The door opened. In marched my husband, along with my mother, and they weren’t alone.
A short woman followed behind them. I knew her— Doctor Marsh. She’d managed some of my treatments for my bipolar in the past and got me on the medication that was currently keeping my mood stable. She wasn’t a bitch, and I trusted her, as far as Institute employees went.
“Mrs. Wahkin. I’m glad to see you’re awake,” Doctor Marsh started cheerfully. “We had to portal in a special surgeon from Celestial City just in time. You get very lucky.”
She gave me a plastic smile, but I didn’t return it. I knew she hadn’t come in here to deliver good news. I was disgusted that the Warden had assigned anangel doctorto perform my surgery. The surgeon was probably working for him and reporting back.
But I guarantee he wouldn’t have allowed any other supernatural doctor to work on me. Otherwise, he’d have let me die.
“When can I expect the feeling in my legs to come back?” I asked, and immediately regretted it. Charlie paled, and Mama had that crumpled face she got whenever she was about to cry, and damn, I hated it.
Doctor Marsh paused. “I have to admit, in your particular case… I haven’t seen a patient come back from such an extensive injury. The chances of you walking, Mrs. Wahkin, are… quite low. To speak frankly, that you even awoke from your coma was a miracle.”
Nowit was starting to hit me. That inevitable black pool dragged me under as I comprehended the reality of it all. It felt so similar to the drowning feeling I’d had when Mama had explained my bipolar diagnosis, but even worse. I kept spiraling and spiraling, and I didn’t see a way up.
Doctor Marsh began laying pictures on my lap— x-rays of my spine. “You have a fairly severe spinal cord injury, which has resulted in partial paralysis. The most damage was sustained to your lumbar and sacral vertebrae, which, as you can see from your x-rays…”
Blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t give a fuck less about what this lady was saying, although I was aware Charlie was keenly taking in every word. He could listen for me, because I just couldn’t. I had the facts delivered to me loud and clear. Everything else was white noise.
She’d been talking for nearly a half-hour before I found the courage to speak. “So I’ll never walk again.” I spoke the words plainly, cutting Doctor Marsh off mid-sentence. Everything else beyond that point was meaningless.
Mama teared up as Doctor Marsh replied, “That is indeed the case.”
I experienced a brief moment without any physical pain, because at that second, I couldn’t feel anything. I was hovering outside my body, disassociating from myself as I attempted to comprehend the inevitability of what she’d just told me, and failed.
Doctor Marsh shifted on her heels as she looked for an exit. “I should let you rest. You’ve been through an ordeal, and your recovery at this point is our top priority.”
I snapped myself out of it, though dragging myself down to Earth had the equivalent feeling of being dropped like a brick onto a concrete floor from a thousand stories up. I couldn’t walk, and never would again. That was the truth. And if there was nothing else I could do about it, I might as well get on with it.
I couldn’t allow myself to fall apart because of this. If I did, I’d never get up. And there were people out there who needed me.
“When can I go back to school?” I asked. Classes weren’t on right now, but I had to get back to my dorm, because I had shit to do.
Doctor Marsh frowned. “If you cooperate with your treatment— don’t give me that look, Mrs. Wahkin. We’ve had struggles with you in the past, and you haven’t always agreed to be compliant with your medical care.”
“I’ll be a good girl,” I sneered. “Just give it to me straight.”
“As I was saying,ifyou do everything you can to help us helpyou, we may be able to get you discharged in ten weeks.”
“Ten weeks?!” I all but yelled. This was ridiculous! I couldn’t sit in here until March!
“You need extensive physical therapy, as well as help learning how to use a wheelchair. Your whole life has changed. You need time and care to adjust to it,” Doctor Marsh said firmly. “If there are more complications, you may have to undergo further procedures for your spinal injury. None of this can happen unless you’re being monitored twenty-four seven by medical staff. This is non-negotiable.”
“If I don’t pass the semester I’ll flunk out, and the Warden will send me straight to the adult penitentiary!” I protested.
“The Warden has given you an exemption,” Doctor Marsh replied coolly. “You will receive no penalties toward your degree if you finish up the last few weeks of the semester once you’ve been released.”
Of course he gave me an exemption, because he wanted me under his fucking control for as long as possible.
But I wasn’t willing to sit here and have these doctors poke and prod at me for days on end while the world was at stake. “I refuse treatment. Give me a wheelchair and get me out of here!”
“Please, pidge, just do what the doctors tell you,” Charlie pleaded. “You need to get better.”
I deflated instantly. No argument any doctor could give would equal Charlie’s begging. I couldn’t fight back against it. I’d do anything he asked me to. Even if I hated it.
Oberi nudged my hand, and I said, “Fine. I better be able to do a cartwheel in this damn wheelchair by the time you let me out.”
“It’ll feel like no time at all, I promise,” Marsh replied. “Merry Christmas.”
