All Things New Page 3

  “No. Can I please have some more water?”

  “Sure.” She goes back to the sink. “So what’s the story on your boyfriend?”

  My ribcage contracts. “He’s not my boyfriend.” These words are agony to say.

  “He didn’t seem to know that.”

  She turns off the water. Pulls a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, wipes off the cup. “Are there friends you do want to see?” she asks. “It’s important that you don’t isolate yourself. Maybe in a couple days, when you’re—”

  “How long will I be here?” I ask abruptly.

  “A week. Maybe ten days.” She hands me the cup.

  “And then what?”

  “Then you get on with your life,” she says.

  i didn’t have a life

  i only had wren

  Reflexively, my fingers start twirling. Left hand lifts, reaches for a strand of hair. But the piece I touch is stiff and matted, dreadlocked with dried blood. Suddenly I smell it, hair and blood and tea tree oil shampoo. I choke back a gag. The cup jerks. Water sloshes onto my cotton gown.

  “I’ll send a nurse in to get you cleaned up,” I hear Dr. Voss say.

  “Uh huh,” I say because it’s all I can say without throwing up.

  I grab at the loose Velcro, tugging it open even more so the whole strap is free, then roll the fabric around my fingers up and under up and under over and over again. “Emotional self-regulation,” Dr. Rothschild called it, except that back then it was hair twisting instead of twirling, twisting twisting twisting until the blond strands broke. Not (as Rothschild insisted, kept insisting, tried to force me to admit) because I felt “compelled” to rip my hair out, or because I “enjoyed the sensation” when the follicles tore. It wasn’t about the hair at all. Not that Rothschild cared what it was really about, he just wanted to give me 100mg of Clomipramine and an “OCD with trichotillomania” diagnosis and call it a day. I hated every second of the fifty-five minutes I spent in his office every week. Hated him. So I switched from twisting to the less “maladaptive” twirling just to piss him off. The Shel Silverstein poem I memorized later, when the twins were born and things got bad again and my mind learned how to un-distract itself, my anxiety like a magnet, always pulling my thoughts back in.

  Twirling the strap helps. My pulse stops throbbing in my temples, my breathing slows. My mind starts to empty itself, thoughts draining out, the way I’ve trained it to do. If I don’t think, I can’t feel. And I don’t want to feel this. I don’t want to feel anything at all.

  “Hi, Jessa,” an older woman’s voice says from the door. The nurse Dr. Voss mentioned, here to clean me up.

  can you do insides, too?

  She takes out the catheter I didn’t know I had and hooks my IV bag onto a rolling rack. “Take it real slow,” she says as she helps me to my feet. As if there is any other way to take it. Every part of me aches. My brain feels too big for my skull.

  I shuffle toward the bathroom. There is a towel hanging over the mirror, tucked in tight at the sides. Its presence there, the fact that someone felt the need to hang it, sucks the air from my chest. I sway on my feet, lightheaded with fear.

  “Easy now,” the nurse says, catching my arm. She flips down the handicapped seat in the shower, gestures for me to sit. “This’ll be more of a half-shower,” she says apologetically, as she starts peeling the bandages off my face. “We can’t get your head wet. But I can wash the bottom half of your hair with the hand shower. At least get the blood out of your ends.”

  I stare past her at the grey tiled wall and let my gaze blur. I feel her movements, the brush of gauze on my shoulders as she unwinds the bandage, lets it fall, but cannot feel my face. I have no sense of where my cheekbones are in space, how far my nose sticks out, what is bloodied cotton and what is bloodied skin.

  “You’re lucky they didn’t have to shave any of it,” the nurse is saying. “Usually they do, for this kind of thing.” this kind of thing. The kind of thing where heads crack like eggshells and whole lives come apart?

  The last piece of gauze sticks a little, and her brow furrows as she carefully peels it from my forehead. “There,” she says when it’s off. “Now you can breathe a little.” She shoves the mound of gauze into the trash bin by the sink and lets the metal lid fall.

  Out of nowhere, my face starts to itch. The sensation doesn’t tickle. It’s fire beneath the surface, it makes me want to rip off my skin.

  My hands fly to my face, but the nurse is quick. She catches them before they touch skin. “Where does it itch?” she asks, holding my wrists with her hands.

  “I don’t know. I—I can’t tell. My left cheek, I think?” The itch is all consuming. I want to claw my skin off, to dig the creepy crawly out with my fingernails. “I just need to—,” I pull away from her, trying to get my hands free. Pain erupts in my fractured wrist.

  “I can put Vaseline on it, and that’ll help, but, sweetheart, I can’t let you touch it. Not yet. I know it itches, and an itch you can’t scratch can drive a person crazy. But your skin is raw right now and we’ve got to keep it clean.” She lets go of my wrists and reaches into her shower caddy for a jar of Vaseline. She gently rubs it onto my cheeks.

  The itch is so intense that my eyes are watering. I dig my nails into my palms, hard. “Why does it itch so much?”

  “The nerves are starting to heal,” she explains. “It’s a good sign, that you’re getting sensation back so soon.”

  i don’t want sensation back. numbness doesn’t hurt.

  She sets the Vaseline aside and unties my hospital gown, sliding it down so it’s a heap around my waist. It registers that I am sitting here topless, but this body I am in doesn’t feel like mine anymore so the half-nakedness seems irrelevant, like a rumor, something I’m supposed to care about but don’t. The nurse is busy with her washcloth, rubbing the blood off my collarbones, gently scrubbing my armpits and my back. I notice the sensation on my skin, the rub of wet cloth, the slippery slickness of soapy lather running off elbows and tailbone and chin, but it feels far off, like I am far off, like I am no where at all.

  At some point, the water stops. The nurse pats me dry with a thin, scratchy towel and helps me into a clean hospital gown, this one purple with tiny yellow birds. “Your parents can bring you some pajamas from home,” she says as she ties the new gown behind my neck. “You’ll feel more like yourself, in your own clothes.”

  I nod, though I feel like laughing, like screaming, at the absurdity of this.

  “Your dinner should be here in a few minutes,” she says as she helps me back into bed. “You’re on a soft food diet for the next seventy-two hours, so it’ll probably be soup, some applesauce, jello. Your parents can bring you something else if you want it, a smoothie or ice cream.” She smiles conspiratorially. “There’s a Pinkberry down the street.”

  My parents. It’s the second time she’s said it. I resist the urge to correct her, no, my parents aren’t here, my dad lives in colorado, it’s just my mom and carl, the guy she married a year after my dad left, who i can promise won’t be doing a pinkberry run because it’s the twins’ bath time right now and he couldn’t possibly miss that.

  “Do you want me to get them?” she asks. “Now that you’re all cleaned up?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “But your mom—”

  “Could you just tell her I’m really tired, and I’ll see her tomorrow?” I ask. “It’s my brothers’ bedtime, and I’m sure she wants to see them before they go to bed.” I am aware of how ridiculous that sounds. But I also know that my mom will leave as soon as someone gives her permission to go, and that is reason enough to send her away.

  There’s a knock at the door. “Do you mind if we come in?” a male voice asks. Two police officers, in uniform, are standing in the hall. “We’d just like to ask Jessa some questions about the accident for our report.”

  “Jessa needs her rest,” the nurse says firmly.

  “It’ll only tak
e a few minutes,” one of the cops says, voice friendly, as they step inside the room. He’s young, and really cute. The other one is older, the skin on his face twisted with scars.

  My stomach churns. Partly for how uncomfortable the older guy’s scars are making me, mostly from the realization that I probably look worse.

  “It’s okay,” I say, because the truth is I don’t actually want to be alone. “I’ll talk to them.”

  “I should get her mother, then.” The nurse moves toward the door.

  The one with the scars steps aside to let her pass. “But we’re not here to interrogate Jessa. We only need her statement. We know the accident wasn’t her fault.” His voice is so kind it makes my heart sting because I am staring at my hands to avoid his face. I force my eyes to space between his eyebrows, the only inch of smooth flesh. “What do you want to know?”

  “Your recollection of what happened,” he replies.

  “A car hit me,” I say mechanically. I leave out the crunch of metal, the sharp crackle of glass, the sensation of the world being sucked toward me, my hope being sucked out.

  “Did you see it enter the intersection? The vehicle that hit you?”

  I shake my head. “I— I heard the brakes. Then I was spinning, and then I hit a tree. The guy who fixed my wrist said I hit a fire hydrant, too. But I only remember the tree.”

  “What guy?” the younger cop is asking. “An EMT?”

  “No, before that. There was a man who came to my window. A doctor. In a white coat. He popped my wrist back and told me the ambulance was on its way.”

  The cop flips back through his notes. “Okay. According to the driver of the other vehicle, she called 911. When the ambulance arrived, there was no one else at the scene.”

  “That’s not right,” I say. “He was definitely there when the ambulance got there.”

  The younger cop looks at the older one. “None of the witnesses said anything about a doctor on the scene.”

  “Let’s back up,” the older cop says. “Before all that. Your mom said you were coming from a party in the Hollywood Hills.”

  “I don’t want to talk about the party,” I say abruptly. The cops exchange a glance.

  “Let’s start from the moment you turned on Laurel Canyon, then.”

  the moment i turned on laurel canyon i was having a panic attack

  the moment i turned on laurel canyon my heart was exploding in my chest

  My hand jerks to my hair. The cops exchange another glance.

  I force my mind back to that moment. My foot on the gas pedal, white knuckles on the wheel, the line of brake lights snaking up the hill. I remember the stuck feeling, the sensation of spiders under my skin. But I can’t see it.

  I can’t see anything in my head.

  “I can’t—,” I almost say remember, but it’s not the memory that’s missing. The memory is right there, here, pressing in from all sides. Headlights. The crunch of metal. Fragments of glass hanging in the air, suspended for a nanosecond, for an eternity, before they’re vacuum-sucked into my face.

  so why can’t i see it?

  There’s a sharp pain at my scalp. A broken strand in my fist.

  The older man’s mouth moves with a question I don’t hear. I close my eyes and try to picture him, the guy in a uniform with scars on his face who’s standing on the other side of my eyelids. I was just staring at his eyebrows. was his hair dark or light?

  I open my eyes. dark. His hair is dark.

  “It’s common to have trouble remembering a traumatic event,” the younger cop is saying. His hair is light, his eyes are blue. “It’s usually best to go back to an earlier moment and move forward from there.” His tone is so patronizing I want to punch him in the face.

  There’s a commotion in the hall behind them.

  I hear my mom’s voice first, high and shrill. “She just woke up from a medically induced coma. Can’t they wait?”

  “She said she wanted to talk to them,” the nurse says.

  “I should’ve been consulted.”

  “I’m consulting you now.”

  “They’re already in there!”

  “Lydia,” another voice says firmly. “Stop.”

  daddy

  My brain whirls through memories. Dad taking me to Disneyland, Dad making frozen lemonade in the summer, Dad singing along with the radio as he drives. Dad packing suitcases. Dad leaving a stack of old CDs on my bed. These moments are there, but they’re not. I remember them, but can’t see a single one in my head.

  His face is there but not there also. Wiry eyebrows, eyes the color of apple cider, a dimple on his chin. I used to press my finger to it, pretending it was a button that would make him laugh. He always did.

  dad where are you dad?

  He’s there, right there. He’s nowhere in my head.

  “We’re not married anymore,” Mom is saying. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  Dad sighs. “Can we please not make this about us right now? I’m here to see my daughter.” The cops move out of the doorway to let him in.

  “Hey, Bear,” he says, and my eyes leap to his face.

  no that’s not right

  It’s not my dad. It can’t be my dad. I’m looking at the wrong man, I’m looking at the police officer with the scars on his face.

  Except I’m not. The police officer is in uniform and he’s holding a clipboard and making notes. The man standing beside my bed is wearing a UC-Boulder t-shirt and jeans and there is a dimple in his chin because he’s trying his best to smile but his eyes look like maybe his heart might break. The man standing beside my bed just called me Bear, my dad’s nickname for me, and his voice is my dad’s voice. But the man standing beside my bed is covered in bruises, so many bruises, and there’s an ugly tangle of scars on his cheek.

  The room blurs.

  Lightheaded, I fumble for the plastic railing on my bed, trying to catch my breath as black seeps in on the edges.

  “Her blood pressure is dropping,” someone says.

  “Jessa,” my mom says. “Jessa, honey, you’re hyperventilating. Focus on my voice.”

  But I don’t want to focus on her voice, I don’t want to focus on anything. So instead I just give into it. I let myself pass out.

  Chapter Four

  “I just want to understand why she lost consciousness,” my dad is saying.

  “She didn’t lose consciousness,” my mom snaps. “She hyperventilated because she was having a panic attack.”

  “And that doesn’t concern you?”

  I pull the oxygen mask off my face. It’s been on for ten minutes, ever since I came to with about thirty people in my room. Dr. Voss made them all clear out, including the cops, and then she left, too. I wish she’d taken my parents with her.

  “Yes, it concerns me, Eric. But if you knew your daughter at all, you’d know that—”

  “Stop,” I say. My eyes are on the ceiling, the only safe space. “Please, just stop.”

  They get quiet.

  “How’re you feeling, Bear?” Dad asks.

  “I want to talk to Dr. Voss,” I say.

  “I’ll get her,” he says, and walks out.

  I feel my mom trying to think of something to say to me. “Where’s Carl?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

  “With the boys,” she says. “He wanted to bring them up here to see you, but I thought it was probably best to wait.”

  let’s not frighten the children honey

  Neither of us says anything after that.

  Dad comes back with Dr. Voss.

  “Everything okay?” she asks, coming to my bedside.

  “I want to know what happened to my brain,” I say. “Like, how exactly it got hurt.”

  “In medical terms or plain English?”

  “English,” I say.

  “Okay. Your brain collided with the back of your skull giving you a big, fat bruise on the outer layer of tissue and making the whole area swell.”

&nb
sp; “Can that cause brain damage?”

  Dr. Voss frowns. “Well, by definition, that is brain damage. What specifically are you asking?”

  I fiddle with my hospital bracelet. There’s a hum of TV noise from somewhere down the hall.

  “I think it would help if I spoke to Jessa alone,” I hear Dr. Voss say.

  “If she’s worried about something, we should know,” my mom protests.

  “Jesus, Lydia. Can you please not argue with everything everybody says?” My dad pats my leg. “We’ll be in the hall, Bear.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?” Dr. Voss asks when they’re gone.

  My fingers push the bracelet around my wrist.

  “It’s two things,” I say finally.

  “Okay. Let’s start with the first.”

  “Ever since I woke up . . . I can’t see anything in my head. When I close my eyes, it’s just . . . dark.”

  “Dark,” she repeats. “Meaning there’s no visual quality to your thoughts?”

  “Right.”

  She pulls my chart from the tray on the door. “Any issues with your memory as far as you can tell?”

  I shake my head. She makes more notes.

  “I’d like to run a few tests before I rule anything out, but what you’re describing sounds like a condition called aphantasia. Mind’s eye blindness. People who have it can’t form images in their head.”

  “So it’s a thing, then. Other people have it.” There’s a sliver of relief in this. If other people have it, it can’t be that bad.

  “Yep. Some are born with it, actually. But we also see it in patients with cerebral cortex injuries, like yours.” She hesitates for a sec. “It can also have psychological roots.”

  My throat goes tight.

  psychological roots

  code for crazy

  like when you see things that aren’t there

  I spin my bracelet faster. The cheap plastic, jagged where I’ve picked at it, scrapes against my skin.

  “Are you having any psychotic symptoms?” she asks. “Intense feelings of detachment, paranoia, hallucinations, anything like that?”

  I stare at the moving plastic, watch my name go round and round.

  psychotic psychotic psychotic