lacerated

I roll onto my back, start to sit up and my side explodes. Everything goes white. All of me aches, throbs or yells, protesting every slight movement. For a moment there is nothing but pain.

I close my eyes and lay still, going over the night before in my head. She was gorgeous, with large, dark eyes and near black hair. We were flirting, but only just. We walked outside with a group before a call for pizza. Then there’s an image the concrete sidewalk.

She was friendly but shy. Infatuation was immediate. We talked about our week helping repair homes and other random things. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Again, my daydream fills with the hard, cold sidewalk.

The arrival of the pizza was announced and I offered to give her a ride on my back. I held her up easily but something was wrong. I stepped off the curb, leaned too far forward or she shifted her weight more than I could compensate. Whatever it was, I saw only concrete.

Then I was leaning over her, asking if she was alright. Others were around but I don’t know who, everything happened so quickly. She was holding her hand or her wrist, explaining through halted breaths that she was fine. She must have had the wind knocked out of her.

I helped her up and we went over to the picnic tables, each grabbing a slice or two of pizza. My side was scraped and it screamed in pain. I must have bruised it. I couldn’t finish my piece of pizza.

Once I had tossed the remainder of my slice in the trash, I walked back to my sleeping bag. I slowly laid down, ignoring everything around me. I slept well, better than I had in quite awhile. I woke in the same position as I fell asleep.

Either the pain subsides or I grow accustomed enough to get to my feet. Just as a hurricane of nausea rips through me. Quickly as possible, hunched over and ignoring the cries of agony from my insides, I walk outside. I promptly regurgitate the half-slice of Pizza Hut pepperoni.

I look down at the grass, waves of pain running from my toes to neck, punished for the retching. I brace myself against the side of the school. Through the throbbing comes an urge to urinate. I walk to the second door to avoid having to step over others.

Few are awake but a man I don’t recognize is in the bathroom. He steps away from the urinals as I walk in, washing his hands behind me. Urinating intensifies the throbbing, making my legs quake. I put a hand up against the wall.

I glance down, breathing through the pain. Expecting the normal, the burgundy color gives me pause. My mind reels with questions. I carefully, trying to keep the pain at a hum rather than a scream, gather myself.

I find the youth leader, explain I may have blood in my urine and how I vomited earlier. He knew about the night before and is concerned. He leads me to a bench outside and goes to talk with other adults. He comes back with keys to the van and my jeans.

We head to the hospital, talking about anything but the pain tearing through me at every bump in the road. No one saw me leave and only has second-hand information as to where I am. What if no one tells her where I am?

I learn from a bearded man in his forties, while he stares at my commuted tomography scan results as one would a fine string of diamonds, that I’ve lacerated my kidney. I picture it having been cut into, like the breaking of a sack of hummus. Later, I learn it’s in three pieces.

I spend a few days in the hospital, in varying levels of consciousness and pain. The television is uninteresting and my mind constantly turns back to her. Is she worried? Does she think it was her fault? How is her hand?

My parents come down quickly and drive me back home when I’m finally released. Mother talks incessantly, curious how it happened. Father just asks, “How you doing back there, bud?” repeatedly. I lay back on the reclined seat, listening to my CD player, thinking of her, feeling every bump of the three hundred mile trip.

There’s an arrangement of flowers from work on the kitchen table with a “get well soon” balloon. My parents take a picture of me holding it, to send to them in thanks. I ease downstairs and lay on the couch.

After a few hours, some pain medication and a nap, she calls. Mother yells down, I grab the receiver off the table beside me and hear her voice for the first time in days. I recount the hospital in brief, hear she was worried about me and invite her over.

She accepts. Time crawls. The minutes between hearing her voice and the sound of her arrival are days. I listen as Mother welcomes her and points her downstairs before closing the door.

She turns the corner and her eyes light up. For an instant, just a fraction of a second, the pain is gone. There’s only her smiling face. I could ask her a dozen questions.

Instead, she meets me on the couch and we talk quietly about nothing. Mother comes down and takes a photo of us, then leaves us be. She starts the movie I pick and then lays back down.

Here in the basement I’m cut off from everything. Reality, that I’m headed out of state to college within the month, have no job and can barely walk, is distant. Even the pain, otherwise constantly humming, is far away when she’s here with me.