a tool, but I think I was the one who allowed myself to be used. Maybe we’re both tools. Whatever. There isn’t any “us” anymore to worry about, anyway.
“Want anything to eat? I was going to go down to the cafeteria to grab something.”
“On those wheels?” Mike shifts in the bed and looks down at my new mode of transportation. “That’s what they have these hot nurses for—to get you food and junk.”
“Hot nurses? We obviously don’t have the same ones.”
“All of mine have been hot. Like Halloween-nurse-costume-fantasy hot.”
I place the Diet Coke back onto the plastic food tray. “I think that tumor is expanding at an unreasonably fast rate and your vision is being affected. I have yet to see anyone in this hospital that is even remotely attractive.”
I take that back. Ran was attractive. Very attractive. But that was in the ambulance and technically outside of the hospital, so I don’t feel the need to retract my previous statement.
“Knock, knock.” I twist in my chair toward the door; five teenage guys all about Mikey’s size and age walk through its opening. “Care for a little company?”
Two girls dressed in cheerleading uniforms trail behind them, Sadie the last to enter.
“Mikey! Looks like you’ve got some babes taking care of you up in here! What do I have to do to get a room?” the tallest of them all, Eric, jokes raucously. He’s wearing a football jersey and blue jeans, the same attire as the other four boys that followed him in.
Eric and Mikey have been best friends since they were five. We lived next door to the Tomlinson’s until Dad’s money ran out and the mortgage became an impossible burden that his airplane mechanic job couldn’t bear, and we had to transition from expansive country living to cookie-cutter suburban life. It happened at the same time mom ran off with her much younger, much wealthier, new husband—the same time she also took her half of everything in my parents’ estate—everything, that is, except her children.
“Hey Maggie. How’s your leg?” Eric slides onto the empty space at the foot of Mike’s bed and gestures toward me. He pulls off his blue baseball cap and runs a hand through his ebony crew cut. The rest of the crowd files against the wall opposite us. They’re so still, so steady and unmoving, that they look like mannequins.
“Fine.” It’s all I have to say, because even though nothing about it appears fine, the fact that my little brother has a foreign growth taking up space inside his head pretty much makes anything less life-altering than that fall into the “fine” category.
“Is that dumbass behind bars?”
My hands feel unnaturally cold, and I twist them over one another in my lap. I shrug, not wanting to seem like I have no clue what he’s talking about. Everyone surveys me like the subject matter is obviously something I should be familiar with.
“Who has a blood alcohol level that high at 5:30 in the evening? Seriously—hope they lock him away for good.”
Is that what happened? I think it, but am pretty sure I don’t say it, because everyone continues their staring, waiting for something to fall from my lips.
“Yeah, I hope they put him away,” I finally get out.
Eric nods. “You’re lucky, Maggie. It could have ended up really bad.” He shifts his gaze to Mikey. “And you’re lucky, too, man. I heard that the initial sack is what messed with your tumor and made you black out. Like it aggravated it or something. I think this is one instance where coach can’t get mad at you for taking the hit.”
I look at Mikey and though he laughs faintly, I see the fear held in his eyes—that same look he’d get when we were young, awaiting our punishment for something stupid we’d done. The fear of the unknown.
“Hey Mikey, I’m gonna head back to my room. You okay here?”
He smiles warmly. “Yeah Sis.” Mikey reaches across his bed for something and tosses it my direction. “Take this. You owe me new wallpaper.”
I scoop up his cell phone and attempt to angle the wheelchair, pivoting the wheels with my hands, but the extra bodies in the room occupy the space I need to maneuver it without looking like a total amateur. With one hand I thrust the right wheel forward, with the other I grab ahold of my IV pole, and instead of moving the direction of the door, I slam into the window ledge directly behind me.