“I put it here just after the accident,” he says. “For luck or maybe just so that there would be something pretty in here for you . . . in case . . .”
He looks down at his feet, blushing. “I sound like Carson, right? Trying to bring you luck with something as silly as a prism.”
A tear trickles down my cheek involuntarily, and Nick quickly walks toward me to wipe it away, reminding me of the tear I brushed from Thatcher’s face just before . . .
I shake my head to clear it. Why am I crying about a world I made up? I wonder, chastising myself for thinking of Thatcher. Nick is real, and he’s in front of me. Thatcher doesn’t exist. He can’t. It isn’t possible.
“I don’t mean to upset you, Cal,” says Nick. “Maybe I should just go.”
I muster a smile, and he squeezes my hand before he leaves. This touch, it’s real. It doesn’t make my body fill with energy, it doesn’t light me up inside . . . but it’s concrete, uncomplicated, solid.
I will myself to feel good about this, about being here, being with Nick. My brain must be completely muddled for me to be mourning a world that I made up in my head instead of celebrating waking up from a coma and getting a second chance at my life with the people I love so much. Mama would have taken this chance . . . I know it.
“I’ll let Carson come in,” says Nick. “I can almost hear her scratching at the door.”
He leans over to give me another quick kiss on the cheek.
“I’m so sorry, Callie,” he says, his face serious. Then he turns and walks out.
In a burst of energy, Carson pushes open the hospital curtains. She’s careful with me, but she still manages to give me a huge hug—it’s the kind I missed so much while I was in the Prism. I blink to erase my confusion, so I can stay in this moment—this real moment—with Carson, instead of going into my coma dreams again. She lays herself across my lap and stares at me with wide, excited eyes.
“Callie, you won’t believe what you’ve missed!” she sings. “Did you know you woke up just in time for junior year? School is about to start! Way to sleep through the entire summer!”
I stifle a laugh—it hurts when it starts to bubble up, but I am glad to want to laugh again, to be alive again. The fog around my brain is lifting a little because of clear-eyed Carson, who never changes for anyone or any situation. I think of how I imagined her when I was hallucinating (yes, that’s what it was, a hallucination . . . )—keeping hope alive that she could bring me back from the dead.
She starts going over tons of gossip that she knows I’d never have cared about, and still don’t, but it’s fun to hear her talk. Dad and Nick were so careful with me, so gentle. It’s nice to have Carson treating me normally.
As I listen to her energetic chatter, my nagging worries start to fall away. There are no poltergeists, there is no Prism, no body possession or group of Guides. I wonder why Ella Hartley entered my subconscious with such a presence, and I make a mental note to visit her grave when I get out of the hospital.
But why is there a sting of doubt underneath my thoughts? I stare at the prism that Nick brought, zoning out a little while Carson talks. Prove it to me, Thatcher, I think. Prove that it was real, if it was.
“I guess being in a coma made you appreciate life and all that,” Carson is saying when I tune back in, not so much asking me as hypothesizing out loud. “By the way, I’m never letting you take a risk with yourself again! You’re too valuable as a best friend. I mean, you should have seen me without you. I was lost! Shuffling around the house, whining to Georgia, baking like there was no tomorrow. I must have gained three pounds!”
I widen my eyes in mock shock.
“Well, you know that’s a lot on me!” she says. “I’m short! Oh, but Callie, what was it like being in a coma? I mean, do you remember what you dreamed about or—maybe it isn’t dreaming, maybe it’s more like a trance state?”
She pauses and leans in, whispering now. “Or maybe your spirit actually leaves your body?”
I stare at her, willing her to mention something I remember—the séance, the night in the car with the radio. Maybe Thatcher can make her say it out loud.
But she stops talking and looks up into the air like she’s thinking hard about something. And I suddenly realize that I am so, so sleepy.
“Cars,” I say.
Her eyes brim with tears. “Callie! You said something!”
Oh, yeah, I did.
My voice is unsteady, weak, but functioning. I guess I have a few weeks’ worth of sleep caught in my throat.
“What is it?” she asks. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Tired . . . ,” I start.
“Oh, my manners!” she says. “Of course you’re tired, and I’m just prattling on about myself. I’m sorry, Cal, forgive me!”
She squeezes me once again around the waist and turns for the hallway.
“I’ll be back every day,” she says, blowing me a kiss.
Then she runs out the door, and I hear her flag down a nurse.
“She’s talking!” Carson yells.
When my best friend leaves, I stare at the prism and watch it dangle in the window, catching the sunlight and sprinkling bright colors onto the tan linoleum floor. I must have known it was here subconsciously, somehow—the Prism. I created a whole world in my head, with ghosts and haunting and Guides and poltergeists. How very detailed it was! I hear myself sigh out loud as I try to accept the fact that it wasn’t real.
What is real is that I have another shot at living my life. And I remember the regret I felt, while I was in the coma, at not having appreciated each day and the people who loved me. I make a silent vow to do that—to hold on to the little moments, the ones that I used to consider boring or trite or just plain unimportant. I don’t need any more thrill seeking to make me feel alive. I just have to remember how I felt when I was . . . almost dead.
The hospital physical therapist comes in to see me a few times. While she helps me regain strength in my arms and legs—which are wobbly and thin from lack of use—she asks me simple questions. About my name, my address, what year it is, who’s president. I pass that part with flying colors, and I wonder if she’s ever going to delve deeper, ask me what I experienced when I was in the coma. But she doesn’t. I guess the hospital is concerned with my life, not my death.
I started to ask my dad about the subconscious, and he gave me a long explanation about how synapses in the brain fire when someone is in a coma, how they can create sights, sounds, other worlds that seem incredibly real.
Then he warned me not to talk about much, even if it’s just made up, because there are reporters who have been sniffing around, people who want to ask me all kinds of questions about my “near-death experience.”
So I shut up.
“Oatmeal mush again?” I say to Patricia, the nurse who comes every morning to prop me up on pillows and check my vitals. “Can I get an extra cookie at least?”
I smile big, because I ask this every day, and every day she gives in. She feels bad for me, I think. Visiting hours are just a small fraction of the afternoon, and the TV only has a few channels.
She pats my arm as she undoes the Velcro cuff and smiles at me. “You’ll be out of here soon enough, and then you can eat anything you like,” she says.
“Really?” I ask.
“Tomorrow,” says Patricia, her eyes shining. “We just got a release date for you, and your dad’s taking you home in the morning.”
My grin is huge as I lie back on my pillows. For eight days now, I’ve been put through a battery of tests by the doctors and fed lots of Jell-O and soft foods. The nurses agreed to take out my IV once I showed them how much I could eat. Oh, man, did I miss food! Even this hospital stuff is a taste sensation in my mouth.