Like Never Before

The following morning, at about eight, the dose of morphine which was being administered to Ella, was lowered to a level that allowed her to function more properly. The pain was still numbed, her body felt as if it were floating through space, but she was no longer unaware of her surroundings or of the condition that her body was in. Ella now knew that she was in a hospital, that she had undergone surgery and that her right arm would never be the same.

The discovery had occurred accidently since Ella was fast asleep when the morphine was administered and she slept for about forty minutes after it was in her bloodstream, but when she woke, she woke with a start, her eyes snapping open and her heart racing since a nightmare had plagued her sleep.

It was at that moment that she tried to raise her right hand to wipe away the sweat. That was a horrible idea. A searing pain shot through her arm, causing her to fall onto the bed and begin swearing at the top of her lungs. She gritted her teeth, hoping that the action would force the pain away, but it didn’t.

It didn’t leave until her brother, whom had been napping beside her bed, woke and ran to find the nurse that had replaced Beverly for the early morning shift. The nurse rushed to Ella’s bedside and proceeded to try to reason with the wailing youth. The nurse wasn’t supposed to administer any more morphine unless it was absolutely necessary and given the circumstances, she felt that if Ella rested and didn’t try to move her arm again, she wouldn’t need another dose.

“Gabriella it’s alright, just take in a deep breathe and calm –” the nurse named Caroline spoke.

“How the fuck can I calm down when my arms not fucking working?” spat Ella, her vision blurred by the pain induced tears. “Why can’t I feel my arm? What’s wrong with it?” Ella growled in frustration. “What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Caroline reassured. “You’ve already made it through surgery and now, all you have to do is recover. So please, calm down, this isn’t healthy for you.”

“What do I have to recover from? Did I lose my arm?” Ella shut her eyes. “I can’t remember if I did or not. I . . . I know I was awake earlier, but I can’t remember what I said or did.” She was frustrated by her inability to remember. “All I remember is the gunshots. There were a lot of them, thought my arm was going to fall off.” Her eyes went wide as a thought struck her. “Did they take my arm? Please don’t tell me that they amputated, I’ll go crazy if I don’t have an arm anymore . . . I won’t be able to live!”

Leo knelt down beside her, he took her hand in hers, holding it gently. “They didn’t amputate.”

“Then why can’t I use it?” her voice was more subdued, sounding like it would on a regular day.

“Because the bullets caused a lot of damage,” Leo explained softly. “A few just went through your skin along here,” he pointed to his own arm to demonstrate where the bullets had struck her. “There was one on your clavicle, two on your humerus, those broke the bone. It’ll get better though, doctor said it would. The last one struck a nerve.”

“A nerve.” She repeated to herself. “What does that mean?”

“It means that your radial nerve sustained some damage.”

“But what does that mean?” Ella repeated, clearly unsatisfied by his response.

“The doctors don’t know exactly what it means. They have an idea as to what might happen but no definite responses.”

“And what are the ideas?”

“Ella, maybe we should talk about this later.” Leo didn’t want to upset her. “You need to rest up.”

“Fuck rest.” Ella snapped. “I want to know what’s happening to me.”

“Leo,” Caroline spoke from her place beside Ella’s bed. “Do you want me to explain things to her?”

“No, thank you, I’ll do it but could you please give us a minute?” Leo asked politely.

“Yes, of course. I’ll be right outside if you need me.” Caroline exited, leaving the siblings completely alone.

Leo drew a nearby chair closer and sat upon it. “The doctors think that your arm might shake, they don’t know to what extent, but they think there’s a good chance that you’ll experience that.” he took in a breath before continuing. “They also said that –”

“There’s more?” Ella was trying to come to terms with the fact that her arm might shake for the rest of her life and hearing her brother say that there was more, enraged her.

“They said that your fingers, that the speed with which you move them could be slowed down significantly.” Leo braced himself, his sister was going to be pissed because to her, slow fingers meant shitty guitar playing and that was if she could still play after everything.

“I'm gonna fucking kill him!” cried Ella. “I'm gonna kill him, bring him back to life and kill him again for all this shit he’s putting me through! That son of a bitch, if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t be in here. I’d have a normal arm and I’d . . . oh. Fuck! I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna make him pay.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What happened to wanting peace?” Leo was genuinely frightened by her reaction.

“It’s easy to want peace when you’re hopped up on morphine and are seeing fucking rainbows everywhere, but when you wake up and see that you have a fucked up arm that’s never gonna be what it once was, you rethink things.” Ella gritted her teeth, fighting back the urge to sob. “This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I broke up with him because I didn’t want this to happen. And just when I thought I was leaving that danger, it happened. It fucking happened and now I'm scared and it’s his fault!”

“Ella . . .”

“But not his fault, not completely, because its as much mine as it is his. Oh god.” The tears streamed freely down the sides of her face. “I should’ve listened to you when you said he was trouble. I should’ve never gone out with him but I was so fucking stubborn. I was so stupid.”

“Shh Ella, don’t cry.”

She let go of his hand and turned her attention to the ceiling. “I fucked up my own life.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” A sad smile graced her face. “If I’d just listened, I would’ve avoided everything I went through with him. I went through so much because I refused to give him up and it wasn’t even worth it. I’d give anything to go back to the day I met him just so I could go home with you instead of staying on that fucking beach.”

“But if it hadn’t been for everything you went through, you wouldn’t be who you are or at Berkeley.” Leo thought that would be enough to console her. It wasn’t.

“I DON’T LIKE WHO I AM!” Ella roared wildly. “I don’t look who I am,” she repeated in a softer voice. “The lifestyle changed me and whenever I tried to make things better for myself; I’d just fuck up even more . . .”

“What are you talking about?”

Ella voided his gaze, still staring at the ceiling. “I was arrested awhile ago, well, not really arrested, more like detained for public intoxication. It was stupid of me to drink so much and then I ran out of the apartment . . . woke up in a jail cell. Can you believe that? I never thought that’d happen to me but it did and I was just trying to drown out how angry I was at James for getting a gun.”

“He’s got a gun?” Leo was so focused on the fact that James had a gun that his mind didn’t register that his sister had been detained.

“Got it awhile back,” she replied. “I found it the morning I headed out to Berkeley. He said he needed it for protection. I told him not to have it, but he did and well, I guess that’s why they wanted him dead. If someone hated me and had a gun, I’d be worried.”

“Who wanted him dead?” Leo touched her hand. “Gabriella. Who wants James dead?”

Her head slowly turned in his direction. “Rival dealers.” She told him.

“The fucker was dealing?” he stood from his place beside her, placing both hands over his eyes. “Oh. That makes sense now. He got beaten up by rival dealers, didn’t he?”

Ella nodded.

“That fucker was good at being unseen.” Leo muttered. “I never heard anything on the street about him dealing.”

“Of course you wouldn’t have. James knows how to keep things a secret. I didn’t find out for a long time, a real long time.”

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“Since junior year,” she braced herself for what would ensue.

“How . . . what . . . why?” he finally screamed. “Why’d you stay with him if you knew what was going on?” he couldn’t fathom why she would willingly stay at a drug dealers side. “Don’t you remember what happened to Tio Pedro? Don’t you remember what you went through?”

“Of course I remember!” Ella snapped. “Tio Pedro was my best friend. I remember what happened to him. I’ll always remember what happened to him!”

“Then why’d you stay with James?”

“Because I didn’t want him to die like our Tio,” her voice, as well as her expression, softened. “I felt I could save him from that. That I could make James a better person, but I couldn’t, I can’t. God knows I tried to save him, but that’s the future he chose for himself and as fucked as this sounds, he’s the one that should’ve been shot. He’s the one that should be in this bed, not me.”

He remained silent.

“What an awful thing to think,” Ella muttered quietly. “I feel like I should regret saying that, but I don’t. I'm in his bed. My loved ones are suffering what his should suffer. This was his fate. Not mine.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I never wanted this. I-I broke up with him because I wanted a better future, but just as I was getting out, this happened and . . . now, I'm always going to have those marks on my body, they’re going to be disgusting, I know they are, and whenever I see them I'm going to want to cry because they’ll remind me of how weak and stupid I was to –”

“They’ll remind you of how strong you were.” Leo cut her off, giving her hand a tight squeeze as he spoke. “They’ll remind you that you fought to keep living and you won. So don’t act like they’re going to be a sign of weakness, they’ll be a sign of strength.”

“But they’ll still be hideous,” she argued childishly. “And even when I'm old, I’ll still have marks left by him. He’ll still have a place on my body.” She released his hand and grasped the plain cotton sheet on which she rested on. “He’ll always be on me; always.” A mangled sob abandoned her lips. “I just want to forget him. To move on with my life and act like these last few years were just some nightmare that I woke up from, but there’s no doing that.” she shut her eyes tightly. “Our lives will always bare the mark of the other.”

“That happens,” he slumped against the chair. “She changed everything for me,” he didn’t need to say who she was, Ella need he was referring to his former girlfriend, Valery, the one that had cheated on him with James. “Thought I’d get married young, like dad did, and have a family, but that plan vanished the moment I saw her fucking James. I don’t trust women anymore. I know it’s not their fault for her doing me wrong, but I can’t give anyone my heart,” he clenched his jaw, trying to keep the tears at bay. This was the first time he ever spoke about what had happened to anyone. “One day I will though, when a woman’s worth it. And you, one day you’ll be able to cast the marks aside, so you can get back to living, just don’t hold the anger in, I’ve kept it inside all these years. I thought it was how things were supposed to be, it’s not. Hate weighs the soul down. It makes you bring others down . . . I brought you down.”

“You didn’t bring me down.”

“I did.” he stared at her, eyes brimming with tears that refused to be shed. “If I hadn’t been such a dick about your being with him, things would’ve been different. He wouldn’t have been as mysterious to you, as forbidden. And you would’ve gotten bored. But that didn’t happen. I was so determined to keep him from being with you, that I pushed you into his hands, because lets face it, you’re as stubborn as me and if someone told me not to be with someone, I’d do out of spite. Just like you. Cuz I'm sure there were times when you were with him just to spite us.”

“There were.” Ella admitted. “But this isn’t your fault. It’s mine. It’s his. Not yours. And speaking of him, go get him. I, uh, want to talk.”

“Ella . . .”

“I have to talk to him.” she reached out for his hand. “My being here has everything to do with him, so go get him, because I want to know who did this to me and I have some other questions that need answering, as well a cursing to deliver.”

He shuffled nervously in his seat. “James isn’t here.”

“Excuse me?” Ella thought she’d heard wrong.

James had to be there.

“He’s not here.” Leo repeated.

There was no excuse for James not being there, at least not in her eyes. The fact that she’d refused his proposal shouldn’t have mattered. He should’ve followed the ambulance and waited in the emergency room lobby. That’s what she would’ve done had the tables been turned. She would’ve stayed there until someone let her talk to him, but apparently James didn’t give enough of a fuck to check up on her. Even if he was the reason she was in that hospital.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she attempted to sit up, but the pain that shot through her injured arm, knocked her back onto the bed. “That worthless ingrate is gonna get his ass beat when I get the fuck out of this hospital! By the time I'm done with him, he’s gonna be wishing that those fuckers had killed him!”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“And why the fuck not?” she hissed. “I'm in here because of HIM! And he didn’t even bother coming here to check on me. That’s not right! I get that we broke up, but he should be sitting in the lobby with everyone else, waiting his turn to come talk! I honestly thought he was going to be here,” her voice grew softer. “He owed me that much.”

She didn’t want to cry over him. Enough tears had been shed on his account, but she couldn’t help it. She was devastated by the fact that he wasn’t outside, waiting to talk to her, to apologize for the shooting, but he apparently didn’t care enough to do that for her. He was lacking in basic human decency and she would remember that everyday, she was determined to remember his absence and he would suffer just as she was suffering, if not worse.

“It’s like a garden in here.” Leo commented after a long period of silence.

Ella hadn’t noticed the flowers that decorated her room or their relaxing scent. She had been to busy freaking out and throwing a fit to notice, but now that said flowers had been mentioned, she couldn’t help but marvel at the floral arrangements that decorated her room. The flowers were beautiful, colorful and vibrant, their scent otherworldly. It was a garden, a garden where she would lose herself in.