Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

FRANKIE

It was one of those nights where dreams evaded me—the kind where you closed your eyes, saw black, then opened them and it was morning. It felt like the beat of a moment even though it'd probably been eight hours or more. The light streaming in through my windows was way, way too damn bright on my eyes. I whined and squeezed them shut and tried to will my brain back to sleep. My body was on board. Every single muscle ached and burned like I'd been running and now couldn't move another inch. My brain, on the other hand, was more like Anna from Frozen: the sun is awake so I'm awake.

But worse than that, I felt like I was in the middle of doing something. Like when you forget why you walked into a room or what you were about to say, it was right there on the edge of my memories and yet entirely gone. It made no sense. Even my chest was tight. I felt anxious as hell. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Then I opened my eyes.

What I saw did not make sense. While I was lying down in a bed, the ceiling above me was not my bedroom. My room had little golden twinkle lights attached to the crown molding, but I was staring at big fluorescent lights. I squeezed my eyes shut again. Nope, nope, no. Just breathe. You're in your room. With my vision out of the question, I tuned into my other senses to prove to myself that I was actually in my room, except I didn't smell my laundry detergent on my blankets or the cinnamon incense I usually used right before bed. There was no rush of air over my face from my ceiling fan, no soft rumble of the central air-conditioning. The sheets under my fingers were stiff and nowhere near as soft as mine. There was no snoring from my dogs, nor signs of them dreaming.

But there was beeping. Voices seemed to echo from just beyond me. I took a deep breath and cringed at the intense sterile scent, but the movement forced something to stab me inside my nose. I groaned and reached up to see what it was only to realize something was squeezing my middle finger.

" What is that . . . "

" Frankie? "

"What's on my finger?" I shook my hand. "What is that?"

"Frankie, sweetheart, can you hear us?"

I heard them not answering my question. "Yeah, what is it?"

"What's what— oh." Aunt Kimmy squeezed my right hand. "That's just the oximeter."

Oximeter? What?

"Can you open your eyes, kiddo?" Uncle Kyle rested his hand softly on my shoulder.

I frowned and opened my eyes but the bright fluorescent lights overhead stung. "Where am I?—"

I gasped. It was a hospital room. I was in the hospital. The oximeter on my finger was that thing that measured my pulse and oxygen level. There was also an IV attached to my left arm and one of those breathing tubes in my nose. I glanced around, trying to remember what I was doing in the hospital, but it wasn't coming to me.

"What happened? Why am I here?"

Aunt Kimmy grimaced and sat back down on the chair beside me. She pushed her blonde hair back with fingers that trembled. "You were in an accident."

Images hit all at once. Raindrops slamming into the windshield. My hands white as snow, gripping the steering wheel. The red and blue flashing lights of police cars in my rearview mirror and the bright white light of the hospital like a beacon up ahead.

There was blood on the backs of my hands.

"On your way here from that party," Uncle Kyle added softly. "Halloween . . ."

The images changed instantly, then changed in the fastest slideshow ever, like my brain was in hyper-speed trying to reset itself. I saw my best friend mostly naked and looking far too pale for a living person in the passenger seat. Then I saw the frat house. The crowd of drunken college kids in costume. The red solo cups everywhere. The ceiling of a bedroom. A baseball bat beneath the bed right by my hand. A tall boy with white-blond hair in an all-white suit bursting through a barricaded door—rainbow light flashed in my eyes and I sat up straight.

"Frankie?"

"Frankie!"

"I remember, I remember." I held my hands out as they both reached for me. My best friend had been with me in that car, yet she wasn't in the room now. It was just the three of us. Yet she should have been here, sitting beside me with her pink hair like before. "Just where's Mei-Ling?"

" Mei-Ling?" Uncle Kyle frowned and exchanged a nervous glance with my aunt. "You mean Elizabeth?"

I shook my head. "No, she goes by Mei-Ling now. She told me that when I woke up on Valentine's Day?—"

"You didn't wake up, sweetie," Aunt Kimmy whispered.

"Yes, I did. I woke up and she was sitting right here with pink hair. Tai and Malik came?—"

" Malik? " they both asked with bewildered expressions.

"Yes, Malik . . ."

Aunt Kimmy shook her head and squeezed my hand. "Who is that?"

"Malik, he's the guy—" Colorful light like a rainbow flashed across my vision. I blinked, then found my aunt and uncle scowling at me. "What? What's wrong?"

Uncle Kyle cocked his head to the side. "You were going to tell us who Malik was?"

"Malik? I don't know a Malik." I frowned. "Do I?"

They smiled and eased back in their seats.

Uncle Kyle was still watching me. "You do remember your best friend, right?"

"As if I'd forget Elizabeth."

"You called her Mei-Ling a second ago?—"

" Mei-Ling ? She never goes by her Chinese name—Wait." An image popped into my mind of my best friend sitting beside me with pink hair telling me she'd started using her real name after the incident—a rainbow streaked across the room. I glanced toward the window, but it was nighttime outside. I shook myself. "I've never called her that, at least not since the first time she asked our teacher not to on the first day of school."

"All right, how are we doing in here, Francelina?"

It was a woman who'd spoken, I knew that, but I heard my name whispered in my ear like thunder on the wind. It was a male's voice, a deep sound that sent butterflies dancing in my stomach and goosebumps down my arms.

"Frankie?"

I jumped, then shook myself. "Y-yes?"

Aunt Kimmy pressed her hand to my forehead. "Sweetie? Talk to us?"

"I'm fine." I glanced around her to find two women in pink scrubs standing at the foot of my bed. "Who are they?"

"These are your nurses, Jackie and Sarah. They've been looking after you this whole time?—"

"What about Katherine?"

Everyone stared at me with their brows furrowed.

"Katherine? The nurse with auburn hair who talks about energies and stuff?" I said. The image of the nurse in question filled my mind instantly. I saw her standing beside me hooking up IV bags with colored liquid in them. "She was here the first time I woke up with all the bandages covering my body?—"

"Bandages covering your body?" Aunt Kimmy's voice shot up an octave. "What bandages?"

"This is the first time you've woken up, sweetheart," Uncle Kyle said gently.

"What are you talking about? Katherine told me I'd gotten full body burns from the car exploding and she promised she'd heal me without any scars." I held my arms up as proof. "We had a whole conversation?—"

"Frankie," Jackie, the nurse on the left, shook her head, "you were not in the car when it exploded. You would not have survived that, and even if you had been covered in burns, you would have severe scars."

My jaw dropped.

"And there's no Katherine who works in this hospital," Sarah added softly.

"No, no, no." I scrubbed my face roughly with my hands and rainbow light flashed in every direction. When I opened my eyes, I found all four of them staring at me. My eyes widened. "What? Did you say something to me?"

"You're doing just fine, Frankie." Sarah gave me a small smile and slid my chart back onto the table. Then she turned to my aunt. "The brain can do wild things under duress and trauma. She just woke up. Let her ease back into being awake."

"I was awake before though. More than once. I got up and walked around with Tegan—" A kaleidoscope of colors like a neon rainbow swirled around me so intensely that I swayed. "What?—"

"Easy, sweetie." Aunt Kimmy took my hand and gently guided me back down to the bed. "Hun, prop her up?"

Uncle Kyle nodded as he reached for the remote attached to my bed. When he pushed it, the back half of my bed rose in an incline so I was sitting up but supported by the bed. "Better?"

"I don't know. I'm confused. I need a drink. My throat hurts." I winced through sharp pain in my eyes. "My eyes hurt too."

Nurse Jackie nodded. "Let me get the doctor so he can take a look at you and we can get you more comfortable. Be right back."

"In the meantime . . ." Sarah put her hand on my leg over the blanket. "How about some water with crushed ice you can munch on?"

I licked my lips and nodded. "That's all I can eat until the doc comes?"

"We need to take it easy on your body, so we'll get you water and ice while we wait for him. Okay, kiddo?"

"Okay." I watched her leave my room, following Jackie out, then scowled. "What don't I know? Y'all are acting weird like I'm super injured but I don't even have any wounds from the accident."

Aunt Kimmy sighed and it sounded like it hurt. "Sweetheart, you've been in a coma since the accident."

My eyes widened. "WHAT?"

"That's why you look uninjured. Your body has been healing while you slept." Uncle Kyle grimaced. "But the good news is you seem uninjured now."

"How long . . ." I shook my head as nausea rolled up my throat. "How long was the coma?"

"That was Halloween night . . . Today is the second of March."

The world spun around me. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingertips to my temples. "That's like five months."

"Yes," they both said at the same time.

Everything was starting to make more sense. The stares, the worried glances, the nervousness. My stomach rolled. "Wait. Hold up. Elizabeth. Where's Elizabeth? I got her out of the house. She was in the car with me. Where is she?"

"She's okay," Uncle Kyle said in a rush. "She healed up nicely within a week or two and has been back to normal since."

" But where is she? " I cried. "Why isn't she here? She would be here. This isn't like her. Where Is she?"

Aunt Kimmy gave me a sad smile and squeezed my shoulder. "Sweetheart, you've been in a coma for so long. We weren't sure if you were going to wake from it at all, let alone know when. Elizabeth was here every day. She sat by your side. But after Christmas, her parents . . . well . . . things were really hard for her after the incident, so they went back to China."

My heart stopped. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I shook my head hard enough to give me a headache.

"They just wanted to give her some peace so she could heal," she continued. "Somewhere no one knew what had happened to her." She tucked my hair behind my ear. "This was very traumatic for her too."

My eyes filled with tears. "No, no, no. She left? Forever?"

Uncle Kyle shook his head. "They insist it's not forever?—"

"I wanna talk to her."

They stared at me.

"Give me a phone. Let me FaceTime her. I need to see her face for my trauma."

"All right." Aunt Kimmy pulled a phone out of her purse and handed it to me. Only then did I realize it was my phone. "I'm taking this back as soon as you hang up. It's too soon to start back socializing and everything."

My fingers were trembling, so I held down the side button and waited for Siri's symbol. "Hey, Siri, call Elizabeth on FaceTime."

"Calling Elizabeth on FaceTime," Siri's robotic voice repeated my command.

It rang a few times before I saw my best friend's face fill the screen. She squealed and tears slid down her cheeks. Her hair was pink. She looked totally and entirely healthy and that somehow broke me. One second I was smiling at her, the next I was sobbing. Aunt Kimmy slid onto the bed beside me and wrapped her arms around me while Uncle Kyle held my other hand tight.

"God, Frankie, I can't believe you're back," she cried and wiped her eyes, which showed the crystal ring on her finger that was identical to mine. "I was so scared."

The memory of that party was burned into my brain. I knew far too well the fear that I was about to lose my best friend forever. I shuddered and wiped my own tears. "I'm okay."

"It's okay to not be okay , Frankie, as long as you're alive and awake."

"I am." I forced a shaky smile. "Even if you're in China."

"Mom and Dad swear I'll be home for summer. Tai's going back to college then too." Her face fell and she groaned. "We just have to hang on until then."

My heart sank. Another round of tears burned my eyes and formed a hot lump in my throat. "With you on the other side of the world and like a dozen time zones away."

Her eyes glistened. "I wasn't sure you were going to survive at all. I'll take this as a temporary problem."

I wasn't ready to think about what had happened to us that got me in a coma for almost half a year and my best friend in another world. I blinked and wiped my face with my free hand. For the first time in my life, I just wanted to be alone. I needed to process what had happened and where that left me now.

"You look exhausted, Frankie," Elizabeth said softly. "Don't push yourself too fast. Why don't you eat something and watch some TV, then text me in a little while?"

"What time is it there?" My voice was thick and raw.

"I'm twelve hours ahead, so I'll be up all day."

I nodded.

"Get some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and just . . . not overload your brain tonight. Please?"

My stomach growled. "That hot sign better be on."