“It might work, San. It may not have to be like this. I just hope we made the right choice.”
The sudden peacefulness that cocooned me kept me from being scared. I stopped struggling. I had no regrets, no questions and no worries. I accepted my fate. At least I was with the most important people in my life at the end. Still, I had an awful feeling that I missed someone. I tried to figure out who it could have been, but I lost my thoughts when I felt his breath on my neck, as I lay there waiting to die. “Lexi girl,” William whispered in my ear. “I promise you we’ll be together again. I love you more than my own life, Lexi Blane. More than my own life. Remember me.” His words repeated in my head before they phased out. The blackness found me again.
Chapter 4
Back to Reality
“Lex, can you hear me? Lexi?” The loud, annoying, and very deep voice made my ears rumble with pain. I begged him in my head to shut up. That jolt that sent shivers through my body hit me again. The darkness that shielded my eyes started to lighten into a bright, white haze. I wasn’t dead. It was a start.
“She’s waking up! Get Doctor Bowen!” I knew that voice. It sounded an awful lot like my mother.
After a few unsuccessful attempts, I forced my eyes open. I held them long enough on the woman holding my hand to see that it wasn’t my mother, but a woman who looked familiar. “Lexi! You’re back! Oh, thank God!” Her grip tightened as her tears rolled down her face and fell onto the sheets, while she screamed for the doctor again. My eyes darted around the room, their vision no clearer than a drunk at closing time, but focused enough to see I was in the hospital.
Scared and confused, I tried to talk, but the giant tube crammed down my throat made it impossible. My eyes followed the tubes from my arm to the pole, where they were connected to bags of clear liquids. Their contents were being forced into my veins. The perfect rhythm of the beeps from the machine that was attached to my finger hurt my head. I wanted to go home.
I squinted my eyes to read some of the chicken scratch written in blue marker on the white board across from my bed. My vision was still off, but the one line that I could read confused me. It was the date. July 28, 2010. Nah, can’t be. Some dumb-ass candy striper just made a mistake with the year. Duh. Who does that in July? Last year at that time I was in England, I thought. The memories of our first date played like a movie in my mind. And then it stopped.
Oh God, William. Where is he? Where are Mom and Dad? Why aren’t they here? My heart thumped hard and fast as the panic crept into my bones. The beeping of the monitor sped up and I grabbed at the tube they had shoved down my throat. Before I was able to give it a yank, a soft, chubby hand peeled my fingers off.
“Child, don’t be doin’ none o dat or they gonna strap ya down. You be all right. Doctor on his way an he take care o that fo ya,” the nurse said. She rubbed my hand in a caring gesture before she let go.
The familiar woman stood nearby, irritatingly sniffling and wiping her tears away. “It’s okay. I’ll watch her until he gets here. Thanks.” She tidied up the wads of wet tissue in her hand as she spoke.
“Welcome back, Lexi,” the man in blue scrubs said. He practically skipped into the room with a ridiculous grin on his face, looking like he had hit some of the happy pills in the medicine locker. He was my doctor, I never would have guessed. With his unusually small and delicate hands, he started slowly peeling the tape that secured the tube to my mouth, whispering in a voice that was nothing like the one I’d heard earlier. His goofy smile disappeared and he got all serious when he spoke. “Give me one big cough on the count of three. One, two, three.” He barely reached three when he pulled the tube and I coughed, more than he asked, although not on purpose. “Don’t try to talk yet, Lexi. You have to breathe a little and reorient yourself. You’re in Hackensack Hospital. Today is July 28, 2010. You’ve been here with us for quite a while—since the first of June. Do you know why? Just nod or shake your head if you can.” I shook my head. I had no idea why I was there, but my best guess was that I’d fainted again. Maybe this time I took a fall, or hurt myself in a big way. The last thing I remembered was being in the Bahamas with my parents and William.
I tried to talk, but only moaned a dry crackle instead. “Wait, Lexi,” the doctor said, while he grabbed a paper towel and filled it with a few ice chips that were laying on the tray. He pressed it against my lips and signaled the nurse to hold it there. The questions he fired made no sense, not that I could have answered them anyway with all the poking and prodding going on. The light he shined in my eyes stung like a thousand bees and I tried hard not to scream. He hammered at all of my joints, pricked my toes and played around with the tubes in my arm. His constant talking made my head hurt—especially since he mostly asked questions I couldn’t answer. I had one question of my own. What the hell was going on?
“Excellent! Try to say something now,” he said.
“My mom?” I asked. I couldn’t tell if my words were intelligible to anyone but me. I asked again. “Mom?” That woman was back at the side of my bed, peering at me with her big blue eyes that seemed quite sad, but sparkled when she smiled. I stared at her for a few seconds before it came to me. She was my mother’s sister, my Aunt Fay.
“Oh, Lexi, you’re back!” She slipped her arms under my back and pulled me close to her, cradling me in the warmth of her grasp. “Thank God. Oh, thank God!” She let loose and cried like a two year old. Poor thing. I felt bad for her. I moved my arm to touch her, but it was so weak it barely made it off the bed. She cried even harder when she noticed it.
“Easy, Mrs. Warren. Give her some time to fully come around. Let’s not overwhelm her,” one of the staff politely said to this woman accosting me. Sleep stole me again as their conversation faded in my ears.
˜ * ˜
My eyes opened easily the next time. The familiar darkness colored my world inside and out, but the flicker of the florescent light on the wall across from my bed told me I wasn’t blind. That friggin’ white board still had the wrong date on it. I pulled myself up and tried to scoot over to the edge of the bed. I didn’t know if I could stand or what parts of my body still worked, but I had to find my phone to call my mother. She was always straight up with me and would tell me what happened, no matter how bad it was.
I slammed the empty drawer in the nightstand shut, infuriated that I couldn’t get out of bed to check the closet for my phone and the rest of my stuff. It shouldn’t have shocked me when all those nasty nurses came trampling in, but it did. One of them yelled at me to lie back down, while another one started prodding me with instruments. The short cranky one with a heavy accent handed me a phone. “Hello?” I questioned into it, clueless as to who was on the other end, but hoping it was my mother.
“Sweetheart, it’s Aunt Fay. How are you feeling today?” Today? I thought. It looks a lot like night out there, but apparently, I’ve been unconscious for a while so what do I know? Aunt Fay’s sincerity and goodness spilled out of her in every way it could, even in her voice, but I really couldn’t remember that much about her. I decided to pretend until I convinced myself I wasn’t out of my mind. If I could ever do that.
“I guess I’m okay. Where are Mom and Dad?” I moved my hand up to run my fingers through my hair, a habit I’d had since I was a baby. It didn’t take long to realize it was gone. “My head! What happ...?” I scoped the room for a mirror which, of course, was nowhere to be found. Obviously intentional. With my free hand, I gave my head a little touch and felt the mountain of tape and gauze protecting it. My head didn’t feel right—inside or out.
“Lexi, I’ll be right up. I’ll be right there.” I threw the phone.
The next five minutes felt like five hours. I waited anxiously, confused and irritated. I must have had an accident. How could I not remember what happened? I was borderline genius! WTF? My mind started putting together all sorts of fractured bits of information and it made me sick. None of it was good. Finally, Aunt Fay arrived just as the sun started t
o come up.
She looked a lot like my mother only her hair was dark like mine. The sun’s early rays accentuated the tiny lines on her face that were probably more noticeable from her exhaustion in worrying over me. Her half smile was pretty, but she couldn’t hide the pain behind it. Not from me anyway. She slid her coffee on the nightstand and climbed into the bed with me. Her body curled around mine, holding me tightly, while she brushed my forehead with her finger. “There’s no easy way to tell you so I’m going to just say it.” I felt myself getting so nauseous I thought I would puke. I almost didn’t want to hear it. I knew it was bad.
“You were in a horrible accident with Mom and Dad. They’re gone, Lexi. You were the only survivor. I’m so sorry, honey. I know how hard this must be for you.” She sniffed hard and wiped the tears she fought to control on her sleeve.
Anyone hearing that news would have broken into a fit as the last word fell out of her mouth. I didn’t react the way I should have. I couldn’t scream like I wanted to so violently. I couldn’t cry for the loss of my beloved parents. I couldn’t do much of anything, other than sit motionless and stone-faced, probably in complete denial.
I don’t know how many minutes went by while their lives flashed in front of my eyes. “Lex, Lex!” Aunt Fay whispered. I flinched, even though her touch was gentle when she started slowly shaking me. “You still with me, Lex?” I met her eyes with mine as they finally filled up with water.
“Gone?” was all I could say. I buried my head in her arms and cried myself back to unconsciousness.
˜ * ˜
For the next few days, I floated in and out, but mostly out. I didn’t know reality from what I created in my own mind. I hoped it was all a nightmare and I would wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs on Sunday morning with my dad rifling through the paper. But that never happened. I was awake and this nightmare was my life.
After a week of being out of the coma, I wanted to know everything about the accident and I imagined the ways I could squeeze the details from Aunt Fay. She never volunteered any info since the doctor told her to chill, but she seemed to be the one who knew it all. She usually came right after breakfast, which I fake ate since it was always nasty, and she stayed with me until they forced her out at night. I pushed the powdered eggs around my plate and dumped my juice and tea in the water pitcher, waiting for her visit.
“Good morning, Sweetheart!” Aunt Fay came through the door with a smile and a tote bag. “I brought you some photo albums to look through and a few unhealthy snacks. That hospital food must be getting to you by now.” She unpacked the goodies and lined them up on the tray table for me to make a selection.
“Thanks,” I muttered. I pointed to the Mentos. At least I could chase them with a diet soda and blow myself up if I wanted to. She handed me the strawberry ones, my favorite flavor of everything.
I knew who I was, but beyond that, it was all a guessing game. My lack of basic knowledge made me completely frustrated, restless and angry. None of whatever drugs they were pumping through that IV were helping me or making me feel whole. In fact, they were making my head so flighty that even someone without a head injury would barely know more than their own name. They probably couldn’t spell it, either.
“I want to know. I have to know. I’m ready now,” I blurted out to Fay.
“Are you sure? I think it might be too soon, honey. Maybe in time...”
“No!” I yelled. “They were my parents! If you don’t tell me, you can just leave. Now!”
Aunt Fay bit her lip and rolled her eyes up to the sky, as if someone up there had an answer for her. And then she started the story.
“It was June first and you were all on your way to New Jersey, to the airport where your flight to England was taking off. It was such a dismal and rainy day, but you were on the phone with me, joking about how it made you feel like you were already in London. The roads were slippery, especially the bridge. You were almost over it when a tractor-trailer was coming too fast behind you. He lost control on the wet road and forced your car into the truck in front of you. Mom and Dad didn’t suffer, Lex. When they were pulled from the wreckage, they were already gone. From the initial impact, it seems. There was a Marine stuck in the traffic from the accident who tore you out of the car before it caught fire. Somehow, he managed to keep you alive until help came. Mark is his name. He calls every day to see how you’re doing. He’s even stopped in a few times. Those balloons over there are from him.”
She tried to hold back the tears as she related the story that was told to her by witnesses. It was almost as hard for her to say as it was for me to hear.
Looking at her in that state had to be the saddest thing I’d ever witnessed. It was the first time her tough shell cracked enough for me to see she was a lot more like my mother than I thought. She was in so much turmoil. Strangely, I didn’t cry or scream or even react, outwardly that is. But my heart was crushed and I felt completely alone. I couldn’t imagine living a day without my parents. They were my world. As much as I complained about how they cramped my style, I couldn’t function without them and I didn’t want to. Or without William. And then the reality of her story finally bashed me in the head.
“Wait! You’re saying I never made it to England? No, you’re wrong! I went there last year! I met William! We went to school... he came to see me in New York! We were just in the Bahamas with Mom and Dad!”
“No, Lexi.” She ran her hand under my eye to catch the single, half-formed tear before it fell. “That was probably just a reaction from the drugs. Doctor Bowen says there was a good chance your mind hallucinated in the coma. None of that happened, honey. You never made it out of New Jersey. I’m sorry. It will take some time to...”
“Yes it did! I was there!” I screamed and ripped her hand off me and threw it backward. “What are you trying to do? Get out! Get the hell out of my sight!” I pushed her away from me, struggling to disconnect myself from the IV.
I continued my rant as this woman who called herself my aunt watched in horror. “You’re a friggin’ lunatic! You think my life never happened? You... you think I’m crazy, don’t you? That it was all... in my head?”
The incessant clicking of the emergency call bell made me seethe. I tore it from her fingers and started throwing punches in her direction, not knowing if I landed any. Then the army of miserable nurses swarmed me again, and a strong man’s grip pinned my arms to my sides as my feet left the floor. The shot burned when it released the sedative into my veins. I lost my balance and the man put me back in my bed, while the nurses consoled the woman who said my life was not as I knew it. The muffled sound of the doctor’s voice got louder as he came into my room and I tried to fight away the familiar urge to sleep.
“Mrs. Warren,” he started. “It was too much too soon, that’s all. I warned you of the effects of her head trauma. A temporary lapse in memory was the best we could hope for. In my opinion, she’ll be fine in a few weeks. She just needs time to heal. Her body has been through an awful lot, not to mention the tragedy she is waking up to. You have to keep it together for her. You need to help bring her back to her normal self. She has no one else. She’ll come around in no time,” the doctor said reassuringly.
“She doesn’t remember anything and I doubt she remembers anyone, either. She probably doesn’t even know who I am.” Her tone went from sorrowful and sympathetic to demanding.
“What went on in her brain? Why can’t she tell what’s real and what’s not? Tell me! What exactly are we dealing with here?” she prodded. Without waiting for his answers, she continued. “I don’t know how to help her. She was so sure about her life and where she’d been since the accident. It’s like her mind continued her life while her body didn’t.” Her voice got shaky. She must have realized how ridiculous that sounded to an intelligent brain surgeon. Hell, even I thought she was nuts.
“Mrs. Warren, it’s been a long uphill battle. She’s alive. The rest will fall into place,” he offered.
&nb
sp; I managed to win the sleep battle, and tried to decide if I wanted to interject anything into the conversation, or accept what they said and consider myself a full-fledged head case. I opted for the former. They had to know I hadn’t lost my mind and it wasn’t some stupid hallucination. I knew who I was and where I had been. They couldn’t take that away from me. I had memories, and they were memories, not imaginary thoughts. How could I get them to believe me? I didn’t want their force-fed thoughts or drugs or whatever else they would use to try to fill the voids in my mind.
I knew I had gaps, so I tried hard to remember easy things like where I went to school, the names of my friends and what my plans were for my future. As I struggled to remember everything I had known, William’s face flashed in my mind. If I never went to England, then how did he get in my head? Who is he? In all of the craziness, I remembered him. He told me to remember him. I had to solve that mystery on my own, but first I had to make peace with Aunt Fay, the only person I had.
“Aunt Fay?” I mumbled, in my best attempt at sincerity. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t entirely sure if I meant it. She broke away from her conversation and rushed to my bedside.
“Lexi, don’t be silly, honey.” She took my hand in hers and ran her fingers across mine. “I know it’s all so much for you right now. I can only imagine what you must feel. The only thing for us to do right now is get you better. Time heals all wounds, Lexi. Your mom and dad wouldn’t want you to grieve them. They’d want you to be happy.” Even though I didn’t believe a word she’d said from the minute I woke up, I believed what she said right at that moment. I remembered, very vividly, those words being spoken by my mother.
The Dragonfly Prophecy Page 3
