Episode 34:
RED
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E L L I O T T ' S P O V :
"Jọwọ ji soke," the words echo through my ears, bouncing back and forth through my skull as though my brain were a jungle gym. The syllables jumping off swings and pounding onto the cracked pavement of my mind with the force of a cinder block being dropped. Unending footsteps trailing behind the sentences wherever they go, never leaving me at peace. In my brain, I can't seem to find peace.
I find peace, when I'm asleep. It's so much easier to be asleep.
Easier to not hear my mother's dialect bring me back to times long before any of this. Sure it may be easier, but it is not at all what I want, because what I want more than anything is to hear her voice just once more.
"Mom, give it a break he's going to wake up. I know him."
"Ṣe o da ọ loju?"
"Ko si, mo ti o kan gbagbo,"
The door opens, I can hear the wood creaking as it is forced open. I can't see it, I'm flat on my back and may as well be blind. Everything I see is white, and then after twenty minutes of that I go back to seeing nothing but the pit of nothingness. The endless void that fills with much more colorful dreams if I'm lucky enough. Most of the times, it's just nothingness though. When it's not, it's of her hovering over my broken body, eyes as red as her bloody hands, my blood.
That's the color I see the most in my dreams. Red.
"Sorry, am I interrupting something?" Her voice isn't the same.
"Fawn, you couldn't interrupt us if you tried, you're a a part of the family." I imagine my mother is smiling right now, maybe she's smiling at Fawn or maybe at Dakarai who's due for a clever comment right about now.
"Actually she could, and has many times interrupted both me and Elliott."
"Shut up, no one cares about you right now," My mom laughs, and this time the sound isn't like a cinderblock, but instead a blanket being dropped. Draping over the aching parts of me.
It's so relaxing. I'm so close to sleep, and so far from them.
"Well, can I – is it possible for me to just have a m-moment alone with him?" Her voice is quivering, the usual stutter unnoticeable as her tone is so shaky in and of itself. Everything surrounding her presence is so out of place, so wrong.
Nothing is right, right now.
"Of course, honey. Tell me if my son wakes up," The echoes of her voice bounce through the bone surrounding my brain, my mind, the way Daka and my mother's footsteps echo through the room as they leave me.
"Hey," she says.
I want to tell her to talk like she used to.
I want to say it back.
"Everyone's really worried about y-you," she sniffles, before clutching my hand and burying her face within it. I think it's in this moment that she realizes I'm conscious right now. I don't have the power to move, but I think she knows that I'm still here. That my eyelids may be too weak to open, but my mind is still wide awake and listening to her. To the sound of her voice, the hesitance in her words. The way her hands are rattling against me. I can still feel it all.
I'm just not strong enough.
After all the football practices, late nights in the gym with Daka, and 200 pound teenagers grabbing onto me as I run for yards, I'm still not strong enough to squeeze her hand back.
Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to.
Maybe tomorrow I'll be strong enough to hold her.
"I'm trying to keep m-my cool, but – everything is g-going to shit Elliott."
I'm trying so hard to hold her.
"L-Lawrence he's b-being held at the p-police station. He k-keeps asking to see me, and I d-don't know what to do. I just – I'm so scared Elliott."
I feel her tears soak the pad of my thumb.
I still managed to catch her tears.
"This is all my fault," she cries.
I blink.
"Elliott." She mumbles, leaning over my body except this time her hands aren't red. Maybe there will be less red in my dreams now, maybe I'll see more blue.
"Elliott, if you are here than do something! Talk to me! You can't leave me!" She stands up and takes a few deep breaths, I don't know where she is in the room now. All I know is that I can't feel her anymore.
"I can't do this anymore." She whimpers, "I can't do it all by myself."
The weight of the bed is shifted, and I feel her body pressing against mine.
"I'm going to g-get in so much t-trouble for doing th-this, but I don't care."
An arm wraps around my abdomen, and warmth fills my body, her warmth, that is soon followed by her breath on my chest, and God, I wish – I were strong enough to hold her.
I want to hold her because I'm not the only one that needs holding right now.
And then it happens.
I try to open my eyes again. I can't let her go. I can't not hold her right now.
Everything is so perfect, everything that I could ever have wanted is here in front of me, and I can't have it. I can't even hold it. No matter how hard I try.
Why can I not open my eyes, when I am conscious? Why can I not hold her? Why is everything perfect? Why does she sound different? Why is this happening?
I try to open my eyes.
I feel her weight leave me. She's leaving.
Don't leave me.
Quit leaving me! God damnit quit fucking leaving me!
Everyone keeps leaving!
Then it comes, the red.
.
.
.
.
Beep.
.
.
.
.
"He's awake again, Doc. Want me to call down his folks?"
"Yeah, sure, let them in. I'll talk to the kid while you get 'em."
"Sounds good," The man in white leaves the room, and leaves me with the man in white with the longer coat. His coat reaches all the way to his knees.
"Elliott, right?" The man asks, that is, after he grabs his clipboard.
"Yeah," I cough, and every time I move my head seizes with pain.
"Woah there, don't talk," he looks down at me in surprise, "Don't talk, we'll get you some water in a minute. For now, rest your voice, let you hands do the talking. Okay?"
He holds his fingers up. One finger then two.
"One, means yes. Two, means no. Got it?" He asks, and I put up one finger.
"So, you're nineteen years old?"
One finger.
"Play football, right?"
One finger.
"Got a girlfriend?"
One finger.
"Ah, lucky man," he laughs, "You have a brother, right?"
One finger.
"Always wanted a brother, instead I got a little sister," he chuckles again.
I want to ask him why he's laughing.
I want to ask him why he's trying to avoid my situation.
I want to ask him what is so wrong with me that he won't talk to me about it.
"What is wrong with me?" I choke out, and the doctor looks at me with a hint of frustration boiling beneath the irises of brown.
"Please, don't talk. You're throat's probably very dry and tired."
"Tell me what's wrong with me," I say again.
"I can't do that," he says.
"Why?" I ask before coughing again. My head feels like it's going to fall, and I'm not even sitting up. I move my arm to catch the cough, and see the IV.
"What is this?" I choke.
"You've been out for a week Elliott," he pauses, "You were in a medically induced coma for a week, so we could remove the blood from your skull safely, and allow it to heal properly." I stare up at the doctor, eyebrows furrowed.
"Why?"
"So I could save your life, Elliott,"
I wait a minute to speak.
"Is all the blood gone now?" I ask.
"Yes," he responds.
Liar. The blood will never be gone. The red, will never be gone.
"So, why can't I leave?" I ask hoarsely.
"You can't leave, because you're at risk of having recurring seizures."
"And?"
"And if you were to have a seizure now," he opens the door.
"I don't know if I'd be able to save your life a second time,"
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QUESTIONS:
What do you think of Elliott being put into a coma?
What do you think of the things the Doctor said?
Do you think the beginning of the chapter was a dream? Why or why not?
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hello! It's Thursday? Yep! Don't expect it to be regular for me to do this, but I felt like it today so lucky you! Thanks so much for 27K reads, means the world!
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- tat <3