Wings

Accompanied by Monsters and Men’s “Little Talks,” my phone’s buzzer does its job, alerting me that my mother has sent me yet another text message. This one reads,

“I’m so so so soooo sorry, but I can’t make it there tonight. I promise I’ll visit tomorrow.”

My mother, much like myself, prefers never to use texting lingo. We both prefer to write out full words, and to leave out a comma or apostrophe would be sin. I smile, if a bit grimly, at the familiarity of our quirk, then return my phone to its perch on the silver table next to my bed. I look solemnly around the too-bright hospital room. In the fourteen days I’ve been here, not one thing in the voiceless room has changed. The walls, floor, and even the ceiling are all comprised of cold white tiles that seem to leech the emotion from the air. The closest thing to color is the silvery green of the dusty AC unit. I’ve begun to regret not keeping the garish pink and orange phone case my mom bought me last year. A second bed lays, untouched, against the far wall of the room; its white sheets are neatly folded, but ironically lack hospital corners. I’m alone, as always, except at meals and checkups, which happen at the same time every day. I stare at the clock for a full minute before I manage to determine the time. 5:13. Exactly nineteen minutes before dinner. I wait, bored again.

My leg itches; I don’t scratch it.

My neck itches; I scratch it.

I glance at the clock again. 5:14.

I’m about to pick up my phone, to browse reddit or tumblr, just do something, when I hear a light knock at the door. I look at the clock. Its little hands are in the same position as they were twelve seconds ago. Dinner had never been early. Every day for the past two weeks, it’s been carted in by Jonathan, a nurse, at exactly 5:32. Besides, Jonathan never knocks. I always bug him about it, since he shouldn’t just barge into an girl’s room. What if I’d been changing? He would respond with a raised eyebrow, I’d love to see you try to change your clothes without my help. Hearing this, I would pout, since it’s not like I choose not to dress myself.

However, this isn’t Jonathan. I recognize the grey, torpid face of Nurse Dean. She refuses to let patients call her by first name. She pokes her head in the doorway, and I see an unsettlingly false smile on her face I’ve never seen before.

“Oh good,” she croons, her voice dripping with molasses, or maybe vegemite, “you’re semi-decent.”

I attempt to raise my eyebrow at her, “when did I last take off my clothes without Jonathan’s help, again?” She scowls at my use of Jonathan’s first name, but says nothing in reply.

“Kathy? Come meet your roommate.”

A tall, redheaded girl with an extra two feet of legs walks in, and I can tell Nurse Dean has gotten her name wrong by the way the girl rolls her eyes. Strike that, eye. Strapped over a third of her face is an oversized eyepatch. That, paired with a mass of bandages wrapped over her head, make her look like Arashi Nikaidou, though I doubt they’re similar in many other ways.

She sees me staring and grins.

“Lisa,” Nurse Dean continues, “this is Catherine, she’ll be staying in your room for a bit, so get along. Don’t make me up your painkiller doseage.” She cackles as if she thinks she’s funny. The room is silent for a moment after the nurse leaves.

The Nikaidou lookalike sits on the other bed.

“I’m guessing you’re not Lisa?” She asks.

“Lea, actually,” I attempt a smile, but I’ve never been good at talking to people.

“Call me Wings,” she grins, obviously waiting for me to ask her why she has such a weird nickname.

“Why do you have such a weird nickname?” I oblige.

“Track, and it’s not that weird. I’m the fastest runner on the ream. Hold the school record for 100-meter and the county record for seventy-five.” She beams, obviously pleased with herself.

“Is that all?” I ask, sarcastically.

“What? Like you could do better? I bet I could-” she stops, an apology in her eyes. “Oh. I’m- I didn’t mean to- Sorry, I- Yeah...” She stares into the ground sadly.

I laugh at her performance. “What? I’m not going to blame you!” I pat my right stump. “Come on, it’s fine, really. It’s not like I was ever an athlete before.”

Wings looks at the space where my legs are supposed to be.

“What happened?” She asks, nervously.

“School Bus flipped on ice. Luckily, I was the last stop, so it was just me and the driver. I was the only one wearing a seatbelt, but I was also the only one injured.” Wings still seemed unhappy, so I laughed again.

“Well,” she says slowly,”at least you don’t have to worry about being short-sheeted.” A grin spreads across her face as I laugh. “Besides,” she adds, “it draws attention to your cute little face.” She flashes her eyebrows up and down, but I just roll my eyes.

“Speaking of,” I ask, “what did you do to your cute face?” I point to my left eye.

She responds by raising the eyepatch to reveal a perfectly normal, if purpled and swollen, green eye. “This is just a shiner. The real reason I’m here is more similar to yours. I tripped on the treadmill. Shattered my wrist and tore off three fingernails.” I shudder as she raises a bright green cast. It’s a wonder I didn’t notice it earlier.

“Why the patch?”

“I just didn’t want my new roommate thinking I’d gotten into a fistfight before I had the chance to explain myself.” She flashes me a lopsided smile as she slips the eyepatch over her head.

She winces as she touches her scalp. “Oh, and I have a minor concussion. Can’t leave that out.” With that, she stood up.

“Should you be standing with a concussion?”

“Probably not. And I definitely shouldn’t be doing this.” Ignoring my protest, she grabbed the bedpost and started dragging her bed towards the middle of the room.

Since only the back two legs had wheels on them, she had to repeatedly move back and forth between the two bedposts, pulling one, then the other, careful not to hit any expensive equipment.

I watch her struggle until the two beds were close enough that I could reach across the gap and touch her pillow.

“There,” she proclaims excitedly, “now we can talk easily.”

I tilt my head, “couldn’t we talk before?”

She shook hers in return. “We could talk like strangers before; now we can talk like friends!”

And that’s what we did for the next three hours and forty-eight minutes.

At 9:04 my phone did its thing again. I picked it up and read the monstrosity that was my father’s text.

“M cot ↑ @ work sas hi”

I cringe at both the content and the format. Mom’s been overworking herself since I was admitted to the hospital to pay the bills. It didn’t help that she was a lawyer, and therefore needed as much sleep as possible. I wasn’t exactly disappointed that she wasn’t coming to visit me today, but I was worried she’d give herself another ulcer. My phone gives off another strain of “Little Talks” to alert me of another Dadism.

“sry bout M if U need smthin jst me”

“Is something the matter?” Wings looks worried, and I realize I’ve forgotten our conversation.

“Oh, sorry, it’s nothing; I’m just getting a bit tired. Wanna call it a night?”

Wings yawns before glancing at the clock, “hmm… You know, for a blonde, you’re pretty smart. G’night.”

I watch, incredulous, as Wings drifts off into sleep instantly. I take a bit longer to fall asleep.