“Dr. Benefield,” I say as I open my eyes to look at her. “Do people in comas… dream?”
“Tell me why you’re asking,” she says, “and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Okay. I have…” I pause, trying to find the right words. “I don’t get how I’m… here. For me, it’s been a whole year since the accident. I have another life. Kim died. I have a girlfriend. Marley. But now I’m here and everyone is telling me that I was in a coma. That reality is”—I gesture at the hospital room, but also at this entire world—“this.”
She gives me a calculating look I can’t read.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I say.
She nods. “Certifiable. Go on.”
“I have to get back there, to my real life,” I say, thinking of Marley and Georgia and our spot by the pond, missing them with all the agony of a missing limb. I don’t care if my leg never heals, if my brain stays broken. I don’t need them. It’s Marley I need.
She frowns. “I don’t understand. When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
She studies my face. “Yesterday you were here. And the day before that, and the day before that.”
I shake my head, thinking of the handful of doctor’s visits I went to, the times I came here to get my head checked, to make sure I wasn’t losing it. “You were there too,” I say to her. “You were my doctor.”
“You opened your eyes a lot,” Dr. Benefield says. “Looked right at me. Those dreams… You probably incorporated me, or other people, into them.” She motions to the beeping heart monitor. “Things you heard or saw could have found their way into your subconscious. It’s not uncommon in comas. Your synapses were healing, reconnecting, coming alive. I can only imagine what that looked like to you in there.”
“What about Marley?” I counter.
She thinks for a long moment, her voice quieter when she speaks again. “Your life with Marley, did it seem like the perfect version of your life?”
I feel a wave of dread wash over me.
Yes.
I had a job I was good at. A life. I was with the person I was supposed to be with. I was becoming the best version of myself, and every day got better.
She takes my silence as the answer she was expecting.
“Kyle, your life is here,” Dr. Benefield says, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Your friends, your mom, have been in this room every day, waiting and praying for you to heal. Perfect or not, they love you.”
I let her words sink in, but it’s all too confusing, the pain too much, the feelings too overwhelming.
Where is she?
The medicine starts to take over, and the world slows down around me as my eyelids get heavier and heavier.
“Get some sleep now, okay?” she says. She flicks off the lights as she leaves, my vision growing hazy as I drift off.
28
It’s night by the time I wake up again. The whole day drifted by in an agonizing blur, the medicine barely taking the edge off.
I hear a knock on the door and turn to see Dr. Benefield, strands of her red hair slipping from her loose ponytail after a long day.
“How are you feeling? You slept a long time,” she says as she pulls a chair over to my bed and slides into it, resting her arms on her legs.
“You really doped me up,” I say.
She shrugs and nods. “You were hurting.”
I’m still hurting. Just not the kind of hurt she’s talking about.
I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s pretty late.
“Do you live here or something?”
She snorts. “First few months on a new job, you spend a lot of time at the office.”
My mouth drops open. And she’s the person who operated on my brain? Is that why I’m so fucked up?
“First few months at this hospital.” She smirks, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “I’ve been digging around in people’s brains for a long time now. You’re in good hands.”
She nods to my broken leg, the white sheet outlining the huge cast.
“You have any idea how lucky you are you didn’t reinjure this?”
I turn my eyes to look out the window, not wanting to think about last night.
Besides, I’ve already healed this injury. With Marley. This is insane. How can no one know where she is? Who she is?
“Charts say they’re still going to remove the cast tomorrow, even after that little stunt you pulled. Good news, huh?”
Good news?
I open my mouth to say something, but my words get cut off as thundering footsteps sound from the hallway, quickly approaching my room. Both of us turn our heads as the door almost flies off its hinges and Sam bursts inside.