Restart - An Original Novella

Chapter VII {A Rush Of Blood To The Head} Part 1

Sunday, April 24th

I really, honestly, can't believe it.

Because I saw it coming.

It was too good to be true. Everything was. So when it all fell apart, this was bound to happen.

I'm drowning in a kind of frozen shock, but I'll get over it.

A doomed relationship was and is the least of my problems.

****

Monday, April 25th

I visit Heidi Schultz's mother, Rena, before and after I stop seeing Michael.

She is surprisingly spry and excitable considering she is in the hospital. She adores me. She always tells me about how I remind her of Heidi when she was younger. I feel happy about that. She also tells me about the preparations for the baby shower and how she hopes I'll come.

One of the days I visit her, I bring a mini portable keyboard, the kind bought for baby kids. "This is my gift to Heidi's child," I say to Rena, and play simple nursery rhymes for her. She is delighted I thought of this. Then I play more complex songs, anything from church hymns to pop songs-turned-sheet music, and she practically jumps for joy. I wish she could. I wish a woman as strong as her didn't need to be punished by a stupid heart disease.

It dampens my spirits just a little to have to walk past Michael's room to get to Rena's. But visiting Rena makes up for the amity I've lost to residual bitterness. She brightens my day, every day. So I visit her every day.

****

Monday, May 2nd

Rena has left this hospital, and I am overjoyed. Finally, she is not bound to the confines of this wretched place as an ailing senior. I am angry for myself for feeling a twinge of jealousy and sadness — the first because she is leaving, and the second because I will not be able to see her daily anymore. She has given me her contacts so I can still keep in touch. She is my only contact on my new phone, given to me by Mrs. Bloom, my therapist. The other was destroyed in the crash. She never did tell me if it was a gift, or if she bought it with my parents' money.

I really should be more grateful to this hospital. They saved my life here. They turned me into a cyborg here to preserve me.

I am alive because of the people here.

I guess I am just tired of roaming the white halls just to return to my white room. Too much white. White symbolizes innocence, cleanliness, purity, safety, goodness.

And surrender.

If the stuff of legend is real, I would think this hospital is part of some sort of conspiracy. The reason they surround us with so much white is to brainwash us, make us dizzy with lies. We will never be what white symbolizes — whole, unblemished, perfect. And they'll put us under their spell so we will be helpless under them.

I refuse to be part of this.

I need to get out of here.

But I really and truly am grateful for this hospital being erected here in this location, conveniently for me. Just for the record.