Things I'll Never Say

Like We Never Even Met

We took a turn through a hallway I had never been through before as the officer exited me from the building. There was an elevator, luckily, that took us right down to one of the smaller lots the hospital had. There, his car was parked right by the curb, a dark, black, Hummer. It looked new, and I could see my reflection in the paint. My eyes had little rings beneath them, making me look tired and sick, and my hair was greasy; but my swollen stomach managed to camouflage itself under my hospital gown. To anyone who saw us on our way out, I must've been quite the sight.

The officer opened the passenger seat for me with his thick arm, helping get in. I used his arm as I would my walker, while using the the arm of the car to ease myself into my seat. Once I was secure and had taken my reliance off the walker, the man quickly compacted it and placed it in the back. It seemed like he simply snapped his fingers and he was in the drivers seat, key in the ignition and all. Maybe it was just my lively imagination, but the officer struck me as a mysterious man with a story, some deep dark secret, off a past life. Or maybe it was just my mind's way of rationalizing the fact that fifteen minutes ago I was just praying a nurse would come in and notice me on the floor, and now I'm in a man's car, who's name I have yet to know, speeding off to who know's where to identify a potential subject, or at least that's what he told me.

"Excuse me, Mr...?" I began, having been reminded again that I don't have the first clue who he is or what's going on.

"Officer Brian James. But we'll get to introductions later,"he said with his deep voice, whipping the steering wheel to the right as we made a sharp turn. "I need you to put this on. The nurses don't know I took you out. We aren't on very good terms, you see. Besides, you don't want to be walking around in public with just that hospital gown on, do you?"

Never slowing down, Officer James spun us through such a tight roundabout that I thought I was going to vomit all over his brand new windshield. I still hadn't come to the conclusion whether or not the man was reckless, or just plain old insane. It was hard to tell with those black glasses that he wore; I never could tell what he was thinking. But I was quickly distracted by the laundromat bag he threw on my lap as we continued to speed down the highway. Opening it up, I saw a pair of black pants, combat boots, and a leather jacket with black singlet. It seems a variety in color would be too much effort to spare.I slipped the tight-fitting jeans on underneath my outfit, but I realized there was no graceful way to slip the tank on without taking off the gown.

"Oh, relax. I'm not looking. I'm too busy trying to get us to the station in time. Besides, the windows are tinted so no one else can see into the car. Just quickly get into the jacket and lace up your shoes so I can explain to you what's going on."

I could feel the heat in my face from my cheeks blushing as I untied the gown and quickly pulled the tank top over. Immediately, I was glad to have had the jacket to hide my little bump that the tight tank revealed, and the lack of support I was wearing. The jacket fit nicely, even when zipped, and kept me warm with the outside temperature barely reaching sixty degrees. Having put my bare feet in the shoes, Officer James began talking.

"As I said earlier, I'm Officer James. I've been wanting to speak to you for quite a while. But, the last time I saw you, you weren't exactly in a condition to talk. Luckily, John was there visiting you every day and was hopefully able to relay enough information to you that you have a vague idea of what is going on in the present moment. So, I'm just going to jump right in," he said, slamming the horn at someone who cut in front of him out of nowhere."Anyway, as I was saying, I am one of the investigating officers who have been tracking a drug dealing situation that's been running down the coast. Wherever there's drugs, there was a dealer, and usually not just one. The problem is, these dealers become cult-like in nature, and are very reluctant to rat their leader out in fear of what will happen to them. So, it makes it the hard job of the investigating team to pinpoint the source of it all. I was on duty in New York, meeting with all of the individual investigators of various cities to see what they had come up with. Nothing. After a month, each rep of the states we were looking at met up to discuss patterns and possible suspects. And John, it seems, was on to something. Of all the investigators, his case seemed most likely. Of course, as information came together, it was apparent he was spot on. Unfortunately, it wasn't until we had the approval for siezure that our suspect was on the run. Somehow, he found out."