Page 74 of Hot Receiver

I swallow a snort. Relax. Is she fucking kidding me?

Time stands still while I’m in that tube. I want to move, I want to fucking scream, but I can’t do anything except lie here, tormented by my thoughts while my temples throb harder from all the banging and clanging.

It feels like a lifetime has passed before I’m finally pulled out of the tunnel.

“What did you see in the images? What’s wrong with me?” My voice rises, panicked gaze going from the tech to the nurse and back again.

They exchange a look and then turn to me.

“I really can’t say. The radiologist will evaluate the images and talk to you.”

I glare at the tech, my blood bubbling to the point where it might just spew out of my pores. “How long?”

“I’ll contact him right away,” the nurse says. “Just try to relax.”

Again, with that fucking word.

“Let me ask you this,” I seethe. “If you might be paralyzed, how fucking relaxed do you think you’d feel?”

She stares at me, her jaw hanging open.

I collapse back onto the pillow underneath my head. “Sorry,” I grumble with a deep sigh.

The nurse and an orderly wheel me back to my room. My mother jumps out of the chair when she sees me. She rushes over to the gurney and hugs me tight.

“Thank God you’re okay.” Her eyes are red, and tears stain the makeup on her cheeks. “I was so worried.”

“Excuse us, ma’am. We’re going to lift him onto the bed now,” the orderly says.

Mom steps away from me, wringing her hands together. Another guy rushes in and the two of them manage to move my dead weight ass onto the hospital bed.

The nurse smiles. “I’ll make sure the doctor comes in as soon as he gets the results of your scan.”

Then she disappears before telling me to relax. A-fucking-gain.

Mom sweeps her hand over the top of my head, wincingwhen she sees my smashed-up face. “I was so scared when I got the call. What happened?”

“I don’t remember much.”

Imaginary chains wrap tight around my heart, pulling hard.

Lies.

I remember everything leading up to the accident. And I really wish I could forget it all.

“I can’t move my legs, Mom.” A knot lodges in my throat. “They did the scan to figure out why.”

“Oh my God,” she whispers, her hand flying up to her mouth.

I can’t think of words to say that’ll comfort her. My body is beaten to shit, my heart and soul pretty much shattered beyond repair. I don’t have a damn thing for her.

I wish with everything in me that I’d been knocked in the head harder, that I’d suffered amnesia or anything that would make me forget what led up to the accident.

Instead, I’m being tortured by the fact that I can’t move, but my mind is more alert than ever.

Who the fuck did I ever piss off?

Time stretches. Minutes feel like hours before anyone comes by to do more than check my vitals. I pretend to sleep, except splintered memories blast through my mind like pinballs, making my head ache even more than it already does.

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