Heres the next part of Outdated, just in case.
I recovered my sense of smell first. It was the gasoline.
Despite the many protests he received from my mom, when I was eleven, my dad took me on a road trip to Las Vegas in her ancient Chevy ’69. We had to stop at every station because the gas kept running out; and it was only when we got to Vegas that dad realised we had a leak. He made jokes about how awful her car was, because we couldn’t find anyone who did repairs on, as one described it, “that s***heap on wheels”. In the end, we had to stuff it with his t-shirt for the journey back: and then mom got her company car and we never bothered to fix it. When dad left, I used to wear that t-shirt every night to remind me of him. Gasoline was one of the smells I was most attuned to: because of the memory it didn’t allow me to forget. Because it reminded me of him.
The gas I smelt now wasn’t on my clothing. It was a fainter smell, like the way you can smell gas in a car, when the tank is intact. I could smell other things, too. Peppermint, mostly. That was the strongest smell, mixed in with an odd scent I couldn’t place. It was very... clerical and sterile. I knew it related to a specific place but I couldn’t match the smell with a picture quite yet.
Slowly at first, slurred in my head, I heard things, too: the beep of something mechanical, and the quick, light sound of people moving about. I didn’t recognise any of the patterns of footsteps, though. They were too gentle to belong to my mom. For a moment I thought wildly of Sue.
I started to hear snatches of conversation.
“I think...slowly…”
“Has…..yet? Perhaps…try….”
“Hello?....Hear me?” The last voice was considerably louder than the others, from which I deduced it was closer.
“Hey, I think I got something, there,” there was the beep of a machine, and then from the same voice, “Buddy, can you try that again?”
I felt the whisper of hot breath on my cheek.
“Hey, anyone awake in there? Brooklyn?”
Brooklyn? Nobody called me Brooklyn. That in itself was enough to startle me a little.
“I think she’s coming round now, Buddy - ”
“Its Puck.”
“ – so you can step away from the bed.”
The warmness on my cheek lingered for a moment, and then vanished. Puck? I must be in Texas. I felt material under my fingers, and reflexively crunched it in my hand, before deducing it was a bed sheet. From that, and the gentle beeping noise, I placed the clerical scent I hadn’t recognised earlier, to the image of a hospital. I knew I was in a bed, in a hospital, in Texas. And Puck was here, which probably meant that Sue was here, too. I wasn’t sure if the Jerk would visit me in hospital. And mom- why wasn’t mom here?
Why was I here?
I waited. And then I remembered everything.
Moments later my brain had been empty, and now it was crammed with detail, with emotion and hunger and debt and fear. I couldn’t move for memories of the crash. Of the jump. Of my mom’s parting smile. It was crushing disappointment, immense pressure, as if I was atlas holding the world on my shoulders.
My eyes snapped open.
Around me I could see the blurred shapes of the hospital; as they became clearer, so did my head. The intensity subsided. I was awake.
“Nice of you to join us, miss.” The direction from which the dry voice emanated suggested that the speaker was behind me. I turned to see my doctor, standing with one arm flung over the machine that beeped. It was a medical intern: I could tell by the blue scrubs, and the sarcastic expression he wore under a deflated Edward Cullen hairstyle.
“Wonderful. I get the pre-teen Doc. Just my luck.”
He was decidedly ignorant of my remark, and instead noticed my looking at the equipment he was so casually leaning on.
“It measures brain activity,” he commented curtly, his tone confirming that he had heard my insult. He turned and spoke to someone over my head, “I ran a few routine checks, just in case. She didn’t sustain any serious injuries from what I could see, here, just some minor cuts and bruises; a few burns; possible scarring: nothing life threatening. We still want to check again for any possible brain damage,” he looked pointedly at me when he said that, “And, of course, she splintered a rib but that’s all taped up. She ought to be out of here in a few days.”
I turned my head on the pillow to see who he was speaking to. It was Sue. I had to blink; her face was so shiny I was momentarily blinded. The light bounced off her skin, pulled tightly behind her imposing cheekbones, and her eyes glistened bright green. She turned to me.
“Isn’t that wonderful, Brooklyn? Just a few days and then you’ll be able to come home with us!” Sue positively sparkled at the idea. I mumbled something incoherent. I wasn’t even sure what it was I had been trying to say.
After a while, in which I endured more questioning, and the attempts of a conversation from Sue, she left with the doctor. He followed her like a puppy. I watched them out of the room. The door shut.
I prolonged as long as possible the moment when I would have to look at Puck. I knew his face would be slack with a lazy smirk, his eyebrows dancing smugly into his hairline, and his sloth-like limbs would be thrown over a chair, as if it was merely a pile of clothes there, and not my cousin.
I looked at him, confirming my suspicions. He waited, and the silence was not an awkward one, more so annoying. It was lazy; as if he wanted me to explain something without prompt. I raised my eyebrows in an attempt to persuade him to start the conversation. After a minute of watching his eyebrows disappear further into his head as he tried to bug me more than I was trying to bug him, I grew tired and turned my head into my pillow, longing for a few hours of dreamless sleep.
“Hey! Brooke- Hey, hey Brooklyn! Don’t go to sleep! You just woke up!”
I groaned incoherently to show him I was still awake, and fluttered my hand in an attempt at feebleness.
“You were always a bad actress,”
God, how Puck annoyed me.
“Both you and me know that you’re fine.”
He knew my every move.
“You’ll probably be out of here tomorrow.”
I wished I could stay here forever.
“And then you can come home with us, and we’ll- Brooke? Are you alright?”
“No…” I had sat bolt upright, “What did you say?”
“I said…are you alright?”
“Fucks sake, Puck, tell me what you said.”
“Uh…okay…I said ‘Then you’ll come home with us and we’ll be able to-’ Brooke? What the hell is wrong with you- you’ve got a shattered rib and a they still want to check for any possible brain damage!” he said, in a perfect imitation of the doctor’s voice, putting one hand on my chest to force me back down. I shoved him away.
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