Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 41

“Charlie! Charlie, can you hear me?” a voice was saying above me, although I was having trouble focusing on it at all. “Someone call an ambulance!”

I felt a hand on my shoulder, followed by pain from the bruised muscle where the bat had hit, and then things slipped into black again.

I think I may have woken up a few more times, although they were mostly just flashes and impressions. I think someone picked me up and sat me on something flat and hard, although softer than the concrete I had been laying on. I could feel hands putting something around my neck. I remember a fuzzy white ceiling, really close to my body, the bench or bed I was on rocking slightly.

I remember going through double doors, people talking in calm but quick voices, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I remember things getting poked into my arms and a mask going over my face, and then everything blacked out again.

When I came to the next time, everything was a little clearer. Nothing really hurt anymore, but I felt really nauseous. I opened my eyes and could tell I was in a hospital. It might have been night, since the lights were dimmed, and it wasn’t the emergency room, with each bed separated by curtains. I was in my own room. My first thought was that Mom was going to have a heart attack when she saw the bill for all this. We had insurance, but the deductibles were sky high, and well above what we would be able to pay, even with the money I’d been bringing in playing.

My second thought was I was about to vomit.

“You’re awake,” a calm voice said, as a nurse’s face suddenly loomed over me.

“Bucket,” was all I got out, as I was holding back.

This was probably not that unusual of an occurrence, and she put something plastic in front of my face right before I let go into it.

“Let me go get the doctor,” she said when I finished and she took it away, handing me a cloth to wipe my face.

I tried to sit up and sagged back down instantly. It wasn’t that everything hurt so much as my body wasn’t really reacting that well to my commands. My left arm was in some kind of splint and had some IVs going into it, but my right arm was working enough to get it to my face so I could clean myself off.

The doctor showed up and was all business. He wouldn’t answer any questions, and instead asked all kinds while shining a light in my eyes. He had questions about what day it was, who the President was, what my name was, and so on, and he said he was a little concerned that I had a concussion, which could cause nausea and vomiting. While I did have a slight one, we’d later find out the nausea was apparently a reaction I had to narcotic pain killers, which made me wildly sick. Of course, we learned this when I tried to take a pain killer and ended up puking all over the side of a toilet.

They dealt with it at the hospital by giving me an anti-nausea medication, which knocked me straight out again. I think Mom might have come into the room about that time, but everything was so foggy I couldn’t be sure of anything.

The nurse woke me up about an hour later to check my vitals and have a huge guy in scrubs wheel me down to get a cat scan. The pain killers must have been wearing off, because my side and arm were hurting again, this time accompanied by a new pain in my leg that I hadn’t noticed before. I pulled up the hem of the hospital gown someone had switched me into and saw the beginnings of a nasty bruise. I hadn’t even realized they’d hit me that low, but it must have been when I tried to curl up into the fetal position to protect myself.

I tried to ask the nurse why I was getting a cat scan, but she said I’d need to talk to the doctor about it. Of course, the doctor wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The thing I really wanted to ask about was when I could get out of here. I had no idea what time it was, except that it was dark outside the window, which meant I’d missed practice and our set tonight. We were supposed to have an extended practice the next day and I really didn’t want to miss it. We were mostly ready after our last practice, but the one I’d missed today and the long practice tomorrow was when we were going to put everything together. Mr. French had even said Rowan might be in the area and try to swing around, which was the kind of help you couldn’t, or at least I couldn’t, pay for.

Thankfully, the doctor was in my room when I got back, as was Mom.

“What’s happening? When can I get out of here? I have a big day tomorrow and I need to get home and get some sleep,” I said, rambling as I tried to push myself up on the bed the orderly was wheeling and look at them.

Instead, as soon as I put weight on my arm, I almost collapsed on my side. It didn’t feel like when my foot got broken, but it still hurt like hell as soon as I put any pressure on that arm.

“I was just talking to your mother about that,” he said. “We’re going to keep you overnight for observation. We’re concerned about the nausea you’re still having and you’re blacking out after the whack to the back of the head. Whatever hit you left a serious welt and gave you some pretty nasty lacerations. We’re going to wait on the CAT scan results to come back and I might have a colleague take a look at them, just to make sure there’s no serious damage.”

“I hit my head on the concrete trying to get my face out of the way of a baseball bat,” I told him, filling in the gaps on what happened.

“I’m guessing that’s what broke your nose.”

“Yeah,” I said, reaching up at the mention to touch it.

I brought my hand back instantly as what felt like electricity ran up my sinus cavity as I touched it.

“Will he need to have any kind of surgery for his nose?” My mom asked, the expression she had when she looked at it is telling me just how terrible it must have looked.

Thankfully, the doctor said, “No. We set it back in place. He’ll have to leave that splint on it for a week or so, but it should heal okay. You might have a crook in it that wasn’t there before, but the sinus cavity looks good.”

“So, he can go home tomorrow?”

“That depends on what we see on the CAT scan, but if it’s clear, then probably. We’ve taped his ribs, which is just about all we can do for them. Luckily, the x-ray doesn’t show any breaks, just some bruising around the bone. They’ll hurt pretty badly for a few weeks, but they should heal okay. Everything else is confined to the soft tissue, although the damage there was a lot worse than it should have been. There was a fair amount of unhealed bruising that amplified the damage done during the attack. It’s difficult to tell with soft tissue injuries like this, but there doesn’t seem to be anything that should be permanent. There will be swelling for a few days and it will look terrible, but with proper bed rest, it should all heal all the way back. It’s important you get bed rest though. Without it, the damage could be aggravated and become something more long-term.”

“Thank goodness,” Mom said, letting out a breath she must have been holding since she heard I was hurt.

I could see the stress visibly leaving her body as she sagged in relief.

“Can I stay with him?

“Visiting hours are over, but I think it’ll be okay for a few minutes. I’m going to put in these orders and we’re going to scale the pain meds down a bit now that we know there isn’t any major damage, but I want him to get some rest.”

“Okay. Thank you, Doctor,” she said, and waited for him to leave. “How are you feeling?”

“Just really sore, although it really hurts if I put any weight on my arms. Do you think I’ll be able to make it to practice tomorrow afternoon?”

“Baby, I don’t think you’ll be able to play at all this weekend. The doctor said you’ve got bruising all the way down to the bone, and you just saw that you couldn’t even push yourself up. How are you going to handle a guitar?”

“But the audition?” I said, the realization of what was happening suddenly setting in.

“I know. I’ll call Chef in a few hours when it’s not so early and see if there’s anything they can do. Do you really think you’ll be able to give a good enough performance, in the condition you’re in?”

She was right, of course. The more the pain meds wore off, the more I could feel the pain all over my body. It hurt to move at all, and I hadn’t even tried standing up yet. Even if I did get up on stage, the performance would be far from my best, which meant everything that I’d worked for was gone, just like that. I shut my eyes tight and tried to hold it in, but I fell apart as the first sob escaped my throat.

I wasn’t a crier normally. Hell, I’d barely shed a tear when I heard Dad was going to prison, but this was different. I’d done everything right and still had my dream snatched away from me. I was bubbling over with emotion. Sad, in pain, and furious all at the same time.

Mom leaned over and gently hugged me. Even that hurt like hell and just proved the point that there was no way I was getting on a stage this weekend.

Eventually, Mom had to leave and they lowered the lights so I could get some rest. Part of me wanted to stay up, angry at the world and just wanting to be difficult for the sake of it, but my body let me down. Once the tears dried up, I felt hollowed out and just exhausted.

***

When I woke up again, it was well into the morning. The sun was shining brightly through the slatted plastic curtains and Hanna was sitting in a chair next to the bed. Even though I still felt kind of empty and sad, I felt a small smile cross my lips as I remembered this is how I met her the first time, me in the hospital bed and her in a chair next to it.

“Hey,” I said.

She looked up, startled, and put her book down.

“You’re awake. Should I go get the nurse?”

The last part was in reaction to me wincing as I tried to turn a little bit to look at her better and felt pain shoot through my body again.

“No. I’ll be fine. How is everyone?”

“Worried. When you didn’t show up at the Blue Ridge and weren’t answering your phone, everyone started to panic, and we looked all over for you. Kat suggested we go by the school and we almost didn’t go around the building to the gym entrance. My God, when we found you there was all this blood. Kat thought you’d been shot and that maybe you were dead until you moaned.”

“The doctor said I had a head wound and apparently those bleed a lot.”

“It was so scary. You should have seen Kat. She was falling apart, but she still took charge. She told me not to move you and to go call an ambulance. She held it together so well until you got to the hospital.”

“Really? I’m so proud of her? Where is she?”

“When she knew you were safe, she completely fell apart. Dr. Rothstein had to prescribe her medication to calm down and get some rest. She’s at home with Mom. She is convinced Aaron was behind this, because you made her break up with him.”

“I’m pretty sure it was Aaron, but he’s been after me since day one. I think the other guy was Harry, but they were both wearing masks, so there’s no way to know.”

“We could call the police?” Hanna suggested.

“Like I said, they were wearing masks and didn’t really say anything. They just started swinging. Even if Aaron’s dad wasn’t the county DA, the police wouldn’t be able to do anything. Of course, his dad is the DA, so that just makes it doubly likely they do nothing.”

“It seems so wrong.”

“Yeah, but when has anything been fair? I need to talk to Mr. French about his scout friend. I should at least let him know I won’t be playing tonight.”

“We already called everyone this morning and let them know what was happening. Willie talked to Mr. French, and I think he’s planning on coming by here sometime this morning.”

“Okay,” I said, my depression setting back in at the thought hitting me again.

“It’ll be okay,” Hanna said, reaching over to gently pat my shoulder.

She stayed the rest of the morning with me, which was great. I’d been hoping to get out of the hospital before practice, but now it didn’t even seem likely I’d be out before it was time for the set to begin that night, as morning turned into afternoon and I was still in the hospital.

I had to get up and go to the bathroom at one point, and I barely made it. My legs were in so much pain I couldn’t really stand, and finally we had to have an orderly help me into the bathroom and back out again when I was finished. I tried to push myself up on the bars alongside the toilet, and couldn’t even manage that, which further proved there was no way I’d be able to put on any kind of performance, even a bad one.

The doctor showed up around one and said they’d gone over all my scans and didn’t see any indication of a serious injury to my brain, which meant whatever concussion I might have had was mild and not life-threatening. Even being cleared with that, it still took almost two hours before we finally got out of the hospital.

Mom had to stay and fill out paperwork and sign a thing saying we agreed to pay our bill, which we hadn’t even seen yet. She’d called into work and, although her bosses were understanding, I could tell she was worried about missing the day’s paychecks with this new bill hanging over our heads.

Around five, Mom left the room to go find out why I still hadn’t been discharged after she’d already filled out all of the paperwork and the doctor had already said I was good to go home, Mr. French showed up.

The bruising must have started in, because he did a little pause-shuffle step when he saw me.

“Holy hell,” he said, his eyes going big.

“That bad, huh?”

“Uhh, no,” he said, catching himself and clearly not meaning it. “I was just surprised. They said you got worked over pretty good, but I hadn’t really expected all this.”

“It looks worse that it is. Other than the broken nose, it’s all muscle damage that will heal. I’ll just be an invalid for the next several days or maybe a week. They couldn’t really give me a good estimate.”

“That’s good news. You had us all worried.”

“So, what happened with your friend?”

“He understands and he won’t hold it against you. This stop was mostly as a favor because it was on his way, but he has something he has to do in Atlanta tomorrow, so he’s still planning on taking the red-eye out.”

“Ohh. Yeah, okay,” I mumbled.

“Don’t let it get you too down. I know you had your heart set on this and worked really hard, but you’ll get another shot. I’ll talk to him when he has more time and see if I can’t work in another trip through here if he’s in the area. The thing you have to remember is, even the best ones had to hear ‘no’ a whole lot of times before they made it. You’re going to run into these situations again, even when something out of your control doesn’t happen. You’ll play the best set you can, kill it and still get told ‘not yet.’ That’s probably not helpful to hear, but if you want to do this professionally, you’ve got to find a way to brush these setbacks off, and get back out there.”

He was right. I’d watched my dad try and fail so many times, and I’d heard a lot of stories in green rooms and backstage growing up. Of course, knowing all of that didn’t make me feel any better about missing out on the opportunity. I also felt really guilty about letting the rest of the band down. They’d all been doing this a lot longer than me and hadn’t gotten this close before, so it was almost certainly going to be an even bigger letdown for them.

Around the time Mr. French left, Mom showed up with an orderly so they could take me home. Despite the agonizing trip to the bathroom, my first instinct was to say I could leave under my own power. They still insisted I transfer to a wheelchair, which was enough to tell me I definitely couldn’t make it out by myself. Just getting dressed and getting from the bed to the wheelchair left me sweating from the pain, the muscles trembling as soon as I took the weight off of them. I had a pretty bad back spasm around then, the nurse came in, but there wasn’t much she could do for it.

The doctor had prescribed a few days of pain killers and some muscle relaxers, but we’d have to wait until Mom went by the pharmacy to pick those up, so I just had to deal with the pain until it went away.

The sun was starting to go down by the time I sat in the wheelchair by the front of the hospital with the orderly while Mom pulled around in her car for the agonizing transfer into it.

“I spoke to the police,” she said as she drove us home. “I told them you’d had trouble from the two boys you think did this, and asked to make a report, but they said without anything more than your word, they couldn’t investigate it. I even went to the sheriff, who wouldn’t even listen to me. He said he’d take the report if I really wanted to make it, but it wouldn’t go any further than that.”

“Did you make the report?”

“You bet your ass I did, but that’s about all we can do. I’m sorry, baby.”

“It’s okay. I already told Hanna earlier I didn’t think we’d be able to do anything about it, since they wore masks and never said anything. I guess I might have half hoped they’d at least look into it a little bit, but Aaron’s dad being who he is, we never had much hope.”

We drove in silence, both lost in our thoughts, for a while. The closest hospital to us was County General, which was about thirty minutes from Wellsville, which is one of the downsides of living in the sticks.

“So do you want to tell me about those earlier bruises the doctor mentioned?” Mom asked, breaking the silence.

I’d half hoped she’d missed that part, since she hadn’t said anything at the time.

“It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. They were from the martial arts competition last weekend. It was all superficial and I was fine the next day. They just looked bad.”

“That’s not how the doctor made it sound. He said some of them were pretty deep bruises and you even had bruising around one of your ribs. That doesn’t sound superficial to me.”

“I guess, but I was fine. No major damage done. I mean, it is a competition involving sparring. Of course I’m going to get banged up a bit.”

“I still plan on having a conversation with Chef Tang about this. It’s one thing to teach you to defend yourself, but it’s another thing entirely to take a child to some kind of fight club.”

“You’re being dramatic. You know it isn’t a fight club. These kinds of events happen all over the country and people even do it in the Olympics. It’s a major sport. You know you’re just upset about me getting hurt and looking for someone to take it out on. Chef wouldn’t have signed me up if he thought I was going to be in real danger.”

She was quiet for a few minutes and I let her be since poking at her would only make her dig her heels in more.

Finally, she said, “When did you get so smart?”

“Smart would have been managing to not let Aaron and Harry beat the crap out of me with bats.”

She gave me a half-smile when I laughed at my own joke, probably more out of pity than anything else, but it broke some of her tension.

I wasn’t laughing when it was time to get out of the car and into the trailer. If I thought moving from the bed to a wheelchair was bad, trying to go up the three steps up to the trailer was a nightmare. Mom did her best to try and help me up the steps, but trying to put weight on her hurt my side and arms as much as trying to do it on my own hurt my legs.

I’d also put on a fair amount of muscle this year and grown another inch, meaning I outweighed her by quite a bit, so she wasn’t able to take much of the weight anyways. By the time I made it to my bed, I'd all but passed out. A fitting end to the worst two days of my life.