Number Six

Chapter 16-I Can Barely Say

Nearly two weeks passed before I saw him again and it was on a rare "good" day as the nurses called it. I could sit up and speak without being overcome with coughing or hallucinations and apparently that was good enough to be considered a blessing. However it was warmth and the low murmur of friendly voices that were the real blessings.

I slumped contently against my pillows, listening to the calm, bass filled mutters down the hall and carefully running my bony, pale fingers over the front page of my book, To Kill a Mockingbird. When-I wasn't sure-but some way or another Whitely had brought it to my hospital room and left it for me. No one knew it was from him. He'd come sometime after visiting hours, as officers were sometimes allowed to do. No one else could read the note he left me in his shaky writing but I could read it perfectly.

Adrianne,

I'm sorry for everything.

Greg Martin

I'd spent so much time reading over the little notes he left me in my tomb that this was so simple to my eyes and indecipherable to others. This, like the rest, would be our little secret.

 It may have been a good day, but my mind was still too tired to concentrate on the story line. So instead, I focused on the voices. One was Jeremy, sounding so serene talking to the husky voiced nurse that came in every now and again to check on me. I liked her. At least the delusional part of me did.

Then there was his, smooth and so familiar—almost more proverbial than that of my eldest sibling's. It was the way he said so little, but so much at the same time. I couldn't hear audible words, but just the essence of his tone was enough to put me at ease and set me on edge simultaneously. Just as I'd wanted so bad to see him on the railroad tracks, I wanted him to disappear just as badly now. What was I supposed to say to him? Where did we go from here?

So when the talking ceased and the footsteps drew closer to my room, there was a certain panic in my mind. Before I could decide whether or not to fain sleeping, the two boys waltzed through the door, eager smiles on their faces. Their beautiful, friendly faces.

"Hey, sis. They said you were feeling better," Jeremy began, grabbing one of the seats at the foot of my bed.

"Not too bad," I replied, my forced smile quickly fading. There was something wrong. My voice.  I didn't recognize my own voice. It was detached and lifeless, like my soul wasn't really in my body. I was the ghost of a girl.

Blake must have noticed too, because instead of opening his arms for a hug as I was expecting, he silently sat down beside Jeremy.

"They also said you're quite the handful," Jeremy continued.

"They did?" I asked too quickly, ever mindful of the foreign tone.

There was a pause and a slight laugh from my brother. "Joke, Adrianne. It was a joke."

I nodded. "So, you're back to reading," Jeremy pressed on, determined to remain undeterred by my lack of humor.

"Not really. I can't concentrate." I felt like an imposter in my own body. The voice, the skin stretched tightly over the bones, the fumbling fingers. It was all wrong. It wasn't me.

I shifted uncomfortably.

"She's been a good little patient for the most part," the husky voice nurse interjected as she came into the room.

"For the most part?" Jeremy questioned, raising a curious eyebrow.

"She was a bit of a fighter at the beginning. Didn't want to lay still and take orders, but that's totally acceptable." She laid a rubber strap and an empty vial down on the table beside the bed. "But none of that now, kiddo. I gotta draw some blood, okay?"