My mind was racing a million miles a minute--which was about the same speed C.C. seemed to push her station wagon--the entire way to the hospital, which was on the opposite side of town. Actually, calling it a hospital would have been pretty generous; clinic, I think, would have been a more appropriate word. C.C. slid into the first parking spot available and made a beeline for the main entrance, barely giving me enough time to even get unbuckled and get myself out of the car.442Please respect copyright.PENANAVvD6C1y42s
“Hey, wait!” I said, trying to catch up with her. She was a girl on a mission who looked more pissed off than concerned for her friend’s health. “If he just got to the hospital, shouldn’t we have gone in the emergency room entrance?”
“He’s not in the emergency room,” C.C. said through gritted teeth. She breezed past the sliding glass doors and marched up to the large wooden desk the sat on the back wall of the front lobby. “Alright, where is he?”
The college-age receptionist, who was scribbling in a ledger, jumped about a foot in the air when C.C. barked at her. “Ah, it’s you, again,” she said, putting on a very unconvincing fake smile. “Is there something I can assist you with?”
“You damn well know there is!” C.C. growled, giving her a death-glare. “Tell me which room Oliver Anderson is in!”
The receptionist didn’t even glance over at her computer screen. “Look, ma’am, we can’t give that information out if you’re not a blood relative, you know that.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me! Don’t you ever get tired of this routine?” C.C. was steadily raising her voice and I could see her gripping the desk so hard that her knuckles were turning white.
“Sorry, kid. Rules are rules.” She leaned back in her chair and mixed the slightest of smirks into what was supposed to be an apologetic smile. The move was not lost on C.C.; I wasn’t sure how big Tovido’s police department was, but I had a feeling I could be finding out any minute now.
“Cassandra! I was wondering when you were going to show up!”
The two of us turned to find a middle-aged Latino man who was wearing bright green scrubs walking toward us with a tray of food from the cafe. He smiled widely at C.C. and gestured with his tray for us to follow him. C.C. turned and made an obscene gesture at the receptionist, who rolled her eyes.
“Thank God you showed up, Dr. Ramirez. She was wouldn’t tell me where Oliver’s room was. again!” C.C. was visibly relieved by his presence, which made me feel a little bit better about being inside the hospital. If there’s one thing I can barely stomach, it’s hospitals.
1. That smell. A mix of sterilization and sadness.442Please respect copyright.PENANABpxzdeTvSK
2. The air, or lack thereof. Everything just felt so stale. 442Please respect copyright.PENANAPUUtcQt27t
3. Was it just me, or does everyone inside the building always talk in “hushed tones?” I hated that, “hushed tones;” it made me feel like it was wrong just being there.442Please respect copyright.PENANAFA20ET3Dbf
“Well, you did cause a bit of a… scene, the last time you were here,” the Doctor said evenly. He led us down a long hallway, past a number of screening and scanning rooms, to a carpeted stairwell, where we climbed to the second floor. “Hopefully, we can avoid a repeat performance from our dear friend, we’ve finally managed to get him to rest.”
“What’d you do, pump him full of drugs?” C.C. asked accusingly, Dr. Ramirez sighed and motioned for C.C. to open the door for him when we got to the landing above. She complied, and I found myself in a ward that looked an felt almost like a hotel, really. Instead of the usual white, sterile hallways and bright fluorescent lights, there was beige carpet, trendy little laps set up on the walls, and warm light coming in from a few large windows on the other side of the ward that overlooked the south west side of town and the interstate valley below.
“Look, Cassandra, there’s only so much we can do, and you know that,” he said, setting down his tray on the desk in the nurse’s station. “I know you disapprove of our methods, but that’s not really your call anyway. Please understand we’re doing the best we can.” C.C. looked like she was going to argue again, but she bit her bottom lip and just shook her head instead. “I don’t believe we’ve met before,” Dr. Ramirez said, turning to me with a polite smile and extending his hand. “What’s your name?”
“Harper,” I said, returning his smile the best I could and shaking his hand. It was warm and soft, but strong, exactly how I imagined a doctor’s hands should be.
“She just moved here from Minnesota,” C.C. chimed in. She was tapping an impatient rhythm on the desk with her fingers.
“Ah, what a coincidence!” He said with another wide smile. “You wouldn’t happen to--” He was interrupted by a loud beeping sound coming from a little black device attached to his belt. He unclipped it abruptly and looked at it for a moment. “Whoops, looks like they need me down in the emergency department.” He plucked an orange off of his tray and tossed it to C.C., who caught it automatically. “Oliver asked for that, he’s in Room Ten. Nice to meet you, Harper!” With that, the doctor swooped through a set of double doors and disappeared through another stairwell.
“He’s nice,” I commented as we made our way down the hallway toward Room Ten.
“Yeah, he’s not bad, as far as doctors go,” C.C. said, rolling the orange around in her hands distractedly. As we reached the room, she tapped her knuckles on the door frame gently. “Hey, Ollie, you awake?”
“As usual. And you know I hate that, by the way.” We slowly ventured into the darkened room. Oliver was sitting up in bed with a book in his lap, wearing one of those spotted white hospital gowns. Honestly, he looked awful; he had dark bags under his eyes and his face looked very pale. His eyes widened slightly in apparent surprise when I appeared from behind C.C., but he resumed his usual expressionless indifference half a second later. He closed his book and set it on the corner of the bedside table and looked back and forth between us. “So… what’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up?” Without warning, C.C. snatched a pillow off the armchair that sat opposite the bed and chucked it at him full force. Oliver caught it easily and let it drop to the floor next to him. “What’s up is that you promised to tell me the next time this happened to you, you thoughtless asshole,” she growled, throwing the orange at him next. He caught that, too, and set it down next to his book. “Explain yourself!”
“Maybe I just didn’t want you to worry,” he said casually, but I could sense something behind those grey eyes that wasn’t as calm as he was putting on.
“Oh, yeah, that’s going really well, huh?” C.C. dropped down into the armchair and I was left standing awkwardly by the door with no seat, but the other two didn’t seem to notice. Oliver looked like he was going to ignore her demands, but she gave him a look so scathing I felt like the temperature in the room actually changed. He sighed and looked away.
“Look, it’s not that big of a deal. I was just, you know, really tired this morning and I fell asleep in my car. One of the neighbors noticed and called the sheriff. They thought I was trying to kill myself or something. Next thing I knew, I was being packed up into an ambulance and carted over here.”
“Where you ever going to call me?” C.C. challenged him. The look on his face said it all.
“Look, I didn’t have to tell you where I was when you called me,” he countered, looking annoyed. “I can take care of myself just fine, thank you.”
“Yeah, obviously not!” C.C. said, gesturing wildly at the room we were in. The argument lulled into an extremely uncomfortable silence after that. I stood there trying to look as small as possible, glancing back and forth between the two of them, trying to piece everything together in my head. Finally, something clicked abruptly.
“Woah, wait, are you two… dating, or something?” I blurted out. It was one of those moment where I wished I could just suck the words back into my mouth and pretend I never said them. Both C.C. and Oliver turned to look at me surreptitiously.
“Uh…” was Oliver said. He blinked at me, as if suddenly remembering I was present too.
“We used to, sort of,” C.C. answered matter-of-factly. We’ve been friends since freshman year, and that ended up being more important than, well…”
“The dating thing,” Oliver finished, shifting in his bed. I nodded and cleared my throat awkwardly, suddenly feeling very warm. “Why are you here?” He asked suddenly.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” His tone wasn’t mean, but it did strike me as a little invasive.
“She was in the car with me when I called you,” C.C. cut in, exasperated. “Look, I know it’s awkward for you, but she was going to find out about this eventually.”
Oliver closed his eyes and leaned back, looking exhausted. “‘Yeah, I guess,” was all he said, eyes still closed, before the room lapsed into silence once again, save the low hum of a bank of monitors he was hooked up to. Every so often, something would beep and C.C. and I would look up, but Oliver remained unchanged.
1. I couldn’t do awkward silences; in fact, I absolutely hated them.442Please respect copyright.PENANAfOQzwxqVs1
2. I always felt like they were my fault. This instance was no exception.442Please respect copyright.PENANAZUKNTMOAjp
3. I couldn’t avoid them! Even dinner with my parents (both of them, at the same table) couldn’t go five minutes without an uncomfortable pause.442Please respect copyright.PENANAThEyBcx3nu
I hated them, but I never wanted to be the one to break the spell. I always ended up trapped in this eternal limbo of unbearable soundlessness.
Finally, curiosity and a little bit of concern got the better of me, and I forced myself to break the third rule as politely as possible with: “So, uh, what’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?” They both said it at the exact same moment. I figured that, since we were in the hospital that my meaning was heavily implied. This was not so, apparently.
“Well, um, you’re in the hospital, Oliver,” I said without looking right at him. “May I ask why?”
“It’s complicated.” C.C. answered after a moment’s pause, glancing over at Oliver, who shrugged.
“It's complicated in that it's grossly simple,” he added. “It pretty much boils down to the fact that I can’t sleep.”
“Like… insomnia?” I asked. I had never figured insomnia to be such a health risk before.
“Yes, insomnia,” he said. “Chronic insomnia. Acute. Whatever. Sometimes I literally go days without catching any sleep, and then I crash, like this morning. Dr. Ramirez is afraid that one of these days, I’m going to pass out and I’m not going to wake back up. That’s why they bring me here whenever they… well, find me.” He told it all evenly and without emotion, which was pretty impressive considering the situation. I had a feeling he had been forced to explain himself quite a bit. “There’s no explanation, no related illnesses, just my brain being wired to stay awake all the time, I guess you could say. I’ve even been to a few specialists, none of them have ever heard of this before me.”
“So that’s why you miss so much school!” I exclaimed, putting it all together in my head. Oliver’s expression was utterly unamused. “I’m sorry, I really am,” I apologized quickly. “It’s just that, well, you two are the only people I talk to in the whole school. When you’re gone all the time, it’s hard not to notice.”
“Yeah, well, do me a favor and keep this to yourself, okay? I don’t need people fawning over me for this stupid thing, there’s only a couple people who know.” Oliver suddenly, for the first time, looked… vulnerable, sitting there in the oversized hospital gown, hair sticking up everywhere, playing with the corner of his blanket with those long, agile fingers.
“I won’t,” I promised. “It’s not like I really have anyone to tell, anyway. Did your parents let the principal know so you don’t get in trouble for missing class or something?”
Oliver and C.C. busted up laughing at the same exact time. “Oliver’s parents, giving enough of a shit to do something like that?” C.C. snorted. “No way, girl! His parents are even worse than mine, and my dad’s in jail, even!” I was taken aback by both her honesty and her casual tone about the subject
Oliver picked up his orange from the side table and began picking at the peel somewhat forcefully. “My parents don’t even know that I’m here right now, they think I’m in school,” he said. I could easily detect plenty of bitterness in his tone, but there was something else, too, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Do they even know of your, uh, condition?” I asked cautiously For most kids, uninvolved parents would have been a concept that was hard to imagine. For me, however, it wasn’t all that strange; I just figured he had grown up the same kind situation that was like mine.
“Oh, yeah, of course they know.They just don’t want to have anything to do with it. Or me, really,” he added as an afterthought.
“Let’s see… I’ve known you for, what, about three years now?” C.C. said, making a show of doing the math in her head. “Never have I, even once, been to your house or met your parents.”
“You’re not missing much, on either account,” Oliver said in a low voice. He ripped off a chunk of the orange peel and throwing it at the trash can across the room. He missed and it bounced off the wall, landing in the middle of the floor. Nobody made a move to pick it up.
“They really don’t care that you’re in the hospital right now?” I repeated, looking at him skeptically. Even my sometimes-emotionally-detached parental units would be by my bedside in a case of severe illness.
“They care, they’re just too busy worrying about other stuff to keep tabs on me all day,” Oliver answered, staring down at his orange, which he was delicately peeling now. When he finished, he pulled off a single segment and ate it slowly and deliberately, as if savoring every drop of juice. When he noticed I was watching him, he put the orange down on his bedside table and returned my gaze. “This may seem weird to you, but I can take care of myself,” he said finally.
“I believe you,” I said simply. It was true; Oliver, if anyone, definitely seemed capable of self sufficiency.
“We better get back to school, Mrs. Dayton is going to have a cow if I miss her composition class any more than I already have. Not all of us have a “get out of jail free” card,” she said with a wry smile. My stomach turned over as I realized the period after lunch was almost over. “Is there anything you want us to take care of in the theater by the time you get out of here?”
“No, you guys can take the day off,” Oliver said, sliding his book back into his lap as C.C. stood up and we made for the door. “Thanks… thanks for coming,” he added after a short pause.
“I’ve got your back, you know that,” C.C. said with a grin. “Get better, Ollie.” Oliver shook his head reproachfully as we walked out into the hallway, but I caught the faintest hint of a grin on his face. C.C. led me back to the nurses’ station where she took a handful of little lollipops from a large glass jar before steering us toward the stairway we had come up.
“Wow, I had no idea about this,” was all I could say while we descended the stairs.
“He keeps it under wraps, obviously,” C.C. replied. She had lost some of the usual pep in her step and seemed troubled. “Mr. Tart knows he has an illness of some kind, but nothing more than that. That’s all the teachers know, too. Hell, that’s all anyone knows, you heard him: one has ever heard of this stupid disease before.”
“Will he stay here until they cure him?” I only realized how stupid that sentence sounded after the words had already come out. C.C. didn’t seem to notice, though.
“Dr. Ramirez has put a lot of work into figuring it out, but there’s no cure yet,” She sighed. We turned down the main hallway, toward the front entrance. “Nope, they’ll just pump him up with enough tranquilizers to let his body get enough rest for another month or so of functioning.”
“Wow, that really sucks,” I said, feeling a little knot tighten in my stomach. Oliver and I weren’t the chummiest of friends, but he was still closer to a friend than pretty much anyone else I had met in the last ten years. It was tough for me to even learn about this happening to someone; I could only imagine what it felt like for him.
“Don’t let Oliver hear you say that.” She warned as we passed the front desk. She shot a meaningful glare at the receptionist, who was looking down at her book and didn’t catch it. “Nothing seems to get on his nerves more than someone pitying him.”
“Well, I guess I know why he always seems a little…”
“Bitter?” C.C. finished knowingly. “You nailed it, Sunshine.”
We were halfway across the parking lot on the way back to C.C.’s car when I heard the last voice I ever expected begin calling my name frantically.
“Harper! Harper Lee Leonard, what on earth are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?!” I turned abruptly to see a familiar, immaculate brown bun bobbing across the parking lot on the last person I wanted to see at that moment. I stopped dead in my tracks. I had completely forgotten one very, very important element in making sure my parent didn’t find out I had skipped school:
1. My mom worked at the hospital.442Please respect copyright.PENANAAB7PAwuuT3
“Mom!” I said, half surprised and half instantly terrified. C.C. stiffened visibly beside me. I don’t usually lie to my parents; they don’t really keep too close of an eye on me to merit it, and being a social outcast makes it hard to get in trouble anyway. With everything going through my mind in that moment, I couldn’t think up a story fast enough.
“You better have a good excuse for this young lady,” she chided. She looked particularly intimidating in her scrubs with a clipboard tucked under her arm.
“We, uh, well, there’s a kid, one from school, and he’s, um, in here,” I answered. My heart was pumping a million miles an hour and I felt like I was going to break into cold sweats and faint.. Just great. How did I not remember that this, of all places, would be that last location I wanted to be if I were skipping school.
“And that’s why you’re running around here, cutting class like some kind of delinquent?” Mom said the last word like it left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Uh, ma’am, if I may? Harper’s only here because she was with me when I got the call that our friend was here in the hospital.” C.C. cut in confidently. Mom rounded on her with a hand cocked on her hip. She took one look at the piercing in C.C.’s eyebrow and the teal streak dyed in her hair and I could visibly register the disdain on her face.
“Who do you think you are, young lady?” She demanded, giving her a scathing look. I wanted to curl up and die. This was easily the most horrifying and embarrassing situation I had ever experienced in my life; This made what Stephanie did seem like child's play. “My daughter has never skipped so much as a class period in her entire life. I don’t want the likes of you dragging her education down the drain!”
“Mom!” I cried, looking at her, aghast. She shook her head angrily and put her hand firmly on my elbow.
“Come, Harper, I’m taking you back to school. You and I are going to have a long chat when I get off tonight, too, young lady!” Mom started forcefully leading me away. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and a lump grow so large in my throat I could hardly breathe.
How utterly, devastatingly, and cripplingly humiliating!
I caught a glance of C.C. standing, car keys in hand, looking both confused and extremely pissed off before we turned the corner around another row of car, my mother lecturing me the entire way about the importance of following the rules. I slammed the car door, fuming, and refused to talk to my mom the entire drive back to the school. I felt sick to my stomach, I was so mad at her I couldn’t even bring myself to fight back. I thought of C.C. and felt my stomach flip once again. She had been totally blindsided by my mom’s absolute worst side; I wouldn’t have blamed her if she and Oliver avoided me like the plague for the rest of the year.
Oh yes. My mother and I were going to have a long talk that evening.442Please respect copyright.PENANACMLp2p5w1y