The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [69]
Then it went dark.
28
My eyes struggled to open. Everything hurt, even my eyelashes. I stared up at a white ceiling. My mouth tasted funny, like I had been sucking on rusted nails. My tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t tell where I was. I turned my head to the side. It felt as if the entire world slid off the axis and my stomach flopped over. I closed my eyes quickly, trying to get my sense of balance back. My eyes opened again, and I saw there was an IV pole. I followed the plastic tubing down from the pole to where it was connected to my arm.
IV. White. Hospital. I had to be in a hospital. Then the fall from the tree came rushing back to my memory. I’d fallen. There was a bright flash of pain in my leg. I glanced down. There was a giant cast that went from above my knee all the way down, with just my toes peeking out the end. Looked like the fall hadn’t ended well.
“Hail?”
I turned my head slowly to the other side. Kelsie was sitting in a chair next to the bed. Her eyes were red and her face splotchy. She’d been crying.
“Can you hear me?” she asked, her voice shaking.
I tried to nod, but moving my head up and down made the sickening bed spins start again, so I stopped.
“Oh my god. I’m so glad you’re awake.” Kelsie grabbed my hand.
“Is there anything to drink?” I asked, my voice coming out raspy.
Kelsie leapt into action. She poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the rolling table next to the bed and jabbed the bendy straw into the glass. She held it out, and I took a sip. The cool water tasted better than anything I could imagine. I took another sip, but Kelsie pulled the glass away before I could finish.
“Careful. Not too much. Do you want me to get your dad? He’s downstairs talking to one of the doctors.”
“My dad’s here?” My brain tried to find something to hold on to that made sense. I’d been trying to get my passport so I could see my dad in Chicago. What was he doing in Vermont?
“The hospital called him right away. He flew in last night. He’s super-worried about you.”
“Last night? How long have I been out?”
“A day. The doctors said it was a concussion. There have been a few other times when you seemed to come around, but you didn’t make much sense. Mostly just mumbling and stuff.”
“Huh.” I closed my eyes. My stomach was starting to feel better. At least I didn’t feel quite so much like I was going to throw up at any moment.
“Hail, you have to know I am so sorry. I have never been so sorry in my whole life.” Kelsie started crying again.
I patted her hand absently while I searched my memory to figure out why she was sorry. Right. She’d been seeing Tristan. Maybe it was the fall, but I couldn’t remember why it had made me so upset to start with. They would be good together. This could be what they meant by having sense knocked into you. Why had I been so concerned about the relationship with Tristan? I didn’t love him. “It’s okay,” I mumbled.
“I never thought you would do something like this. I just feel sick,” Kelsie sobbed.
“Something like what?”
Kelsie stopped crying for a beat and looked at me. “Suicide,” she whispered.
I tried to sit up, and then froze when every muscle in my body screamed. “Suicide? I fell,” I explained.
“Everyone is saying you tried to kill yourself when you heard about Tristan and me.”
“If I’d wanted to kill myself, I would have jumped off the top of a building, not from the second floor.” I couldn’t decide if I was more offended that people thought I was the kind of person who would kill myself over a boyfriend or that I was apparently too stupid to know how to do it right.
“Ms. Sullivan gave a talk at the morning assembly and said your kind of attempt can be seen as a cry for help.” She sniffed. “It’s like when someone takes only a few pills or does superficial cutting.”
Great. It sounded like Ms. Sullivan had finally found something to keep her busy.