Love, Cutter

Chapter 5

Chapter 3

“BERTHA SHOULD'VE NAMED you Skittles, you always wearing all them bright colors and eating that candy all day.” Stan joked as he clicked a few more selfies. “You, girl, gonna make me have to start wearin’ my sunshades to work.” Stan smiled wide.

“I’ve told you it’s Twizzlers. I don’t eat Skittles, I eat T-w-i-z-z-l-e-r-s.” Kinley reached up and lowered his arm, “We should’ve named you ‘Conceited’ with all the pictures you take of yourself.”

“Gotta get the angles, girl. You know,” he blew her an exaggerated kiss.

“Or maybe we should’ve named you ‘Boring Stan’ with all that khaki you wear. Maybe I need to come to work wearing rose-colored glasses to stomach this,” Kinley motioned over Stan’s body and laughed.

“RUDE!” Stan squealed playfully.

“Gay Stan and Scrubs, I’d love to see you both in a pair of work glasses, now get back to it.” Bertha added as she passed by the nurse’s station.

“How’s the new one doin’?” Stan leaned over the counter and escalated his voice to follow Ms. Bertha down the hall.

She lifted her hand and waved over her shoulder. “Going to check on him now.”

“I hope he pops awake while she’s in there and scares the crap out of her,” Stan laughed.

“That’s not funny.” Kinley became angry, “You are joking about a man who had so little hope in this world that he decided to kill himself, Stan.”

“Oh lighten up, I’m kidding.”

“Exactly, about a man who tried to end his own life.” Kinley took off down the hall after Ms. Bertha.

***

Carter heard nothing, except the painful throbbing in his head. Maybe he was about to wake up as that nurse said. He hadn’t thought about what he would do once he did.

I won’t screw it up this time.

She got to Carter’s room and rushed inside, “Ms. Bertha, need help?”

“Why you following me in here, Scrubs?” Bertha questioned as she looked up from where she was tucking the fresh blanket under Carter’s leg, “You got work to do. Go on back and do it.”

“I’m actually not on for twenty more minutes,” she hmphed, “but then my work will be in here anyway.”

Bertha walked toward Kinley with determination, “Out. Your puppy-rescuing hormone is seeping out of your ears.” Bertha pointed toward the door.

It would be a waste of your time anyway.

Once they left, and for a long while after, Carter didn’t receive any more visitors, which was perfectly fine with him. The less, the better. He wanted to be left alone.

Only it really did seem like a long time since someone had come in to check on him. Soon, the only noise in the room started to wear him down.

beep. beep. beep. beep.

***

“The scans actually look pretty good. They show brain activity, it is somewhat slow and depressive of what we would ideally want to see, however not far outside of normal ranges for electrical activity,” the doctor continued as Carter helplessly listened, “Your son obviously still has his non-cognitive capacities, which simply means he’s able to breathe on his own, and his organs and circulation continue to function without our intervention.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Susan asked gently.

I am in a coma, Mother, so no, I don’t think it is good news.

“Yes, however, Mr. and Mrs. Stone, he isn’t showing any response to stimuli. Again, he has a fairly large contusion on his brain, so this coupled with the amount of the alcohol accompanied by the bottle of antidepressants he ingested is the cause. As I said before, we were lucky enough to get to him before more of it entered into his bloodstream, still, there was obviously some damage. We simply can’t put a timeline on recovery at this point.”

“But he could wake up? Is that right?” his dad asked.

“Yes, and in similar cases many patients do, but there is no real timeline or, to be honest, guarantees. The brain is basically in a ‘shutting down’ mode. It’s comparable to being on anesthesia.” The doctor explained further.

“You did say that some patients can hear, right?” Norman asked for clarification.

“It’s been known to happen, but… it’s not common. Look,” the doctor seemed a bit frustrated, “you can’t view this from a rare perspective, you both need to be realistic. We cannot tell at this point. Right now, we’ve already set his distal radius fracture and that will take time to heal. We’ll go from here.”

I can hear you though. Really, are you all stupid?

“Thank you, Dr. Leigh.”

Whoosh.

Carter assumed his mother and father had left the room as well, since he heard no other movement for a very long time. He did, however, hear the beeping.

Over and over and over.

***

“The nurses say you are doing well today, Carter,” his father’s voice proudly boomed above him, “I finally put Daniel over the business. It’s the right time now.”

It’s what you’ve always wanted. I’m just a good excuse.

His dad shuffled away from the bed and took a seat on the squeaky vinyl couch. “Your mom went home for a few minutes to rest, but she’ll be back up here in a few hours to see you, and Rodney said he’ll be by later this afternoon. He’s worrying himself sick.”

He should be.

There was a lengthy silence until his dad spoke again, “I’m sorry for not helping you, Son. I promise I’ll help you this time. Come back to us.”

Carter could hear the crack in his father’s voice at the end.

I don’t want to hear this.

“I’m sure you don’t want to hear that, if you can even hear, I felt I had to say it.”

Carter could feel his heart breaking a bit.

I just can’t take the pain anymore. They are better off without me.

“You obviously thought we were better off without you, but you were wrong. We love you. I hope God is giving us all another chance.”

Stop it! Carter wanted to scream. He wished he could plug his ears. Stop talking.

“If you can hear, Carter, know that I love you. Your mother loves you, too. I’m sorry about all of the pressure I put on you. We’ll face it together this time. I promise.”

Carter knew if his dad looked at his face right at this moment he’d see the tears that Carter was sure must be falling down his own cheeks. He also knew his dad wouldn’t notice though, because his dad was sobbing.