With Malice (6 page)

I said a silent prayer I was seeing double.

“Why is there an extra bed?” I asked.

“That's your roommate's side. Her name is Anna.”

Inside my head, I said,
Oh, hell, no,
but even with a head injury, I knew that wasn't the right way to respond. “Is there a way for me to have my own room?” I asked instead. I don't have any siblings. I don't share well. “Please,” I added, using my adult suck-up voice. The nurse was already unpacking my things and putting them in a small closet next to the bed by the door. The room looked like it belonged in a hospital. Worn brown linoleum that was faded from years of being washed with harsh cleaners, hospital bed complete with rail and plastic mattress coating, and industrial-grade chairs parked at the side for a visitor. The other bed was surrounded by a hoarder's amount of crap—empty water bottles, magazines, a couple of paperbacks, a sweatshirt, and a tangled set of earphones. For all I knew, there was a flattened mummified cat buried at the bottom.

I didn't know how I would cope with someone in the room. I was having trouble sleeping. This was an understatement. I would be wide awake in the middle of the night and then, in the afternoon, suddenly be taken out by a wave of exhaustion. I'd fallen asleep in the middle of dinner last night. Drooled all over the front of my PJs. This was one of many reasons I wasn't interested in sharing with a roomie. That and the fact I was having nightmares. Nothing I could remember in the morning, but I'd wake with the sense that a memory of Italy had just dodged out of sight. That they were sneaking up on me.

“Most people love having a roommate. We'll get you settled today, and you'll start your program tomorrow.” The nurse picked up a few things around the other bed, tucking them away, and tossed out an empty chip bag.

My dad's lips pursed together. “How much would it cost to get a private room for my daughter?” he asked.

I winced at his tone.

“A lot of patients find it nice to have someone who is going through the same experience,” the nurse said. She yanked the curtain back so the view of the treetops could be seen from the window.

There was a flush, and the bathroom door opened. A girl wheeled out. Her hair was dyed a flat black, but there was a wide strip of dark brown where it was growing out. That's what I noticed first. The second thing was that she wasn't wearing any pants, just a pair of baggy granny panties. She had a pierced nose and huge silver hoop earrings. Beyond huge—you could have lobbed a baseball through one of her earrings like at one of those carnival games. I wasn't sure what about her I found most disturbing.

“My catheter was leaking,” she announced to our group as if it was no big deal. “I threw my stuff in the hamper.” She didn't seem remotely embarrassed to be half naked in front of a bunch of strangers. She looked at me. “I'm Anna Lopez.”

I nodded and did my best not to stare as she wheeled herself over to the bed by the window and then grabbed the triangle that hung from the ceiling and swung up and onto the mattress. She was like a circus performer. A pantsless performer who used entirely too much eyeliner.

“Can you get yourself dressed?” the nurse asked. Anna was already doing a weird shimmy into a pair of flannel pajama bottoms that were covered with penguins wearing sunglasses. I would not have guessed she was the whimsical jammie type. Her legs were thin, wasted. She picked them up and moved them around as if they were things instead of an extension of her body. The sight of her legs made me vaguely nauseated, and I was glad when they were covered again. I rubbed my cast like it was a genie lamp and said a silent prayer of thanks I hadn't broken my back.

I used to play that game with Simone. Which would you choose—to be blind or to be deaf? To be paralyzed or to lose an arm? To be burned or to have your leg caught in a bear trap? Now that it was real life, the game didn't seem that much fun.

My dad was staring at Anna as if he'd never seen anything like her. Anyone who looked like they didn't spring from the pages of
Forbes
magazine gave him the hives.

“I'm Helen,” my mom said. “And this is Jill, your new roommate, and of course Keith, her dad.” My mom smiled. She was the master of social situations. If we were ever in a bank robbery, my mom would be the one passing out snacks from her handbag to the other hostages while making small talk.

“I'm going to have to ask you to check into getting a private room for Jill.” Dad ignored Anna and focused on the nurse. “As I'm sure you can imagine, this is a special situation. I think Jill would be more comfortable on her own.”

I wished I could melt into the floor.

“This ward is full of special situations,” the nurse said. “Besides, there aren't any other options. We don't have any single rooms. They're all doubles.”

“Well then, I'll pay the difference so my daughter can have a double room to herself,” Dad said.

“This might be fine,” my mom said. “Jill, what do you think?”

Before I could even open my mouth, my dad cut in. “Don't be ridiculous. You know as well as I do how interested everyone is in her story. Is that really a temptation you want to put in front of someone like—” He motioned to Anna.

“Keith,” my mom said through clenched teeth. Apparently my dad had confused paraplegia with being deaf.

Anna waved off my mom's concern for her feelings. She seemed thrilled to have a front-row seat for this drama.

“I'll be fine,” I said, my face flushed.

My dad stared upward and sighed. “For once would it kill you to take my side? I am trying to give you what you wanted.”

“I don't want to cause a problem,” I said.

The nurse shut the closet door. “Perfect. I'll let you two girls get to know each other. Anna, I'll leave it to you to show Jill down to the cafeteria for dinner.” The nurse patted me on the back and turned to my parents. “There is an orientation meeting for family downstairs. If you have more questions about Jill's treatment, or the housing situation, you're welcome to talk it over with her team leader. That's Dr. Weeks.”

“Don't bother to unpack,” my dad said. He yanked out his iPhone and started firing off texts to various people. He bustled out without waiting for my mom, who trailed after him.

Anna watched the door swing shut.

“So, what's wrong?” Anna asked, pointing at my leg.

“Fracture—they put in pins,” I offered. “I guess you have a spinal—a back—a spine thing,” I finally pushed out.

Anna smiled. “Is your head fucked up too, or is talking just not your strongest skill?”

“My doctor says I have word-finding issues,” I said, slightly offended. “It's called aphasia. It's already gotten better, and I lose fewer words every day. I have a brain injury.”

“Sure, it's a brain injury,” she said.

“It is,” I insisted. “Before this, I got A's in English. My verbal test on the SAT was in the high seven hundreds.”

Anna threw her hand over her chest as if she were overcome. “Oooh, impressive.” She waved off whatever I was about to say. “Calm down, Einstein. I'm sure you were plenty smart. I was just yanking your chain.”

I wanted to tell her I was still smart, but I wasn't completely sure. “Do you go to Lincoln?” I asked.

She cocked her head to the side. “Why would you guess that?

I flushed again. Lincoln was the east side of town. There's no nice way to tell someone that they look like the kind of person who goes to school someplace with metal detectors. “I just haven't seen you around my school,” I said.

Anna paused long enough for us both to realize she knew I was lying and she was going to ignore it for now.

“I was in a car accident,” I said to fill the space. “What are you in for? Same thing?” I felt like I was in one of those prison documentaries.

“Me? No. My boyfriend pushed me down a flight of stairs. Bastard.” She inspected the split ends on a chunk of her hair. She noticed I was staring at her. “I mean, he's not my boyfriend anymore.”

I blinked. “Well, that's good.”

“You got a boyfriend?”

“No.” I had the sense I was boring her. Maybe I wouldn't be up to her roommate standards. “Actually, I guess I don't know if I'm dating anyone. I'm missing the last six weeks.”

She turned to face me. “Really? You don't remember stuff before the accident. Not at all?”

“Nope. I remember things from way before. For me, it was the end of March last week, and now it's May. Everything in between is just gone.”

“That's fucked up.”

Anna seemed to have summarized my situation better than anyone else. “Yep.” I picked at my pajama bottoms. My mom had gotten some at Nordstrom and then slit the one leg up the side so my cast would fit. I kept pulling loose threads off. If I kept this up, I'd end up pantsless too. “My best friend died in the accident,” I added.

I kept finding times to bring up Simone's death in conversation. Maybe if I said it often enough, it would finally sink in.

“Yeah,” Anna said. “Sorry.”

“It's worse, because there was, like, another six weeks that I had with her, and I don't remember it at all.” I swallowed hard. “I'm missing that time.”

“Maybe it will come back to you,” Anna offered.

“Maybe,” I said.

Anna sighed. “I wish I could forget some stuff.”

“The fight?”

“Nah. What I wish I could forget is how much I still like him.” She looked over at me. “I know. I know. I don't even have the excuse of hitting my head.”

“There's still time,” I offered.

She laughed. “How long are you in for?”

I shrugged. “They told me at least two—” The word was gone. “Two, not months, not days either,” I said, hoping she could figure out what unit of time I meant. “Then I'll do outpatient stuff for a while.”

“Do you know who your physical therapist is?”

I shook my head.

“You should hope it isn't Sam. Everyone calls him the Sergeant, a real physical terrorist, as they say.” Anna looked up at the clock. She reached up and swung herself back down into her chair. “C'mon, we've got an hour before dinner. I'll show you around. Tell you all the stuff the staff never shares with you. By the way, no matter how they try to sell it, never choose the veggie casserole for dinner. That shit is nasty. And what they call tacos is an abomination of my cultural history.”

I felt like crying again, because she was being nice. I desperately wanted her to like me. I couldn't help but wonder what Simone would have thought of Anna. There have always been other people who hung around the two of us, but the truth was, no matter how many other friends we had, each of us always knew that the other came first. Everyone else was there to fill out the group. They weren't required. Just supporting actors whose names you couldn't always remember.

“You okay?” Anna asked.

I shrugged. “I guess. I'm just a little emotional.” I willed my eyes to stop tearing up. Anna didn't look like the kind of person who would have a friend who cried at the drop of a hat. She looked like a person who could be stabbed and then would wrap the wound with duct tape and go out dancing, all on the same night.

“Look at the bright side,” she told me. “If life didn't toughen you up, this place will.” She sped down the hallway, pointing out a small kitchenette as she rolled by. I pushed the wheels of my own chair and tried to keep up. For someone who was so skinny, she was hiding muscle in there somewhere.

“I'm sorry my dad was such a dick,” I said to her back. “He's not coping well with all of this. Emotions aren't exactly his thing.”

Anna shrugged. She gestured to a sign by the elevator. “We'll head downstairs later, but if you ever get lost, just find one of these. They've got the whole place color-coded. Our ward is yellow. We've got a TV lounge down here, but we share it with another ward. There's some guy who watches baseball non-freaking-stop. The Chicago Cubs, too, so what's the point? They never win. No matter what he says, he doesn't own the TV. You can ask him to change it after an hour.” The muscles in my arms burned as I pushed the wheels. She looked over her shoulder. “Don't worry about your dad. He's just looking out for you.”

“I'm not sure what he thinks is going to happen. It's a rehab hospital. How much trouble can I get in?”

“I'm betting he worries that I'm going to sell you out to the media.” Anna struck a dramatic pose over her shoulder. “Sexy Latina fellow rehab patient of Jill Charron tells all. Tune in at ten to hear the full story.”

“I don't think that's a story that's going to make you much—” The word dropped into one of my brain's black holes. I could picture it. Stacks of bills and coins. “Much cash,” I settled for.

Anna stopped her chair and spun it around so we were facing. “You joking?”

I couldn't stop fast enough, so my leg, which was extended out in front of my chair, ran into hers. It wasn't hard, but it was enough to send a lightning flash of pain from my foot to my hip.

“Are you playing dumb?” Anna asked.

I stared at her. This must be some kind of rehab initiation prank, messing with the brain-injured kid. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Anna's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Whoa. You're serious. You have no idea why your dad thinks I might sell you out?”

I wanted to spin my chair around and leave. Find my parents and tell my dad he was right—I didn't want to stay with Anna, after all. Whatever she was about to tell me wasn't going to be good.

“Jesus, they left you in the dark. Come with me. There's a computer in here we can use.” Anna wheeled into the lounge. The room wasn't big. There was a round table in the corner next to a bookcase filled with abandoned well-thumbed paperbacks and board games likely missing pieces. In the front of the room there was a group of chairs covered in some kind of stain-resistant industrial fabric. There was one person sitting and watching some reality TV show with heavily Botoxed women screaming at one another. Anna pulled up to a table on the far wall, where three computer stations were set up.