Brainquakes

Fractions, we were learning fractions. Maybe that's why numbers float through the black, punctuating the words that replace dreams. One twenty-sixth, more or less. That's how much of my life has been spent in this place. The bed isn't as comfortable as the one at home, but mom insists it's just as pretty. I think she put my favorite sheets on it, the ones with the racecars on them. Mom cries a lot. Thousands of tears. There's a term for big numbers that aren't real. I don't know if I don't remember the word or if I don't know it yet.

Thirty-four, that's the number of times the doctor has told my parents that I can't see or hear them. Fractions again, she's half right. I haven't seen anything since the speedometer at a careful twenty-five and dropping, and the face. I've heard everything since mom's scream though. I heard that, and so much more afterward. Things that will stay with me forever. Some I want to keep around for years, and others that make me want forever to come tomorrow.

A sideways eight, the symbol for how many times mom cries at my bedside. She feels bad about the accident. I want to hold her hand as her pretty face floats through the dark sky that is my world now. I know her face isn't really pretty, she gets snotty, puffy and pink when she cries. I also know it's not her fault.

Another face fills my world, the teen girl, her eyes filled with terror as she looks up from her phone and sees me. She knows what she's done, twenty seconds or so before she rams into the door that barely protects me. Enough to keep me alive. He's just a kid! Life's not fair! Why didn't I listen to the commercials? Even at my age I see all that on her face.

Seven, the number of heaven according to dad. I may find out soon. Also the number of days since I heard him say the girl is in a room just down the hall. Twelve is the number of times mom has reminded him it isn't his place to judge and that forgiveness is better. Six times she added the plea that I'm still alive, and just as many times he has said, "We don't know for how much longer."

Zero, not really a number but it's how many seconds he spends actually meaning it when he says he'll leave it alone. One syringe goes missing. It's also the number of nurses that end up crying by my bed, horrified that she let this happen and is going to lose her job. Two, the numbers going up again, that's how many guys in blue show up. Two and a half, that's how many rights they read him.

If only I could talk instead of hear. Maybe he would have listened to me. I didn't think she'd do it again, but now he knows she won't.

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