  “With all the oxygen tanks we have in here, do you understand how dangerous that is? An accident waiting to happen.” It was the voice of the bitchy nurse.

  “I was just in Europe, and things are so different there. Forgive me….”

  “I don’t think they smoke in hospitals, even in France,” the nurse said curtly as she wheeled her cart into the hallway.

  I listened for her mom to say something else, but once the nurse was gone, all I could hear was the soft sound of someone crying. Was something wrong with Olivia? What if that’s why she didn’t come to see me yesterday?

  After a few moments, I heard the sound of a chair being moved, a window closing, then talking. I couldn’t make out what was said, but no doubt Olivia was pissed at her mom for being gone for a while. She was probably asleep when her mom showed up, or pretending to be. Her mom just lit a cigarette, out of habit, while she was waiting for her to wake up. That’s probably what happened. I could picture her mom standing at the windows, looking out over the frozen grounds, a cigarette artfully poised in her hand.

  As I was straining to catch any sound from next door, Kim walked into the doorway. “Hey, stranger,” she said brightly. “Our last day together.” As she took my chart from the bottom of the bed, she rethought what she’d just said. “I mean, not in a bad way! Just that you’re in surgery Wednesday, and if all goes well, and I know it will”—she winked at me—“then you will be going on to physical therapy somewhere else, probably at …” She paused and looked at my cart. “At McArthur Med. Oh, that’s a great center.” She looked at me sadly for a minute, and I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely going to miss me or if she held the same belief that Olivia did—that I was going to die during the surgery, and this would be the last time she would see me.

  “Well,” she finally said awkwardly, “don’t think I’m going easy on you today, mister, it’s going to be the full routine. I don’t want you getting to McArthur next week and embarrassing us both.” She pulled the sheet up from the bottom of the bed, exposing my legs and feet. “Looking pretty good, much better; you’re almost all healed here.” She ran her hand over my leg, where the giant scrapes had been. I could feel it, her touch on my leg. It didn’t feel totally normal, but I could feel it, the light pressure; things were coming back after all. She bent my right leg at the knee, then extended it. As she bent it again, I told my muscles to make the same motion.

  “Excellent!” she exclaimed. She looked almost startled as she met my eyes. “You’re making progress; this is really something!” She bent my leg again, then straightened it, with me pushing along. “You can feel that, right? You’re doing that, aren’t you?” she whispered, leaning closer to me. She looked into my eyes. “West, can you straighten your leg on your own?” She bent the knee again and left it that way. “Go on, push it straight,” she ordered. I tried, but my foot felt almost jammed against the sheets, like I couldn’t get it to slide. “Come on,” she whispered, and I finally did make it move a little bit, a few inches, but not totally straight.

  “Okay, that’s something!” she said. “I’m going to go and get the doctor; you stay put.” When she realized what she’d said, she started to laugh. “I mean … you know what I mean.” She left the room and I tried again to hear what was going on next door. But I heard nothing, meaning that Olivia’s mom had probably left. And now she could hear everything going on in my room.

  A young doctor walked into the room, with Kim close behind him. He didn’t say hello to me or anything, just moved to the bed and looked down at my legs.

  “It’s not going to look like much, but remember this patient has had no motion below the chest, so …”

  “I have a ten thirty,” the doctor said curtly.

  “Of course, okay.” Kim seemed totally flustered as she bent my left leg. “West,” she spoke loudly, “I just want you to try and straighten this leg now, like you did on the other side. Just as much as you can.”

  At first, I did try to move my leg. But then I stopped myself. If I did it, and the doctor saw it, would that mean they wou
ld cancel the surgery? That I would be left to regain movement on my own—at this snail’s pace? And what would Olivia think? I knew she was listening to everything from next door, waiting to see what they said.

  I decided not to try. I couldn’t do it anyway. I needed the surgery. I wanted the surgery.

  “Well,” Kim said quickly, “maybe he can only do his right leg. Let me show you.” She straightened my left leg onto the sheet and moved around the bed.

  “I have to go; I’ll come back and examine him later when I have more time,” the doctor said as Kim set up my right leg.

  “Just watch, give it a second, he just needs a minute,” Kim said. “Now, West, do what you did before. Straighten this leg, push it straight for me. Straight down, you can do it.” The look on her face broke my heart, but I did nothing. After a couple of seconds, the doctor looked at his watch. “But he did it before, he did,” Kim said sadly.

  “Like I said, I’ll stop by later today, thank you, Ms. Lassig. Keep up the excellent work.” The doctor turned and left the room, leaving me and Kim there looking at each other.

  “You know what? That’s okay,” she said after a moment. “I saw it. I know you’re not strong enough to do it again, but I saw it, and I think you’re doing great.” She gave me a weak smile as she bent and straightened my leg repeatedly, stretching the muscles in and out. I let my leg go slack and allowed her hands to do all the work. I just hoped Olivia hadn’t heard too much.

  After she worked both my legs, she moved on to my arms, and I closed my eyes, I didn’t want to be a part of what was going on with my body. I didn’t want to check in and see what I could feel, what I couldn’t. I didn’t want Olivia to be right. But I was beginning to think she might be. When Kim was done she quietly took my chart and wrote on it for a few minutes, then she moved beside the bed. She must have thought I was asleep because she leaned in and took my hand. “I’ll be thinking of you on Wednesday. I hope it all goes great. I know it will,” she whispered, and then she was gone.