Right now, in this pre-op moment of terror, I’m a ball of negative emotional energy, and I have no clue what to do with it.
Dad shifts his weight, reminding me they haven’t answered where they heard about my surgery.
“Mom?”
“He was only trying to help.”
“He.” She clearly doesn’t want to say his name, like somehow that’ll make me madder, or make his betrayal worse. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, though I’m hysterical enough to do both so I bite down on my lip to avoid both.
I open my mouth to chew them out, to let go of some of the anger that has my insides tangled up in knots when the door opens and an attractive nurse walks in with Athena behind him.
“Sorry I’m late, I got caught up.” She waves a scrap of paper which probably has the hot nurse’s number on it, like it explains everything. “Mr. and Mrs. Bowen. You’re here!” She steps forward and hugs Mom, casting me a wary glance over Mom’s shoulder, and when she hugs Dad, she mouths the words “not it” to me.
I nod and mouth back that I know.
I was ready to lay out my issues with my folks, but the hottie nurse is here to take me to surgery and suddenly I don’t really care about all that crap anymore. I could die in surgery, and the dramatics have kicked in.
Fine, there’s a less than one percent chance of me dying in this surgery but that’s still way higher than I’d like it to be. So I give both my parents a hug, reassuring my tearful Mom that I’ll be fine and she shouldn’t worry, and I tell them both that I love them. Because I really fucking do.
Hen snaps a selfie from the foot of my bed with me in the background. I’m scowling at her and have a mesh bonnet over my hair for surgery. Ten bucks says that picture is for future bribery purposes.
I’m whisked away into the operating room, and my stomach clenches when they tell me to breathe the anesthesia in deep and count backwards from ten.
Ten.
I tell myself I’m going to wake up. Twice.
Nine.
When I do wake up, I’m going to hug Justin for calling my parents, and then smack him for doing the same.
Eight.
Justin is so pretty.
* * *
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay here without us?” Mom gnaws on the nail on her index finger.
I nod and shift myself higher in the bed, letting out a low groan.
“She’ll be fine here, Mrs. B.” Athena pastes a reassuring smile on her face. She’s good with parents.
I’m still not sure how I got from the car up to her apartment after my surgery on Friday. I feel like she has minions who might have carried me, but I can’t be sure. It’s kind of hazy.
“I’ll take good care of her. I promise to call if there are any complications.”
Mom nods. It’s the third time we’ve been through this. She doesn’t want to leave, and honestly, I have no idea why. I've been nothing but bitchy to her since I woke up. We haven’t talked, and right now I don’t want to.
I don’t want the words that fall from my lips to be impacted by the pain searing through my body, or made blurry by Vicodin.
“Justin gets back today, right? He’ll probably call to check if you need anything.”
It seems that at some point since I started dating Justin, Mom and Dad discovered that the sun shines out of Justin’s ass. They know he cheated on Molly, and they put it down to being a dumb adolescent in high school. They think he’s changed, and it’s all part of growing up.
I think that’s part of why I haven’t confronted them about keeping my adoption secret for all this time. I don’t want to hear some lame excuse about how they thought they were protecting me somehow.
I sigh, even that hurts. “Yes, Mom. Justin will be back in a few hours.” I press my hand against my collarbone. It’s as though there’s a knife lodged under it, and I don’t know why since my gallbladder and my collarbone aren’t even close to each other. “I really will be okay.”
