The Institution

Chapter 13: Visitors

The next morning I got to eat my first solid meal in a fortnight. It was only a green sludge that resembled mashed peas and tasted suspiciously like Playdough, but it was a positive experience nonetheless. I had lost so much weight while I was in a coma that my sticklike figure was now reduced to skeletal thinness. The nurse told me that solid foods would help me to gain weight quicker as long as I thought I'd be able to stomach them. Never one to refuse a meal, I accepted the challenge and afterwards my belly was happy.

Pleased that my voice had returned to me at some point during the night, after breakfast I prodded my mother for details surrounding the accident. I found out that she had flown in from North Carolina as soon as she'd received word about the accident from Arthur's parents. She spent the first week in a motel just down the street but then Arthur's mother had graciously offered her the guest bedroom in their house on the other side of town. My mom told me that since she started staying there, she had gotten the impression that Arthur's parents felt strangely responsible for my injuries, despite the fact that the accident wasn't Arthur's fault.

Apparently Arthur had been fairly banged up- he'd had to get stitches on his left temple and one of his hands, but besides that he'd escaped with just a bad case of whiplash and a black eye that lasted for a week. His Audi was totaled and still at the mechanic's- the truck hit the passenger side and crushed the door frame. It was no wonder I'd suffered head trauma, I reflected- my head had taken the brunt of the impact.

When I inquired about the truck driver I was told that he had walked away without any injuries at all. I decided then that the next time I'm in need of a new vehicle, I'm getting a truck.

It was five o'clock in the evening and my mom had left the hospital to go and grab dinner. Unable to move still and with nothing to do, I was lying in bed watching the sun sink lower in the sky through the window and listening to the distant roar of the expressway below. I heard the hospital door open and I turned, expecting to see another nurse.

But a blonde head peeked around the corner instead, and there was no mistaking him.

"Arthur!" I said hoarsely, and grinned weakly when he sidled cautiously into the room. "What are you doing here?"

Arthur returned my smile and sat down in the chair my mother had abandoned. "I came to see you, idiot," he said. He scanned my face, as though he didn't truly believe that I was conscious, then said, "It's good to see you looking like your old self."

"What, covered in bandages and pumped full of morphine?"

"Lazing about in bed," Arthur corrected with his usual smirk.

I laboriously lifted the arm that wasn't fractured and punched him in the bicep with as much strength as I could.

"Careful now, we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," Arthur said humorously. "Look, I brought you something."

He dug into the backpack he was carrying and- to my great surprise- pulled out a textbook.

"You brought me a textbook? As a get well present?" I asked slowly, my throat gravelly. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I could ask you the same question," Arthur said. "Midterms start this week. I thought you'd get a hemorrhoid if you realized you'd fallen behind and couldn't study."

I opened and closed my mouth, looking very much like a fish on dry land, and I realized that he was right. I'd been unconscious for two weeks- I was two full weeks behind in studying. I gazed at him in horror.

"Don't worry," Arthur said reassuringly. "All of your professors know what happened and they've given you an extension. You can take the exams a week after you're released from the hospital."

I sighed in relief.

"But in the meantime, you can study now." Arthur placed the book carefully on my bedside table within easy reach of my good arm. Then he sat back and surveyed me again with a slight crease in his brow.

"What?" I asked, feeling very self-conscious all of the sudden.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said with downcast eyes.

"What for?"

"This," he gestured to the hospital bed. "This is my fault."

"What!" I said, completely shocked; after all, this was very out of character for Arthur. "This isn't your fault, Arthur, why would you think something like that?"

He blinked some more at the floor. "I was the one driving. I pressured you into going to the restaurant even though you said you didn't want to go. I thought you were-" He cut himself off, and I was pretty sure I had heard his voice crack slightly on the last word. He shook his head again.

I thought you were dead.

The words flashed through my head, clear as if Arthur had spoken them aloud. I jumped and looked around, but Arthur's mouth hadn't moved.

Or maybe it had, and I'd already forgotten. Silently cursing short term memory loss and brain injuries, I frowned and rubbed the side of my itchy bandage turban against my pillow.

"I'm fine, Arthur," I reassured him, deciding not to dwell for the time being on the strange anomaly that had just occurred. "The nurses said I'd make a full recovery. And my mom told me that the truck hydroplaned, so it wasn't your fault."

I didn't want to mention that I couldn't actually recall the events leading up to the accident, nor the accident itself. The nurses had explained to me that my memory might return to me later, but that I should give it time. Head trauma is tricky, they'd said. All I knew is that I didn't blame Arthur for what happened.

Watching my roommate now as he stared gloomily at the floor, I understood that he must have been struggling with this for the entire time I'd been in a coma. I reached out and poked his sleeve, unable to reach high enough for his shoulder. He looked at me then.

"It's not your fault," I said, my cheeks burning when I saw that his eyes looked suspiciously wet. I waited until he nodded to look away, and pretended not to notice when he sniffed and wiped his face on his sleeve.

Arthur sat with me for another hour until my mom came back, then he stood to give up his chair.

"I should go," he said, when my mother told him he didn't have to leave on her account, "I have a midterm tomorrow morning I should study for. Eight o'clock!"

"Bright and early," I said, knowing that he'd have a terrible time dragging himself out of bed that early on his own. "I recommend setting three alarms."

Arthur smirked and shook his head. "I never realized how difficult it would be to get up in the morning without your irritating prattle to annoy me out of bed," he said as he hoisted his backpack over his shoulder.

"You'll never take me for granted again," I said cheekily.

"Never," Arthur agreed.