Devil in the Details

TWENTY-THREE: When Soul Meets Body - Pt. 2

The resident returned a few hours later with his "boss," an older neurologist with gray hair and an amazed look in his eyes. He admitted that he didn't know what had caused the coma, but offered up some possibilities. "It could be some environmental toxin," he suggested. "Or a new virus that we didn't capture on our viral panel."

I personally didn't blame him for not knowing I'd spent the last few hours in the Underworld; I figured they didn't teach that in medical school.

"The good news," the doctor continued, "is that whatever this was, it seems like it was self-limiting. There's someone else on the unit who experienced very similar symptoms and he woke up a few hours ago too."

Even though James had reassured me everything was okay, it was nice to get confirmation that Billy had made it.

Despite the fact that I was looking a lot better, the doctors wouldn't let me go that easy. They told me that they wanted to keep me in the ICU for a little longer, and if I continued to look good, I could be transferred to a normal room as soon as this evening. As for when I could leave the hospital? They said tomorrow was the earliest, and that was only if I continued to look this good and physical therapy gave me the thumbs up.

I had no doubts that whatever my affliction was, it had passed. Which meant I needed to settle down and make myself comfortable. For the first hour or so, I took a luxurious nap; almost dying really wears a girl out. When I woke up, my family was playing a round of BS with a pack of playing cards Evan had bought from the gift shop. I joined in, explaining the rules to James who, of course, didn't know how to play and was somewhat morally offended by all the lying, but he picked it up quickly enough. My dad stepped out of the room every so often, answering phone calls to let everyone know that I was all right. And Mallory pulled out her phone and let me pick some music to play off of Spotify, which was a miracle as she never let anyone else choose what music was playing.

Around 2pm, my family decided they had gone on long enough without eating, and they all slipped off to the cafeteria—not before, of course, my mother asked me five times if it was all right that they went to eat. Which of course it was. They even took James with them, who had been regarding his rumbling stomach with a hint of amusement.

They'd only been gone a few minutes when I heard a set of footsteps outside my room. I thought it was my nurse, or maybe my mom had lost her nerve and decided to stay with me rather than get lunch. But I was wrong.

It was Lana.

"Hi," she said, taking a tentative step inside the room.

My room in the ICU was on the fifth floor, with tall windows letting in bright November sunlight. But the lighting only served to highlight how unwell Lana looked. Her skin was ghastly pale, her eyes sunken in and deepened by charcoal shadows. She looked like she was the one who needed to be hospitalized, not me.

"Hey," I said, my eyes trailing down to her hands. For a moment, I thought she had brought me a gift. Then I realized it was the teddy bear.

"I was just in Billy's room," Lana said. "To make sure he was okay, and... to say goodbye. He was asleep but..." She shrugged, her eyes moving from the monitors, then down to the cords and lines that wrapped me in their plastic tentacles: the navy blood pressure monitor, the soft red light of the pulse oximeter, the IV nestled in the crook of my left arm.

"Humans are so fragile," she said, so quietly it was hard to hear her. Yet I could hear the shiver in her voice, an echo of fear and awe.

"I'll be okay," I said. "They're probably going to transfer me out of the ICU tonight. And I'll probably be able to go home tomorrow."