“Don’t be alarmed,” Charlie comforted, “a Groshong catheter is basically a machine that’s implanted in your chest. It gives your body the chemotherapy treatment and other drugs that your body may need along the way. I hooked you up so that you receive more platelets in your blood, since your count is way down. We’re aiming for a certain level of platelets so that we can place the Groshong catheter into your body without giving it a hard time to heal.”
I was still alarmed at the thought getting treated. It was all because of my fear of being lonely. Now that I had someone to talk to, I couldn’t talk to him because I’d screwed up. For a long time I thought that I would never be able to handle being deaf. Now I had to pretend that I was.
Charlie stayed at my bedside until I fell asleep. I could tell that he was there because he kept turning the pages of the medical magazine he was reading. He read so fast that it impressed me.
I remember that I had a dream when I was sleeping that day. It had a bunch of people from middle school that I hardly associated with in it. Joe, the boy with cancer, was also there. They were all at my bedside singing “Happy Birthday.” Then something strange happened, like things sometimes do in dreams. Five of the people started to disappear and one of them was Joe. They kept on singing happy birthday until they had disappeared. The rest of the people there hardly even noticed.
Soon after, the scene changed and I was alone in a hospital bed. Joe re-appeared as some sort of spirit and he was shaking his head at me. I might have asked him what I had done, I don’t remember, but soon after he faded, I flat-lined. There was blackness for a while longer and then I woke up.
I woke up with my face turned to Charlie. He had put his magazine down on his lap and he was staring at me. I wanted to ask him what his problem was, but I disallowed myself to talk and the answer came to me.
“Are you sure you’re a deaf mute?” he asked with avid curiosity. I gave him my best “what the hell are you talking about?” look and he continued.
“You were screaming so loud in your sleep! Nothing that I could comprehend though, but it sort of sounded like you were saying “rock” or “the rock.” Have you been there?”
I should my head no slowly, but I knew what I had been screaming. For some strange reason I’d been screaming for Brian in my sleep. My subconscious had made me dream of something I knew that I wasn’t ready for. But it was some sort of sign.
I couldn’t fall asleep after that and Charlie got bored of me after an hour. He called a nurse to watch over me while he took off. The nurse arrived fifteen minutes late and every minute that passed Charlie became antsier and antsier. At one point I thought that he was going take off and I would be alone. I’d developed paranoia from my previous hospital experience and if Louie wasn’t careful I would escape without a trace. I was out of my mind again.
The nurse came in holding box of magazines and a make-up kit. Charlie saw the box of magazines she had and said, “smart ass” because he had only brought one for the whole hour. She didn’t look like a nurse, she looked like someone who was ready for a hot date, but no one was there to take her out. Strangely, she didn’t look unhappy.
Charlie gave her some instructions that he didn’t think I could hear. “Don’t upset him,” he told her, “he’s suffering from some sort of mental anxiety. You know my cell number if there’s trouble. Just call me and I’ll come running. Remember, don’t agonize the poor guy.”
“All right, all right. I may look like a bad girl but really I’m not!”
Charlie chuckled and turned to go out of the door. Halfway there he turned back, “Oh, and don’t forget to talk to him every once in a while. He has some kind of fear of being alone.”
“Fine Charlie. Go, go, go,” I turned my head and saw her push Charlie outside. He turned back reluctantly then finally left.
The nurse approached the bed with a huge smile on her face. “You don’t look like you need a babysitter,” she told me, “I’m Nancy.” She put her hand in mine and shook it lightly.
“And you are,” she paused to look on her chart, “Nick! Hi.” I smiled weakly at her and closed my eyes. Honestly I couldn’t stand to look at her because she was so pretty and I was so…not. She had brown hair that she dyed blonde. It was pulled into a neat braid that started at the nape of her neck. The whisps of hair that she had missed framed her face elegantly. I could only find one of her faults. She wore too much makeup and it took away from her beauty.
Nancy sat down on the chair by my bed. She bent down to rummage through her box of magazines. I was almost in tears because she was so much prettier than I was and I couldn’t stand thinking about what she thought about me. The reason why I was so paranoid about what she thought was because Mandy used to be such a hypocrite. She pointed out people on the street that she didn’t even know and she made fun of them. At one point, Brian got so sick of what she was saying that he told her that she wasn’t that great either. Mandy smacked him as hard she could with the back of her hand. Brian didn’t talk to her for weeks after that.
I didn’t find out for three weeks because neither Brian nor Mandy would tell me what happened. Brian was afraid that it would destroy our friendship and Mandy wouldn’t talk to me because I was still talking to Brian. I finally found out from Kevin because he had been eavesdropping on Brian and Mandy’s fight. I confronted Brian with it, but I still didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I sucked up to Mandy and got her to apologize to Brian. There you go, a bit of backstage trauma.
Briefly, I opened my eyes to catch Nancy’s stare. She pretended to be involved with her magazine, but I’d caught her. It made me wonder what she thinking all over again.
A half an hour later, she put down her magazine and looked up at the twenty-five inch TV in front of us. “Hey, we have cable and you didn’t tell me?” She jumped up from her seat and hovered over me. “You don’t mind if I turn it on do you?” I shook my head “no” slowly.
Nancy started a frantic search for the remote. It was still in my right hand, away from her view. I cleared my throat loudly and turned my head to the right. She rushed to my side and smiled delightedly.
“Oh you found it! Thanks so much Nick!” I smiled at her joke and felt her gently pry the remote from my clutches. She treated me like a porcelain doll, like my fingers would break in half if she didn’t move them slowly. Thankfully she didn’t call me Nicky; I hate that. Mandy always used to call me that.
Nancy parked herself back down on her seat. She turned on the TV and frowned. I was placed directly in front of the TV and my bed was so huge that no matter which side of the bed Nancy sat by she still could only see the corner of the TV.
She gave up trying to see after only two minutes. “All right,” she said to me, “shove over, you’re hogging the best spot!” She began to shove me over to the right side as gently as she could. I could tell that she was hiding her surprise from me because I was lighter than she thought I would be.
Nancy threw herself down on the bed and bounced on the mattress for a bit. She remembered that I was still there, but she didn’t apologize to me for bouncing up and down.
I assumed that Nancy was a very confident person, because nothing she did or thought of seemed to embarrass her. She channel surfed intently until she found some sort of sci-fi movie. I would have watched it with her, but I was tired again so I fell asleep instead.
This time I had a dreamless sleep. It seemed longer than it actually was, because when I woke up, the movie was still on.
My eyes were only open just enough so that I could see through them. Looking around, I noticed that Nancy’s eyes were fixated on me again. Discreetly I watched her from under my half open eyes. To me it seemed like we were having a staring contest, because she was looking me straight in the eye. The thing was, she had no idea that I was looking back at her.
She stared at me for a good long time and I was afraid that she would try something. But she just stared.
At least twenty minutes passed before I decided that I’d had enough. I opened my eyes just enough so that she would know that I was awake. She continued to stare though, and I acted surprised to catch her staring.
“Oh don’t play games with me,” she laughed, “you were awake the whole time!” I acted surprised again, but this time it was real. How had she known?
In my defense, I shook my head as vigorously as I could but I knew it was too late. My shock had blown my cover. Nevertheless, this was the most fun that I could remember having in a long time.
“If only you would have confessed earlier I would have been able to watch the rest of the movie!” she pouted, “Shame on you.” I smiled shyly then blushed a crimson red to emphasize my embarrassment.
Nancy sensed my discomfort and changed the subject. “If you like, I can help you cut your hair,” she offered. I shook my head no and averted my eyes. For some reason that ended any doubt in my mind that she wasn’t judging my appearance. I thought for sure that I was ugly now and was on the verge of tears. Until then, I had no idea how sensitive I had become.
Nancy must have been able to read my mind. “Not that you’re hair isn’t fine now!” she exclaimed, “ it’s just that shorter hair makes you feel fresh and revived. I used to cut my brother’s hair all the time. Trust me on this one okay?”
I wanted to ask her if her brother had lived to tell about it, but I kept my promise to Jizzy and my mouth stayed shut.
Nancy started to play with the pieces of hair I wasn’t lying on. I had the tingling sensation down my spine again from the gentle touch of her fingers.
“You don’t mind if I sit you up, do you?” she asked me, while already in the process of doing so. I nodded slowly as hooked her arms under my pits and cautiously lifted me up into a sitting position. The tumor ached under the slight pressure she was putting on me and I winced knowing that she could feel the ugly thing.
“There now,” she said, “that wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Do you think that you could sit up without using the backboard?” I tried that and I could sit up by myself without getting dizzy.
“Good we’re making progress!” Nancy was aware that I was still quite fragile. “Now turn your back to me so that I can do your hair.” I slowly adjusted my position and she commented on how tall I was. Seconds later I felt the comb gently brush over my skull. It felt so good and it was then that I realized that I mustn’t have brushed my hair for at least three days.
For a while I closed my eyes, until the cold wetness of water startled me awake. I could feel Nancy run the comb through my hair again. Then she began to cut it.
Honestly I didn’t care if she did a horrible job on my hair. Like I said before, the less I looked like Nick Carter, the better.
“If you start to fell dizzy, you can lean back onto me okay?” Nancy told me. I nodded my head slowly and she continued working. When she was done in the back, she came to sit in front of me to do my “bangs.” I didn’t really have bangs; they were the same length as the hair in the back.
“If you feel dizzy now, just fall backwards, okay?” she giggled. I gave her another weak smile, because it was all I could muster. She was trying to make me laugh and it upset her that she couldn’t. She covered her disappointment, but I could still see it in her eyes.
A few times I thought that she was more nervous than I was, because she kept getting caught up in the tubes that were attached to my arms. I just shrugged it off though, because I knew how she felt.
Nancy kept on smiling despite the fact that she was uncomfortable. It was obvious that she wasn’t used to being uncomfortable and I was displeased at myself for making her feel that way.
She blow dried my hair briefly, then began to brush it all over again. I’d never been through so many processes at my barber’s place before. Then again my barber was never a female.
When Nancy finished, she stood up to admire her handiwork. A look of delight enchanted her face when she gazed upon me.
“Oh my God!” she said finally.
Chapter 27
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