Even If Saving You Sends Me to Heaven

It seemed like it took hours for the doctors to finally get to Zane. I watched him the whole time and tried to stay calm. His hands were shaking despite his efforts to stop them, and he felt like his head was on fire.

When a nice-looking woman called him to a separate room and started t ask questions, I was faced with a dilemma. Should I tell him the answers so that they could contact his uncle, or would that interfere with their examination?

Zane answered the first question right. At least he knew his name was Zane Weber. The second question was harder.

“Where do you live?” the woman asked him.

He glanced at me, hoping for an answer. “Tell her what I tell you to say every time, and stop looking at me,” I told him critically. “Tell her you don’t know.”

“I don’t know,” he repeated obediently.

The nurse looked confused. “How did you get here?”

“You drove and followed the signs,” I said. Zane echoed me.

“Zane, do you know what day it is?” the nurse asked.

“No,” he admitted timidly.

She pursed her lips before continuing, “I see that you’re shaking. Are you cold?”

“No. I – I can’t stop it.”

“Is anything else wrong?” she prodded.

Zane nodded. “My head hurts, and I keep forgetting things.”

Frowning, the nurse wrote on her clipboard. I peeked over he shoulder and read, memory loss, tremors, and a headache. “Don’t you worry, Zane, we’ll get this figured out,” she assured him. “I’m going to go talk to someone who will come in and do a few tests on you, okay?”

Zane nodded dimly before she left the room.

I collapsed into a chair next to the bed he was sitting on and rubbed my temples with my palms.

“Are you okay?” Zane asked me quietly.

I laughed a little too crazily. “You’re asking me if I’m okay?” I sighed. “I’m only as okay as you are.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, distracted for a second from his fear and pain.

“I can feel all the pain you do, and protecting you is my job,” I said. “But I can’t protect you from this.”

The doctor walked in before Zane could reply. “I’m Doctor Stanley,” he told Zane politely. “I’m just going to run some tests to make sure your brain is working properly.”

“Okay,” Zane said.

“Just… do what he says, and they’ll figure out what’s wrong with you,” I assured Zane, hoping I was right.

“This will be really simple,” Dr. Stanley informed him. “Just relax. First, repeat this sentence. ‘I live in a grey house next to the farm.’”

Zane copied him perfectly.

Dr. Stanley placed three pieces of paper in front of Zane and said, “Very good. Now, on that first sheet, answer the twenty simple math problems. Then I want you to copy the drawing you see on the second sheet onto the third blank sheet.”

“I have to do a math test?” Zane grumbled skeptically.

The doctor laughed at his reaction. “It’s called a neurological exam, but, yes, some math is included,” he explained with an amused expression.

I waited impatiently as Dr. Stanley gave his exam. He tested Zane’s vision, reflexes, and sense of touch. He even made Zane walk around the room. At last, he was finished.

“Thank you, Zane,” the doctor said. “A nurse will be back to tell you what’s up, and meanwhile we’ll try to get a hold of whoever’s in charge of you.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled. He liked Dr. Stanley more than the nurse.

When the doctor was gone, Zane looked at me. He didn’t speak, but I knew what he was thinking. Even though there was something wrong with his brain, he understood that there was something wrong with his brain. He wondered what it was and how it had happened.

“You didn’t hit your head,” I told him, startling him by knowing his thoughts. “It’s something else.”

I listened to him worry silently, and I was glad he couldn’t hear me worrying.

At some point in time, Zane’s phone rang. “It says Mara,” he declared, looking downcast. “I feel like I should know who that is. Is she my friend?”

I knew Mara must’ve been wondering why Zane hadn’t picked her up when I looked at the clock. “Just let it ring,” I said, ignoring his last question. He obeyed me, but he still wanted to know who Mara was. The new silence was even more uncomfortable.

The original nurse returned with no useful information. “We’re going to give you and MRI so that we can see exactly what’s going on in your brain,” she explained. “We’re also trying to contact your family. You may have to spend the night here.”

Zane nodded bravely and followed the nurse when she told him to, but he was meekly wondering if an MRI would hurt. “It’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I promise I won’t leave.”

The nurse made him put on a hospital gown before she took him to another room. In that room, she told him to lie on a hard, narrow table that would slide into the loud MRI machine.

“It won’t hurt at all,” she assured him. “If you get claustrophobic, you can talk to me by holding down the button on the table.”

“How long will it take?” he asked nervously.

“About an hour,” she replied, smiling sweetly. The smile didn’t comfort Zane, but he got onto the table anyways. He bit his lip when she slid him into the machine and left.

I could only see his feet, and within minutes he wondered if I was still with him, or if I’d left with the nurse.

“I’m still here,” I whispered, wrapping my fingers around his ankle.

He relaxed at my touch. He closed his eyes and imagined he was far away, and only I was with him. No nurses or doctors or machines could be near him; only his beautiful, mysterious, comforting guardian angel.

It was my turn to bite my lip. Was this right? I reassured myself by telling myself he only thought that way because he was scared and alone and didn’t have anyone else to trust. Then I realized I wanted him to thing that way because he really wanted it to be that way, and I was uneasy again.

The hour seemed to fly by and end before I was ready for it to be over, and a nurse came to take Zane to a room he would spend the night in.