16
In the days after the accident, Ava was only ever sleeping or waking or falling asleep. She grew accustomed to the patterns of the hospital. Resident physicians alternated night shifts, the lights dimmed at 10 p.m., a janitor slogged a heavy mop past her bed twice a day, and her doctor pushed through the curtain occasionally to bark questions at the nurses on call.
The nurse looking after her was Teddy; Ava learned his name as he leaned over her bed, the letters written in black marker on the breast pocket of his scrubs. He was the only one to really look at Ava. The rest of the team moved around her as if she were a mute bug. Teddy would translate what the doctor said into plain, digestible fragments. Ava had found some version of peace that allowed her to lay still with her breathin
