Chapter 17

I watched as Sidney ran out of the room. I saw more shapes filter into the room and realized that a nurse and a doctor had followed Sidney in, and if I wasn’t mistaken, my parents were right behind them. They were still more like shapes than actual people, but I could see them. He stood back as they came up to me. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were doing and for some reason I couldn’t really hear what they were saying. Eventually my vision began to clear and my hearing came back with it.

“We’re going to pull this tube out of your throat. When I count to three you’re going to have to cough for us, okay?” the doctor said.

I nodded and he grabbed hold of the tube. He counted down and I coughed and felt the tube being pulled from my throat. It was sore, but it felt good to have it out. I looked over at my parents and Sidney and tried to smile.

“Do you know what your name is?” the doctor asked.

“Tanner Falco,” I rasped. My throat was sore.

“Do you know who they are?” he asked pointing to my parents and Sidney. I suddenly had an idea and had to keep myself from smiling at it.

“My parents.” I looked over at Sidney with a confused expression on my face. I went back and forth between him and the doctor. “I don’t recognize you. Do you work here?”

It took only a second for Sidney’s face to transform from absolute joy to depression, and I saw both of my parents turn to look at him. My mother covered her mouth with her hand in shock. The doctor and nurse looked at me sadly. I looked back over at him, and a small smile crept onto my face. Again I got to witness a complete transformation in his expression when he was the only one who saw the smile.

“You’re hilarious, Tanner,” he said shaking his head, but with a smile on his face.

Everyone in the room looked back and forth between us before picking up on my pretty brutal joke. My father groaned at my ill-humor and my mother looked horrified. Despite the reactions I didn’t take my eyes off of Sid’s. The doctor and nurse left the room a minute later and my parents followed them out to ask them a few questions.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

I went to shrug but realized I couldn’t move my right shoulder. I turned my head and looked at it. I couldn’t see anything wrong and started to panic. Was something wrong with my brain? It was then that I saw the cast on my wrist. Suddenly I started to feel pain. Every part of my right side started to hurt and I felt tears come to my eyes.

“Tanner, what’s wrong?” Sidney asked.

“I hurt,” I choked out, cringing at the pain saying that caused. He got up and left the room, returning with a nurse. She told me she’d give me something for the pain, and sure enough a little bit later the pain started to fade.

I went back to looking at the cast on my wrist. Well, that was fantastic. How was I supposed to write any essays for my finals? Then I noticed that my entire body looked enormous, and I couldn’t move any of it. After a minute I realized that my whole body was in a cast. Jesus, what the hell happened to me? I looked over at Sidney and must have looked confused.

“You’re going to be okay, I promise,” he assured me.

A bit later the doctor came back in and began explaining what had happened. I found out that I’d been on my way home from studying at the library when I was in a car accident. A drunk driver ran a red light and hit Kelly’s car. Apparently he’d never even touched the brakes.
I’d suffered a broken cheek bone, a separated shoulder, a broken wrist, fractured ribs, a dislocated hip, a broken femur, and a broken ankle. That was on top of the over 100 stitches I’d received on my head, face, side, and limbs. Oh, and let’s not forget that pesky concussion and coma thing. As banged up as I was, I was just grateful to be alive.

“We’re going to keep you here for a while for observation and do some tests to figure out the extent of the damage done to your brain, but from what I can tell I think you’re going to be fine,” the doctor finished.

My parents thanked him and he left. Sidney and my parents stayed in the room and entertained me for a while. That was when I remembered my finals.

“I can’t believe this happened right before finals. You’ve got to think this gets me a little more time to prepare for them, right?” I joked. My smile faded as I saw my parents and Sidney exchange glances. “What?”

“Honey, you missed finals,” my mother told me. I’d missed finals? Wow, I’d been in the coma for over a week. That was a really weird thought. “The school said that they’d see about letting you make them up.”

“Okay, that’s fine. I guess that means I’m on Christmas break then,” I said. Again they all looked at each other.

“Christmas has already gone by,” my father said. Christmas was over?

“What day is it?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“January 4,” Sidney explained.

“That means I was in the coma for three weeks,” I said more to myself than to them. I’d missed finals, Christmas, and New Years. I couldn’t believe how much time I’d spent trapped inside my own head. I felt new tears forming when I realized just how much I’d missed out on.

As the day wore on all of my housemates stopped by and Brendan came with his family. Andrew was ecstatic to see me awake and it was he who let it slip that Delia was pregnant. He proudly announced that he was going to have a little sister. I was truly happy for them, and yet sad that I hadn’t been able to hear the news along with everyone else. Eventually the day wound down and I insisted everyone go home to sleep. I really just wanted some time to myself to think about everything. Sidney stayed behind when everyone else had left.

“I knew something happened to you,” he whispered to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, not sure what he was saying.

“The night of the accident I woke up at 1:10 with a terrible headache. I had the urge to call you but your phone went straight to voicemail and something just didn’t seem right. Then my entire right side got really sore and I thought I must have slept on it wrong. I found out later from Kelly that she looked at the clock seconds before the accident and it was 1:10.”

I took a minute to take in what he’d just told me. That wasn’t possible. Things like that just didn’t happen to people. Even so I knew Sidney wasn’t lying to me. He said goodnight to me and began to walk out of the room.

“I heard you!” I called after him. He stopped and turned to look back at me.

“You heard me when?” he asked.

“I heard you tell my parents you were in love with me.” He shifted his eyes away from me and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him before he had a chance to respond. He nodded and walked out of the room. I cursed myself for not saying anything else and then gave in to sleep.

I spent the next couple of weeks lying in a hospital bed. By the time the doctors told me I could go home my shoulder was healed, I was a week away from having my wrist out of the cast, I was out of the body cast, and the cast on my leg was also a week away from coming off. Unfortunately I was going to be in a wheelchair for a while, which was slightly embarrassing.

My parents tried to convince me to go home to New York to recover, but I refused. I’d talked to Duquesne and they’d told me I could make up my finals in February, and I wanted to stick around. What was supposed to be my last semester of my undergraduate career had already started and the girls were back living in the house. I knew I wouldn’t be alone, and I’d be with my friends, and that’s what I wanted.

They finally agreed, and Lisa moved into my room upstairs so I could take her room downstairs. When I got back to the house the four of them had already completely switched everything between the two rooms. My parents reluctantly went back to New York after leaving pages of instructions for all of us.

Sidney and I hadn’t talked again about me hearing him tell my parents he loved me. Even so he was still with me every free moment he had. When I had my appointments to remove my casts he was the one that brought me. I started my physical therapy right after and it was the least fun experience of my life.

By the end of the month my hip was strong enough to support my weight and I didn’t need the wheelchair anymore. I was extremely grateful for that. The physical therapist had given me crutches to use when I walked. On January 28 I attended my first Penguins game in two months.

As I sat there with my friends and the other Penguins girlfriends, who had come to visit me on many occasions, I actually took the time to look around the arena for the first time. I was shocked at how many Crosby jerseys I saw in the crowd. I don’t know how I’d missed them before, but that didn’t matter now.

That night they were playing the Rangers. During the second intermission I was told to look up at the big screen and I saw myself on it with a message that read “Welcome back, Tanner!” I rolled my eyes knowing exactly who had put that up there. The Penguins ended up winning the game 6-2, and Sidney had a goal and two assists, getting second star. When I left with Sidney we exited out the same door as everyone else. He stopped on his way out to sign autographs and I couldn’t believe how many people were out there asking for a signature and taking pictures.

“Hey, that’s the girl that was on the big screen,” I heard a girl say.

“What’s he doing with her?” another asked.

I slunk down in the seat and Sidney stopped signing autographs immediately. We went out to dinner with everyone just like we always used to. Things were finally back to normal. Well, almost.