Bad Doctor

“She’s dead.” 

The voice hits me with a thud. My eyes are too numb to release any more tears. The words echo around me, and I want to run. 

“She’s in a coma, Leah.” I realize the first voice was just my mind. 

“I want to see her,” I whisper. I look into the deep brown eyes, noticing the balding head, the white coat that radiates the doctor’s authority. He’s barely taller than I am. “Please. She’s my mother.”

He sighs, a slow sigh that makes me feel a hysteria rising from my core. “Leah, please understand. We can’t cure her without knowing what happened to her. And we can’t let you visit her either--it’s hospital policy.”

Red burns at the edge of my vision. “She’s my mother! She won’t hurt me!” I roar. “Let me see her!” 

Suddenly a body steps in front of mine. A boy. He grits his teeth and barks out, “No. Leah won’t be telling anybody.” It’s my brother. He turns around to face me. The flaming hair, bronze skin, and piercing blue eyes don’t stand out to me like they do most girls. Right now it’s just that little crease between his eyes that grabs my attention. “Leah won’t tell anybody what happened,” he says again. 

What? Why? If it can cure Mom, then why not tell him? 

“Conner.” I grab his arm, trying to control my emotions. Breathe, Leah. Breathe. “Why? He said it can cure Mom!”

“Leah, listen to me.” He pulls me over to the corner. “Leah, this doctor is crazy. He doesn’t need to know how she got into this accident to cure her.” He lowers his voice, and his eyebrows scrunch together. “I can’t afford to lose you, too,” he whispers. I feel another lump  forming in my throat. “You won’t be able to handle it--I know you.” 

“I don’t care! Conner, it can heal Mom!” A tear leaks out of my eye. “Please. Let me tell him.”

“No, Leah. You’ll go crazy. You won’t be able to handle it. Don’t tell him. I can’t lose you.” His eyes gloss over, and I know exactly what he’s thinking about. 

A stretcher. Sirens whir, and people rush the stretcher to the back of an ambulance. 

Conner clears his throat, turning away. “This is my decision, as the head of the family.” I peer into his eyes--looking for the softness when they’re the color of tropical waters. But no. Right now, they resemble the icy coolness of the Arctic Ocean. 

“Conner, you’re fifteen. You’re too young to be the head of the house. Please, just let me do this.”

 Conner takes my hand. “Leah, no. Plus, you’re only twelve. Just trust me on this--”

“NO!” I scream. I pull my hand away--maybe more aggressively than I should have. “Mom’s lying there in a coma, about to die any second--and we’ll be orphans, you idiot!--and you’re stopping me from doing the only thing that will help her! Are you stupid?”

I see my brother’s face go through a mix of emotions, his face turning a shade of eggplant, then beetroot red--all while tears stream down his face. “Fine! Do whatever you want! But just know that I won’t be there to help when you break down from the guilt of telling them about it!” He stomps into another room, without a glance back at me. 

My stomach drops a thousand miles. But it’s too late to turn back now. I feel hands grasping my wrist, pulling me into an empty room. A glass of water is placed on the table in front of me. 

The doctor sits across the table. “Please, sit.” He gestures towards the chair. His oily smile makes me want to vomit. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

I think. Back to that moment, back to when it all happened. The moment I’ve tried so hard to forget about, so hard to make it disappear--but I urge it back to the surface of my memory. 

The phone rings. And then it doesn’t. Everything goes quiet, and then I hear a shriek--my father’s scream, maybe? 

“No!” Another blood-curdling howl tears through the house. I hear sniffling, muffled crying, then silence. Then waves of sobs hit my ears. “Leah, Conner, we’re leaving. Get out of the house!”

“But Dad,” Conner argues as he and I show up in our pajamas. “We’re sleeping!” His wide eyes still have sleep in them, but with one look at our dad, my brother goes still. I glance in his direction. The look on his face makes my stomach drops under the house. My father’s devastated face demands attention, his wild eyes ready to conquer anything in his way. He shoves us in the car. 

I gasp, my dad’s face scarring my memory. Be strong, Leah.

 I look at the face in front of me, my mind taking the object and adorning it with glassy hazel eyes and messy blond hair. I shake my head, slowly at first, then faster. “No,” I choke out. 

“Leah,” a syrupy voice says. “There’s water in that glass. Drink it. It’ll be fine.” 

Blue, red, and white lights surround us from every angle on the road. Smoking bits of leather pepper the ground. I see a body on a stretcher, being rushed inside an ambulance. 

“Mom?” I ask. Conner grabs my arm as I step forward. Daddy is nowhere to be seen. I keep walking anyway. “Mommy? Mom, wake up!” Fear pulses through my body. I start crying, tears wetting my clothes. “Conner, what happened to her? Why isn’t she waking up?” I look at the body, panic terrorizing my brain. “MOM!” I yell. “Connor, wake her up!”

I glance back at my brother, and his expression shows pure dread. Confusion overtakes my terror. “Connor,” my ten-year-old self murmurs, my voice almost being drowned out by the constant sirens coming from all around us. “Is--is--is Mommy… dead?” 

I immediately regret asking. I don’t want to know. I follow every inch of his nod. I stare at every inch of his pained face--a face that looks like he’s choking. Without my knowing it, I start to shake my head. “No,” I whisper. “No. NO. NO!” I feel a headache coming on, but I don’t care. “NO! Mommy can’t be dead!” A fresh wave of tears emerges from my eyes. 

Connor squeezes my hand, his sobs matching mine. “Yes, she is, Leah.” Beads of water stream down his red face. “Mom is dead.” 

My throat constricts. My head feels faint. Everything goes dizzy. Sounds echo around me--the sirens, hurried voices of the doctors, Dad’s roars of anguish. Connor’s voice, telling me Mom is dead. “Please, no.” I whisper. But I can’t handle it anymore. 

A voice pulls me out of my mental trauma--a voice so out of place against the somberness clouding the empty highway. His sickly sweet personality is audible from the way he says my name. 

I rocket up out of my chair. It falls behind me as I see shards of broken glass on the floor. My breathing is labored, my brow wet with sweat. I force words out of my mouth. 

“We don’t know where our father is. He’s an alcoholic. He--he--disappeared when I was ten, right after Mom got into the crash. My brother was twelve. We’re living with our grandmother now.”

Silence settles over the room. “She got into a crash?” The doctor asks.  

My breath catches. Did I just say that? I shake my head. “I--I can’t tell you.” Not after my new revelation. I won’t utter a word to him. 

“It’s the only way to cure her. Tell us, Leah. She’s been in a coma for two years.” 

“No. No, no, no.” I run, banging open the glass doors. I hear something crack, but I don’t care. “Connor!” I scream. 

Everything makes sense now. That oily smile, the familiar face. The way he says my name--Leah--with that sickly sweet voice. I shudder. Why didn’t I see that earlier? 

“Leah,” The voice surrounds me from all sides. “Leah!” The sugary voice makes me want to retch. 

“Be quiet!” I want to scream. “Stop!” But the words glue themselves to my tongue. I turn around to block the noise, but I see the source of the sound standing right in front of me. A smile greets me, and it looks so out of place against everyone’s melancholy moods.

“Connor!” I cry. “Connor!” He emerges from a room, his eyes puffy and face tomato red.

“Leah,” he whispers. I think he tries to be angry at me, but it doesn’t work. I don’t care either way. He rushes towards me, and I collapse in his arms. “Leah.”

“You knew, didn’t you?” I murmur, tears welling up in my eyes. “The doctor was involved.”

Connor sniffles. “Yes,” he says into my hair. “I knew.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper. “Why did you hide it from me?” A tear traces down my cheek. 

“You’re too innocent. You wouldn’t be able to handle that infor--”

“Leah!” I turn around to make out the face of the doctor. His face is unreadable. 

“Don’t you dare say a word,” I warn, my veins burning with a newfound anger. “We know the truth.” 

He pales, and I can almost see a shiver run up his spine. “You can’t possibly… No… I’m sorry,” he stutters. “I didn’t mean to--”

“SHUT UP!” Conner screams. I jump in shock and look at my brother. “We know you meant every, single, wretched moment of that accident--if it can even be called an accident.” He quakes. His handsome features are etched with anger and disgust. 

“If you’re actually sorry,” I snap, my voice dangerously low, “then bring us into the room.” I feel a headache in the back of my head, but I shove it into the corners of my mind. 

“I can’t,” he mumbles. “I’m really sor --”

“Bring us into the room--or else,” I warn. 

“I can’t,” the doctor whispers. “She’s dead.”

The world slows to a stop. Rushed voices of other doctors become distant. I hear a ringing in my ears, getting louder, louder, louder. I can barely hear my own heart thumping. I can barely hear my shallow breath, taking in air faster than ever. The only thing I hear is two words, repeating over and over and over again, dominating the ringing: she’s dead.

She’s dead.

She’s dead.

She’s dead. 

And then Connor breaks my trance. 

“BRING US INTO THE ROOM!” he roars. I blink, tears on the brink of overflowing out of their home. 

“Yes,” the doctor whispers, his gaze lowering. His pale face shows that he’s badly shaken, and he looks even smaller than before. “Of course.”

We follow him through a maze of hallways, looking intently at every room number imprinted on the wall--but none of whatever happened in the last hour digests in my mind. Except one thing. 

She’s dead.

She’s dead. 

It repeats in my mind like a mantra, and I want it to stop so bad. A small part of me tries to convince my brain that my mother is alive, but panic drowns that out. Panic and the voice, telling me that my mother is dead, mixed with something I can’t place a finger on. Rage? Hysteria? Both?

Connor still shakes in anger, and I place my hand on his arm, trying to soothe him as well as myself--but with little success. He does shake less vehemently, but his face still remains red. My brother has a mask of fury on his face, but under that, I can detect pain churning throughout his body. I take a deep breath.

At last we reach the room. The doctor takes us in without a word, and my breath catches.

In the small room, I see a bed surrounded by instruments of all sizes. A frail body lies on the bed, and wires and tubes connect the instruments to the person. 

Connor and I rush to the bed, knocking medical tools out of the way. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the doctor wince, and despite our situation, I smirk. Serves him right. He starts objecting  to our violent actions. 

“Please, don’t--” But he gets cut off by our trampling. I see him quietly exit the room. 

The body on the bed does not resemble my mother in any way. The beautiful copper her hair used to be is replaced by gray--almost silver--streaks. What I remember of her carnation pink cheeks are now pale, and her eyes--a stunning ice blue--are dull, lifeless, hazy. 

Hope drains out of me, leaving a shell of a body. I try and swallow but I can’t. I feel like burnt toast--spiritless and crumbling, coating my throat in scorched crumbs, wanting to strangle me. I feel a pit in my stomach, as if it escaped to a place where nobody could dream of such pain.

Mom is dead. I can tell it for a fact now that I’ve seen her with my own eyes. I’ve never seen anybody else so pale, so inert. Tears spring to my eyes immediately.

Someone screams--a blood-curdling howl that seems endless, pulling me into an oblivion where my unconsciousness rules. I want it to stop. But it doesn’t. It’s coming from me. I force my mouth to close, but it doesn’t. The screech goes on and on and on as my conscious fades, taking me into its foreign world. Stop. I heave myself out of the strange darkness, panting and gulping in air. I grasp my brother's arm in a death grip, wanting so bad for all of this to be a dream. Tears flow freely, soaking my shirt and dripping onto Connor. I whisper something, but… but I don’t know what it is. I can’t hear my voice. My body trembles, and I take a deep breath to try and prevent the new surge of tears I feel coming on--but with no luck. My knees buckle out from under me, my world spinning in circles. I feel my consciousness being drawn under again, and I try to stop it. But something holds me back. 

Take me. 

My clear will hits me with surprise. 

Take me.

Take me to your oblivion, where I don’t need to worry. 

Take me to your dark world, where everything’s alright. 

Take me to your place of exotic calmness, where Mom can always be alive. 

Take me down under. 

I can barely feel anything. I can barely see anything. Uncontrollable sobs shake my shoulders as I drop my head on the edge of the bed, but they just feel like echoes of something I would have done. “Mom!” I hear someone wailing. “Please, wake up!” 

I can’t breathe. 

The oblivion drags me to its inevitable darkness. 

I can’t breathe. 

And then I hear my name. 

Calling me. Over and over, until I want to escape this oblivion and run to the voice. It soothes me in a weird sort of way. 

And then something stops me. 

Stay down here. 

No. 

Stay down here, where you don’t need to worry.

Stay down here, where everything’s alright. 

Stay down here, where your mother can be alive. 

No. No, no, no. 

I hear my name again. Raising me out of my comfort area. It gets louder and louder each inch I rise, until I can make out Connor’s sobs again. 

I peel open my eyes, everything blurry for a moment.  “Connor?” I ask. He’s shaking my arm with his eyes closed--but beads of water still snake down his cheeks. “Conner.” 

“Leah,” he murmurs. “Leah, we-we should probably g-go, now th-that we know Mom is…” He speaks between whimpers, his voice trailing off in the end. 

No. I don’t want to go. Strangely, I’m not crying. My mind travels past all of the fun times I’ve had with my mother, visualizing one specific vivid image. 

Her electric blue eyes twinkle in the fading sunlight, her rosy lips curving upward to form a smile. The sun sets on the water behind her and rays of light move around her until it looks like a glow is shining off of my mother. Her wavy, cranberry-red hair blows in the slight breeze, and palm trees dance behind her. She wears simple clothes--a tan t-shirt and white shorts. 

And that is the only picture I have in my mind--a picture of my mother, 3 years ago. A picture of my mother, on our last family vacation when we went to Hawaii. A picture of my mother, before we all got dragged into this mess because of a stupid doctor who wanted revenge on my mother for some stupid thing she probably didn’t even do. 

A tear drops under my eye. I feel it trace its way down my face and off my chin. I don’t know where it travels to next, so I steel myself to hear my decision said aloud.

“Connor,” I sigh. “We can go now.” I expect him to relent as I turn away, but he stays deathly still, even when I wrap my hand around his arm. 

“Leah,” he whispers, his hand trembling as he stretches it out. What’s he doing? Then I know. He’s pointing. But at what?

I follow his gaze to the figure on the bed. A single tear sits on the arm of my mother, and I see something that makes my breath snag in my throat. 

My mother’s eyelashes flutter open, and to my shock, she lets out a small breath of air. With that, my mom whispers a single word: “Leah?”