"Shut the hell up, man! Shut up! Does anyone like you? Seriously? Anyone?! Do you have any friends? Anyone that gives a damn whether you’re alive! No, you don't and that's because you are a sad pathetic excuse for a man! You are a selfish asshole that just moves from one fix to the next! No wonder Dad left and I'm damn glad Mom died so she didn't have to see who you've become!"
With that my brother’s eyes widen and he turns in his seat driving his fist right into my face. My head smashes into the side window and a sharp pain shoots across the bridge of my nose. Opening my mouth up wide in an effort to move the muscles in my face, a slick, salty substance drips across my lips and into my mouth; my nose is bleeding. Before I have time to register or react to my brother’s extreme action, squealing and screeching booms in my ears. The smell of burning rubber rises into my nostrils as I try desperately to raise my head away from the glass.
“Shit!” Tristan yells out in a muffled tone beneath a storm of other chaotic sounds.
From my peripheral vision, he jerks and twists the wheel from side-to-side. All of a sudden, all the gravity has been released from the earth and somehow the car is weightless, flying through space; maybe it is me that is weightless. It all happens so fast that I have no time to think; to wonder what is happening or where I am.
Catapulting in one direction to the next, I am met with unyielding pain as the weight of my body turns into a lifeless doll being tossed around; flung into the door, the head rest, the roof. Something slams into my head and I yell but nothing comes out. It’s as if my voice is trapped.
A crack like a baseball bat slamming into a ball rings out in my ears and I swear my arm has been ripped clean off of my shoulder. Knives slice through my chest, jabbing me across the rib cage until my heart may explode. I gasp and sputter, trying to get a breath in.
“Juuuud!” a voice barely penetrates all the other crumbling, jagged, crushing sounds.
I squeeze my eyes shut from the extreme pain that is coursing through every limb of my body and hear a loud grinding noise like metal scraping metal mixed with the piercing sharp shattering of glass. My neck snaps to the side and my back thumps forcefully into a hard surface. I gasp out, desperate for air. My name is being called out over and over; it is amplified in my ears, yet suddenly I am no longer moving; I’m still. My thoughts are fuzzy and my body is being drained of energy. Sleep … I’ll just sleep.
“Judd,” a weaker yell calls out in the distance, but it’s muffled. I don’t recognize the voice but it is laced with fear, pain and is fading.
I’m slipping; falling or drifting maybe even sinking. I’m not sure I’m on any stable surface.
“Judd...Judd, answer me,” the voice calls out to me again and it sounds quieter.
My brain is telling my body to open my eyes, but any sort of control is lost and my eyes are being tugged back and forth, losing the battle; I can’t focus. Sleep, I want to sleep despite the shooting, throbbing and thundering pains that bolt through every fragment of my body.
“Ju ….” the voice in the distance fades away and all that remains is a faint strangled noise as my chest tightens. What is that? It’s a steady gurgle raspy noise and each time it sounds out, my chest constricts and;
I can’t breathe. I can’t catch my breath.
“Over here,” A different voice echoes in the direction of the earlier one.
“Oh my God, there’s another one over here.”
“This one isn’t breathing,” several voices sound around me.
“I can’t get any serv …”
“Hold on,” a female voice says from above me as the pressure of something soft lands in my hand or maybe another hand.
“You’ll be ok … breathe,” the voice is shaky and sad, but I cannot see who it is; where it is coming from.
I’m slipping again, floating and it’s dark.
The pressure in my hand gets stronger and a bright beam fills my mind. It’s like sunshine, but it is blurred. Then I see it; I see her.
She is sitting at the end of the fishing boat. Her mouth is moving and she’s talking about her dad. I can’t hear her voice; I want to hear her voice.
Her long blonde hair is draped over to one side and she is looking at me with so much love in her eyes. That was before we said we loved each other, but I can see it in her eyes now. I didn't see it before; she loves me.
I want to touch her, but I can’t move. I look down and it all blurs. My feet are concreted to the boat. I look back up and see her fading, blurring.
Don’t go! Please don’t go! I love you!
Her face blurs and blurs as I hear a soft voice whisper, “Hold on.”
Am I dying?
But I know I am and I know without a doubt that I will never see her again; that I will never feel her in my arms again; I’ll never hear her say I love you and I’ll never feel her soft lips against mine.
My chest tightens and pain rolls through me and although I struggle to reach for her; to touch her blurred face and hold onto it, the blurred visions of her soon fade to darkness and the pain slips away.
“JUDD …”
Rolling my head, I get light headed as if I’ve been drinking all night. A splitting pain shoots across my skull and if I didn’t know better, I’d say that I had been in a fight with someone ten times my size.
A throbbing sensation shoots up my right side causing me to scrunch my face in response. Slipping my tongue out of my mouth, I run it along my dry, cracked lips sparking a stinging sensation.
I make every effort to push the haze from my head, concentrating on summoning up just one thought, one memory of what happened. My mind reels with confusion and I cannot shake this heavy fatigue that pulls at my body.
“Judd …” My brother’s voice echoes, reminding me that I must be sleeping.
“Hey, buddy, you gonna join us here in the real world or sleep all week?” Evan’s smartass voice joins the chorus and I re-evaluate my surroundings.
Drip … drip … drip …
My ears zoom into the subtle sounds of liquid dropping into more liquid along with a faint humming and muffled chatter in the distance.
“Judd, hey, it’s me … Jake. The doctor said you should be waking up soon.” My brother’s voice is strained, almost hoarse.
“He’s awake …” Evan draws out. “What? You think you worked so hard at the lake that you deserve a vacation now?” Evan chuckles, yet the sarcastic tone that is usually in his voice is replaced with a hint of worry and concern. “Well, I’ve got news for you buddy …” Evan’s voice vibrates, “… carrying your whipped ass all over the place chasing after blondie is not working. Now, get your lazy ass up.”
I snicker at Evan’s words, but the laugh lodges in my throat.
Trying to clear it, I slowly wiggle a couple fingers on my left hand and pry my eyes open slowly and carefully.
Soft folds of fabric move beneath my hand and I can tell I’m in a bed. A sliver of light filters in through my half opened eyes and it is so bright my head immediately throbs. Sticking my tongue out to lick my lips again, a raspy vibration moves up my throat and out my mouth.
“Hhhh …”
“There he is!” Evan exclaims.
He’s only a blur so I crease my eyebrows and concentrate on bringing the image into focus.
“Judd,” Jake’s voice fills the air once again, coming from my right, but when I flick my eyes to that side, my head is motionless as if it is welded down.
No matter what I try, I cannot twist it and with each muscle that tenses in my efforts, a shooting pain bolts down my back and something inflexible digs into my jaw.
“Hey.”
My eyes waver, opening and closing in an attempt to adjust to the light. His face slowly comes into focus, automatically putting my heart on alert when I see tears welled up in his eyes.
Flicking my eyes down, I glance over, barely able to see the length of my body beyond the blur of my cheek bones. I take in rolls of soft, white pillowy clouds. Wait. Wh
y am I lying in clouds? I seal my eyes closed then reopen them. Blurs of bright white come into view over my feet and like one of those hidden picture illusions, my eye sight pauses then focuses in on a white sheet draped across my legs down to my feet. I strain to look down despite something that is holding my neck still. Slightly nudging my index finger, I zero in on the movement and see that my arm is wrapped in chalky white bandages. No further movement reigns in my arm as I attempt to relocate the motion to my wrist. I center my vision in on the thing covering my arm, realizing it isn’t a bandage at all.
“Your arm’s in a cast.”
I swing my eyes back to my brother at his words and the instinctive reaction ignites a series of sudden cluttered visions of me being flung around in Tristan’s car.
“Wher …” I open my mouth to speak but it’s hoarse and scratchy.
I gulp down nothing in particular, but work to assemble any amount of moisture so that I can form words. It’s like someone shoved my mouth full of sand down my throat.
“Here, this will help,” Jake says as something solid and pointy comes to rest at the corner of my lips.
Trusting my brother, I close my mouth around it, immediately familiar with the shape of a straw. I muster up enough strength to draw the contents up with a weak suck that nearly drains what little energy I have in my body. Greedily gulping down the bland yet thirst-quenching flavor of water, I cringe as a pain climbs across my chest and up my side. My throat screams out in relief and my stomach rebels with a roar.
“Take it easy. I don’t think you should drink too much at first.”
Bullshit. I’m thirsty as hell.
My brother obviously doesn’t read into my desperation, because the straw quickly gets pulled from my mouth, leaving me impatient and frustrated.
“Where …” I stop, still feeling as though birds have taken up nesting in the back of my throat.
“Should I call the nurse?” Evan asks and I assume he is talking to Jake or someone else.
I have no clue what is going on but his words clear up a bit of the mystery that I continue to try and verbalize. Shifting my gaze straight forward, I stare up at the ceiling, hoping to steer off blasts of pain in my head. A loud buzz behind me has my heart airborn and my eyes stretched open further than I have pushed them. A slicing sensation splinters down my nose right as a female voice booms out from behind me, with a bit of static and crackling like an intercom or speaker.
“Can I help you?”
“The doctor said to let you know when he’s awake,” Evan’s voice halts for a second then that sarcastic tone that I am so used to hearing rings out loud and clear. “Ahhh … so yeah, he’s awake now.”
“We’ll send the nurse,” the loud, crackling sounds of the same female voice replies.
Without full mobility of my head, I manage to flick my eyes back and forth over my surroundings and it becomes one hundred percent clear that I am in a hospital. With this revelation, all sorts of sounds, sights and feelings begin to stand out and my confusion is partially satisfied.
A tightening over my bicep clamps down and a hissing sound rises into the air. The vice on my arm gets tighter and tighter until I know every vein in my arm has to be bulging and ready to explode. After an extended hold on my arm, I clamp my jaw as the grip releases, allowing me to relax a bit. A slow and steady beeping bounces along and sounds as if it is behind my bed. More chattering rises from beyond my room with an amplified voice that sounds like it is calling out over a speaker phone. I stare ahead, looking up at the snow white ceiling that consists of large squares. Sweeping my gaze down without moving my head, a row of cabinets surrounding a sink that is cluttered with medical equipment finally comes into view.
Closing my eyes from the overwhelming knowledge of where I am, my mind fills with images. Pain and fear that I have never experienced in my life flicker in my head as I remember screeching tires and the panic on Tristan’s face as he worked to regain control of the car.
We had a wreck. It’s a single thought, but it is very clear as memories of my brother’s screams and my own rise up to the forefront of my mind. Whirling through the sequence of events, I immediately slam on the brakes with one thought inside of me screaming, pleading and begging for an answer.
“Tristan,” I whisper out as my body finally relinquishes moisture.
My eyes haze over with tears and my heart clamps with the thought that my brother could be dead. Please, no.
A sudden tornado of images and memories fly through my head, seizing my heart in its wake.
“Tristan, push me higher,” I scream as he runs under my swing for possibly the twentieth time today.
“I am, I am,” he laughs, two deep dimples adorning each cheek.
“This is how you build a snowman Right like this.” He pierces the ribcage of the middle ball of snow then hastily shoves a smaller twig right in the center of Mr. Snowman’s face. “Then we can use these for the eyes and mouth.”
He adds several pebbles in a large, curved-up arc below the twig and two above it to finish it off. I stand back in awe. It looks just like the one on TV.
“I’m gonna make one just as cool,” I shout in amazement, already on my knees, balling up a huge heap of snow.
“Me too,” Jake yells, jumping to the ground with me.
Tristan cracks up, falling to the ground with us. “We’ll make a snowman family.”
Knock, knock … I rack my fist on Mom’s bedroom door. The door opens a crack and Tristan looks out at me.
“Hey, I was going to sit with Mom for a while.” I try to glance behind him, but he has the door held nearly shut. “Is everything ok?”
Tristan’s eyes seem dazed as he searches for words. “The nurse just got here, so it’s probably not a good day. Don’t you have practice?”
“Practice has been over for an hour.”
“Well then wash up and warm up some of the leftovers in the fridge for you and Jake.” He closes the door without another word, leaving me feeling shut out.
I know he takes care of Mom and I get that he tries to protect Jake and me from seeing everything this disease is taking from her, but sometimes it’s too much. I’d rather see her sick than not see her at all. Maybe that’s selfish, but she’s still here and I miss her.
Bursting into the bedroom, the immediate sense of stillness and emptiness slams into me as I see Tristan sitting silently on the bed, his head hung over his knees as he rocks back and forth. He looks up and my heart explodes. This isn’t real. I want to speak. I want to scream that it’s not true, but the tears racing down his face tell me all that I need to know, everything that was explained to me before my guidance counselor drove me and Jake home.
Tristan shakes his head as he looks at me, pain and agony crumpled across every feature of his face. “She’s gone … she’s gone,” he barely gets the words out. He holds his hands out and stares down at them. “I was supposed to take care of her.”
I want to fall on the bed with him. I want to tell him that he did take care of her, but everything inside of me is gone, vacated, gone with her. I didn’t say goodbye.
A noise sounds behind me and I glance back. Jake is sliding to the base of the floor beside the doorframe, his body shaking and sputtering with every excruciating sob and that makes my heart clamp so tight that the crushing feeling may be visible.
“Jake, Judd, come here …” Tristan breathes out in a quivering tone.
Jake jumps to his feet and runs to my brother, collapsing onto the bed with Tristan’s arms immediately wrapping around his shoulders. I want to join them, I want to go, but all I can do is stare at the empty bed behind him, the hospital bed that took residency in our house the last year and a half as my mom deteriorated. I look to Tristan and his eyes land on me, but my feet are nailed to the floor.
“Judd … come here,” he sucks in a deep breath and reaches an arm out, while still holding tight to Jake.
I can’t; I want to but I can’t. I didn’t even say goodby
e. Turning in a furry of emotions and heartache, I race out of the room, flinging the door out of my way and run … run … run and run. I don’t even care where I go.
Before the front screen door slams shut, I hear my brother call out, “Judd!”
Coming out of my thoughts, I look over at Jake and tears run down his face as well.
No, God, no, please, no! Not my brother, not like this!
Jake’s breathing sounds labored as a loud beeping rings out over and over and over.
“Judd, calm down. Tristan is fine. He’s alive,” Jake’s shaky words set my strangled heart at ease somewhat and I quickly realize it is my breathing that is in distress.
“What’s going on?”
A movement in my peripheral vision and a thud has me looking past Evan’s head to a female figure coming towards me.
“He’s just scared I think,” Jake says as the woman walks past my line of sight and the sound of papers crinkling sounds behind my head. A continual beeping makes me want to scream out in annoyance. Fingertips press down on my wrist and another soft hand slides over my temple.
“Your heart rate just shot up. You also look like you ripped open the cut on your eye. How are you feeling, sweetie?”
The beeping keeps going off, making me grit my teeth and forget about everything that is currently going on. How do I feel? I feel like I just woke up from a damn car wreck; what does she think?
“Call me crazy, and of course this isn’t a medical assessment or anything, but I’m thinking he feels like shit,” Evan says my exact thoughts out loud.
I drop my eyes to him. He has his signature smirk on his face and it automatically makes me want to laugh.
“Also, is there any way to shut off that annoying ass beeping noise?” he adds and I find myself chuckling despite the pain in my body and level of stress from what has happened. Thank you, Evan.
She belts out a deep laugh and counters Evan’s sarcastic comment, “I tell you what, you’re mouth is the only reason I keep coming back in this room. If I didn’t know better, I would swear you were flirting with me.”
Catch My Breath Page 17
