Page 83 of After We Fall

Luke refuses to leave my side, and I don’t have the fight in me to send him away. Also, I don’t know if I want to have the fight in me to send him away. He sits in the corner, his glower filling the room.

“What’s your current pain level?” Dr. Ridding asks. He’s dressed in his uniform, but instead of his typical laid-back demeanor, his eyes are filled with concern as he reviews my chart.

I rub the scar at my eyebrow. “Maybe an eight.” Closing in on nine. But I don’t want to cause alarm.

He looks at me. “That’s a lot of pain, Miss Reid. We’re going to get you some relief as quickly as we can.” He hits a call button and a young, long-haired, bottle-blond nurse enters the room. She would be all legs if not for her scrubs.

Luke’s steely gaze remains locked on me.

Dr. Ridding gives Miss Teen America instructions about administering an IV, and she leaves the room. “On a positive note, my exam shows no sign of your injury worsening. I think the sound trigger sent you into the pain crisis.”

The nurse returns with a tray of tools, moves me to the dark blue reclining treatment chair, and rolls up the sleeve on my sling-less arm. One more day until my injured arm is, hopefully, freed of the canvas restraint.

“Let’s let that medicine hit. Then I want you to talk me through how your pain got to an eight,” Dr. Ridding says.

After wrapping a wide rubber tourniquet around my arm, the nurse taps the veins at my elbows. Not pleased with those options, she moves the rubber band down and finds a vein in my wrist to use. She smells like bubble gum.

I’m tempted to ask Dr. Ridding if I could request an adult instead of this adolescent to poke me with a sharp object. I suck in a breath as the needle pierces my skin. The nurse hooks the IV up to my arm and opens the ports, freeing the sweet liquid relief down the tube. Okay, fine. She hit a vein on the first try. She’s a Mensa nurse. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t look like she should be a backup dancer for Britney Spears.

Medicine crawls through my bloodstream, smoothing the sharpest corners of the pain. After I take several deep breaths, the taut muscles in my shoulders start to release the tension they’ve been holding captive.

“Feel like talking a little, Miss Reid?” the doctor asks.

I exhale, resigning myself to the conversation. “I don’t understand the numbers.”

His gaze narrows, but it’s pensive, not judgmental. “Help me understand what you mean.”

“I don’t know.” I glance around the room, searching for a way to explain. “I’ve had migraines since the first injury. I live my life. I function until I can’t function anymore.”

He nods but waits for me to say more.

“Push through. Finish the task at hand. There’s no stopping to figure out what kind of pain I’m in. I just go, move forward, until I can’t.” I look at the wall with the infamous pain-quantifying poster. The zero-pain face smiles jubilantly at me. The ten-pain face is devastated by life. But they don’t mean anything to me. “Numbers zero through six don’t exist for me. I’m all of a sudden at a seven and it’s hard to function. Before today, I could always push through and finish what I was doing, then go deal with the headache.”

“But today?”

“The entire escalation was faster than normal. More intense.” Out of control is what I want to say. This headache charged through the numbers with no intention of stopping.

“Your recent injuries have changed your normal. You won’t be able to cope with your headaches, or ‘push through,’ as you say, the way you used to.” He cocks his head, studying me. “Most people would say that when their pain is at a seven, functioning is difficult. If that’s how you define a seven, what would a ten mean for you?”

I blink. “Death.”

No one speaks, and the silence falls heavy in the room. Even the nurse, clearing the debris from my IV administration, pauses her process.

After a few beats, Dr. Ridding asks, “And what happened today?”

The medication continues to course through my veins, and I sink a little further into the chair. “I was resting in my room, and the sounds of the drums came through the walls.”

“Yes, you mentioned as much. But why didn’t you say anything to anyone?”

“Because Bianca was having a drum lesson.”

He leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “Yes, but you were in pain.”

“Okay,” I say, not understanding why this conversation has taken an intense turn.

“Okay?”

“Do you know what kind of life she’s endured until now?” I ask. “She’s been abandoned. Abused. She’s a survivor. Until recently, she hardly spoke to anyone. When she does communicate, her words are ridiculous clichés about men and relationships. It’s how she copes.”