I went to the hospital to see Ivy, and Manny was already in her room. I felt a little awkward because I didn’t know if they had told her the news about Jeremy.
But it didn’t take long to see that Ivy knew, because she had a handkerchief up to her face and was crying so hard, a nurse came hurrying into the room.
“Do you need something to calm yourself?” she asked. She was a large, middle-aged woman, and her green uniform pants fell baggy all around her. Some wisps of gray hair hung around her face.
Ivy was already hooked up to an IV, a clear hose attached to a bag of some kind of liquid that was hanging from a pole beside her bed. It was injected into her wrist, so she had to hold the handkerchief she was crying into in her left hand.
Ivy shook her head no. Waved the nurse away. “I . . . I don’t want anything.” Her voice was all cramped and fluttery. It didn’t sound like Ivy.
I kept staring at the bandages that covered most of her scalp and came down to the back of her neck. Her hands were wrapped too. They looked like mummy bandages, and I couldn’t help it—I had this thought that Ivy was all ready for Halloween.
Hospitals freak me out. You can’t control your thoughts in a hospital. You think crazy things you shouldn’t, like Ivy being a mummy for Halloween. And you think frightening things . . . like, you think about people dying. You can smell it in a hospital. That sharp, sour smell. It’s death.
I’ve thought about death a lot since my family moved to a house on Fear Street. Of course, I heard the stories of the evil that seems to hang over that street. I’ve tried to laugh it off. Ridiculous stories.
But I have to admit I’ve felt the darkness. Something frightening lurking inside me that wasn’t there before we moved.
I spent some time in a hospital. No one knows it. But I did. And I never wanted to return. I never wanted to be hospitalized again.
It sounds so impossible to me now that I OD’d on the cough medicine in Dad’s medicine cabinet. What was I doing in there in the first place? And what was wrong with me that I’d thought it would be a good idea to drink down two bottles of the stuff?
What had I been trying to prove?
I’d never answered the question. I don’t even know what exactly was in those bottles. But the next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed, and my brain was on Mars or in a deep, dark sewer somewhere. Anywhere but where it should be.
And how long did it take me to come back to consciousness?
My parents told the high school I was visiting an uncle overseas. No one knew that I was lying in a hospital bed, yammering insane things, jabbering and drooling, my mind completely blown to bits.
It was when I’d finally begun to think like me that I’d decided to pull back. I’d decided that it wasn’t cool. There was no advantage in being a rebel or a troublemaker. I guess that was the start of my new personality. Good guy Keith. Boring, good guy Keith.
Well, face it, after my mind almost slipped away from me forever, I was afraid not to be boring.
No one knows this. I thought I could confide in Poppy. I thought Poppy and I could share our biggest secrets. But I was wrong. And I am glad that I never shared my hospital story with her. She wasn’t deserving of my confidences. She wasn’t worth the time I spent with her.
I miss her and I hate her.
It’s as simple as that.
“We just came to say hi,” Manny said.
Ivy was so torn to pieces, I don’t think she heard him.
“Ivy, when are you going home?” Manny asked, trying to get some kind of response.
Ivy choked out an answer, but I couldn’t understand it. I kept staring at the mummy bandages. The poor girl. Her head must hurt so much.
Manny stood up and motioned for me to follow. It wasn’t a good time to be visiting.
The nurse returned. “Dr. Mahoney thinks you need to rest,” she said to Ivy. She opened a small case and removed a hypodermic needle. “I’m sorry, but your visitors should leave now.”
Manny and I were already at the door. “We’ll come back,” Manny said.
“Hope you feel better,” I said. Lame. But what else could I say?
Manny and I made our way down the long hall, past room after room of sick people. The smell was sharp and piney. Like toilet cleaner.
We both took long strides, eager to get out of there. We didn’t talk till we were outside. Manny let out a long whoosh of breath. “Whoa. Talk about messed up,” he muttered.
I nodded. “Sick. Totally sick.”
He motioned to the parking lot. “Want a ride to school?”
I thought for a moment. “I’m skipping out today. I don’t really feel like school.” I stepped off the front stairs. “Catch you later, dude.”
What I really wanted to do was go home and make a few new cuts in my shoulder. That would make me feel better. I knew it would.
