Page 99 of The Pleasure of Panic

There’s a lot of beeping machines and lots of plastic tubes. I can’t move my right arm because it’s secured to my body somehow, and I’m dying of thirst.

“Suzanne,” I croak out past cracked lips. But it’s barely a whisper and she doesn’t wake up. I try again, but breathing hurts right now, and I don’t seem to have any extra air to make sounds.

The next time I wake up, she’s staring down at me, eyes wide, mouth open as she says my name.

My eyelids flutter. They don’t want to stay open, but dropping back into the darkness seems like a bad idea, so I raise my eyebrows as I blink rapidly, hoping that my eyelids will follow the same trajectory, and succeed for about two seconds.

“She’s awake!” Suzanne yells.

Which is not quite true, but I think she can tell I’m going the extra mile on that empty highway and optimism is in order.

Then there’s nurses—lots of nurses. Lots of questions. A doctor who talks mostly to the nurses, and then everything calms down and they all just look at me.

“Water,” I say. Which is probably bad manners because these people did just save my life. But I’m thirsty.

They don’t let me drink. There’s just a whole lot of medical talk and then I’m pronounced “stable”.

Suzanne sighs out a long breath of relief. She holds my hand, the one that’s not all bound up in some kind of sling or bandage and won’t move, no matter how hard I try.

I’m not in pain and I don’t think this is normal, but when I ask, Suzanne points to a bag of liquid attached to a pump, that’s feeding me morphine in little drips.

And then exhaustion from looking around the room and trying to make sense of what is actually happening takes over and I fade away, wondering what the hell happened to Finn Murphy.

The next time I wake up I’m in a different room. There’s only a few tubes running through my body now, a few beeping noises coming from the machines, and I’m still thirsty.

I’m also alone. Which you wouldn’t think would be the one thing I’d fixate on after being shot in the—I look down at my body—upper right chest, but it is.

I think it’s night now. The room is dark, my door is open, and there’s not much noise in the hallway.

I feel the urge to move, or sit up, or something, and immediately regret my slight position change because the pain… holy fucking shit, the pain is overwhelming. I think I might actually pass out for a little bit because when I open my eyes again, there’s a nurse in the room with me.

“Good morning,” she says brightly. “Are you hungry?”

“Water,” I croak.

She holds a cup with one of those bendy straws in it. The straw is yellow and the cup is pink, and I’m thinking this is a nice combination, and that’s when I realize I’m fuckin’ high as a kite.

But the pain’s gone, so I just sip my water and be happy.

“You’re not on the TV,” the nurse says. Like I should know what this means. She must read the expression on my face as confusion, because once she sets the water down on the little table beside my bed, she clicks a remote and the flatscreen on the wall lights up. “We’ve all been checking. Mr. Wells asked us to keep an eye on it and so far, so good.”

I don’t know what that means either. But I don’t really care. “Finn?” I ask, my voice stronger now that I’ve had some water.

She frowns at me. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, my God. Is he dead?”

“No,” she says quickly. “No. But the news is saying he was arrested. And now no one is talking about him at all. Well, except for the newscasters.”

“Arrested,” I repeat. “But what about—”

“Just rest,” the nurse says, cutting me off. “There’s time to figure everything out later. We’re holding all your visitors until you’re ready.”

“Even Suzanne?”

“Is she the pushy one who keeps telling me about Go Fuck Yourself classes?”

Gotta love Suzanne. “That would be her.”