Diversasy

Trapped

Book Two

Chapter One

Keith was trapped in a dark pool of pain alternating between agonizing heat and frigid cold, desperately trying to keep his head up. Each time he rose to the surface, he was carried closer toward a black vortex where everything spiraled down and disappeared. The pain in his body was so intense it would be better to give up and let himself be pulled in. Anything to stop his life-crushing agony.

But there are voices. Somewhere. Voices he knew.

"Stay with us, Keith. Tim's here."

"Robbie too. We're both okay. Don't go away."

"Los tres amigos can't split up now."

Someone touched his hand. And again.

"We can't stay, but we'll be back. You have to be here when we do."

There's nothing here. Leave me alone.

Voices again.

"Hey, Keith. We're back."

"Yeah. They wouldn't let Tim and me in for two days, but we're here now."

"And we're not gonna go away. You stay too."

Someone touched him. He knew them. They cared about him.

"Don't give up on us now. You're almost there."

"We have to stay together. We need you."

Yeah. Okay. Keith searched, gathered all his strength and then wrapped it around himself like a warm, comfortable blanket to keep the pain away. It worked-not well. It was enough though. He could fight. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to win. Inch by inch he crawled against the current further from the black whirlpool of despair. Time passed. How long? Still he fought. And his pain ebbed. Light glowed around him. He could do this. And he kept going.

"They're kicking us out, but we'll come back."

"When we do, you have to be here for us. We need you."

"Yeah. It's los tres amigos. Not los dos amigos."

"Know what we mean?"

He didn't. But it was important. And kept fighting. Taking a deep breath for the first time since… since… He couldn't remember. But it was sometime… when something important happened. When… Can't remember. No matter. The air around him was lighter and warmer. Easier to breathe. Pain was ebbing except for… He wouldn't think about that. He was hungry… thirsty… Push the pain… more, more…

Voices. Again.

"Keith, we're here. Squeeze my hand."

"Yeah. Robbie's grandma says you're gonna make it. Show us she's right."

Someone held his hands. Enough to pull him all the way up.

"Come on. Keith, we're here. You with us?"

"Show us. We're waiting."

And then he was awake. Not alert, but he could move his head. Things seemed miles away, but he could… Opening his eyes, he saw people. People he knew. Friends. Names… But where… mother.

Tim pointed and in a voice that was almost a shout, said, "Robbie! He opened his eyes."

Robbie leaned over the bed and said, "All right! Look at us, Keith. We weren't gonna let you go."

The nurse in the room heard the boys' comments, moved to Keith's bedside and then shooed Tim and Robbie out of the room before they could talk to Keith any more. As they left, she started checking the readouts from the instruments hooked to Keith's body and called the nurses' station.

In the hall, Tim and Robbie stood with Tim's father watching several more nurses and a doctor hustle into Keith's room. Tim said, "Dad! Keith opened his eyes."

Robbie said, "Yeah, and it looked like he knew us. That's good isn't it?

"I'd think so, but I don't know much about medicine. There seems to be a lot going on and there's no way to know if that's good or bad. We'll have to wait."

"More waiting. I'm tired of waiting. I wanna know if he's gonna be all right."

Robbie's grandmother, who was a nurse at the hospital, but worked on another floor, strode out of the elevator, talked briefly to someone at the nurses' station and then went toward Keith's room. As she marched by the boys, her shoes squeaking on the floor, Robbie tried to ask her questions. "Grandma. How is he?" She only glanced at him, shook her head and kept fast walking toward the room. In desperation, Robbie tried to get her attention by switching to Spanish. "Abuela! Por favor, dígame si…"

She waved his questions aside, went into the room and closed the door. Robbie started to follow her in, but Tim's father put his hand on Robbie's shoulder, stopping him. Robbie shook his head and said, "Grandma's never acted like that before. She'd always talk to me. What do you think's going on?"

Tim's father said, "Be patient, son. Whatever it is looks important and we'd better stay out of the way."

In spite of his impatience, a small smile appeared on Robbie's face when Tim's father called him 'son.' He wasn't Robbie's real father, but since he'd spent so much time with Tim and his father since school started he'd begun to feel as if they were father and son.

Tim fired a face-wrinkling scowl at the door and kicked a linen cart that was parked in the hallway in frustration. "I suppose, but I hope it's something good important and not something bad important."

Robbie nodded in unhappy agreement and gave the linen cart a kick of his own. They stood waiting in the hallway for more than half an hour and when nothing more happened, they went to the visitor's lounge closest to Keith's room and sat down. Tim's father held Tim's hand and Robbie took the other as they stared silently at the door to Keith's room.

Finally, Robbie's grandmother came down the hall and they jumped to their feet. Before they could ask a question, she held up a hand and said, "Don't be alarmed. Keith is doing well. The doctors had been keeping him sedated longer than usual. When he opened his eyes as you talked to him, everyone was surprised because no one expected him to wake up this soon. To be sure nothing was wrong, the doctors wanted to check everything to determine if they should put him back under. They decided he was doing so well that it wasn't necessary."

Relieved, Tim said, "So is he awake?"

"Not completely, but he'll slowly become more aware of his surroundings in the next few hours. What's encouraging is every time you two talked to him, he rallied and his condition improved. If you'll wait an hour or so, you can go in and see him for a minute or so. You'll be able to spend more time with him as he gets stronger."

They went to the cafeteria where Tim's father bought Robbie and Tim lunch and a snack for himself. They sat and slowly ate, not talking much. Tim's father looked at his watch and said, "We still have a half-hour. Want to go to the gift shop and look around?"

Tim said, "Okay, but only to kill time and you don't buy me any more girl's clothes."

Laughing, Tim's father said, "Not this time. I won't have to sneak you out of the hospital in disguise so I won't need to."

When Tim was taken by ambulance to the emergency room from school, his clothes were soaked in blood and were thrown away. Tim's father went to the gift shop to buy clothes for him so he could go home. The only things they had in his size were girl's sweatpants and a hoodie. Tim thought they wouldn't have been too bad if they hadn't been pink with a 'Hello Kitty' cartoon character on the front. They did the job, though and with the help of Robbie's grandmother, they managed to sneak him out of the hospital in a wheelchair through a back door, avoiding the news media jammed into the waiting area of the emergency room and around the front entrance.

After a long, impatient half hour in the gift shop, they went back to Keith's room. A nurse met them when they got to the pediatric intensive care floor and told them it would be several more hours before they could see Keith. In a voice verging on desperation, Tim pleaded with his father. "Dad, we have to wait and talk to Keith! Don't make us go home."

"You know I wouldn't do that. You guys would go nuts at home. I saw a Cineplex a few miles away. Let's go see what's playing and maybe there's something you'll like. We can spend a couple of hours there. I'll even buy popcorn and carbonated sugar water for you-as long as they're small."

Reluctantly, Robbie and Tim climbed into his dad's van and he drove them to the theatre. When they looked at the list of movies playing, most of them were 'R' rated and since Tim and Robbie were twelve and thirteen years old, they couldn't see them. After some debate, they decided to watch a 'classic' Disney movie because Robbie hadn't seen it.

After the movie as they walked to the parking lot, Robbie said, "That wasn't half-bad. It would have been better without all the little kids making so much noise. You like it, Tim?"

"Sort of. I saw it when I was one of those little kids and forgot most of it, so it was all right. Let's go see how Keith's doing."

At the hospital, Robbie's grandmother met them in the hall outside Keith's room. "Keith's awake, but he's still not very alert. Talk quietly and slowly. Don't mention anything about what happened at school or about his mother."

Tim's dad asked, "He hasn't been told?"

"No. His doctor and a child psychiatrist thought it would be best to wait a while. They're lining up a counselor and maybe some additional medication if he needs it. When they get everything ready to help him deal with it, they'll tell him."

Robbie and Tim nodded while Robbie said, "We understand. Can we be there when they do? I think we can help."

"I'll ask his doctors. It may be possible because you two seem to have a positive effect on his condition. It wasn't been easy getting permission for you to even come to the intensive care unit so don't count on it. But I'll try and let you know."

She opened the door and we followed her in. standing beside the bed, I took one of Keith's hands and Robbie took the other. After a brief pause, Keith opened his eyes and gave us a smile that only bent up the corners of his mouth a fraction of an inch. Whispering and slurring his words, he said, "Ey, guys. What'r 'oo doin' here?"

"Visiting you, of course. What's it look like? We heard a rumor that you were going to leave us so we decided to keep an eye on you."

"Than's. I knew. Could hear."

Tim said, "Well, you know how noisy we are." Keith smiled again.

Robbie brushed tears away and squeezed Keith's hand. "Now that you've decided to quit laying around and sleeping so much, we'll be back as much as they'll let us. We stick together. Los tres amigos. Right."

Keith's chin tipped up and down a fraction of an inch at a time to agree. "My mother? Here?"

Before they could reply, the nurse in the room abruptly said, "It's time for you boys to leave so Keith can rest. Also, I have to check his IV and his meds right now. You can come back tomorrow. Call the hospital and they'll tell you when." Having changed the subject, she hustled the boys out the door.

In the hall, Tim's father asked, "How'd it go?"

Tim said, "Good and bad. Keith looks like he's really gonna make it, but he asked about his mother. I know they said they were going to tell him the best way they could, but…" Tim shook his head and shrugged.

Robbie said, "That's gonna be bad."

Tim's father touched Tim and Robbie on their shoulders and said, "You're right and it'll hurt Keith, but they have a lot of experience doing that sort of thing and can do it as well as anyone."

"We asked if we could be there, but they didn't give us an answer. I think we could help him."

"I think you could too. I'll find out when they plan to tell him and let them know you could help. Let's go home."

As they rode home, the boys sat silently, watching the city landscape go by. Tim's father made some of their favorite foods for dinner, but they didn't have an appetite and only pushed food around on their plates, too tired and emotionally wrung out to eat. Tim's dad said, "I think you two had better go to bed. Take a warm shower and sleep in tomorrow. I'll make something special for you in the morning."

Tim led Robbie upstairs to his room where he pulled two big bath towels out of a drawer, tossed one to Robbie and they undressed. Padding barefoot to the bathroom, Tim turned on the water, adjusted the temperature and they got in.

Usually when they showered together, it was a long luxurious experience. This time, they soaped each other mechanically and rinsed off. Tim turned off the water and they stepped out to dry each other. Going back to his room, they put their wet towels in the dirty laundry basket and climbed into bed, one boy on each side.

Silently, they rolled into each other's arms, enjoying the pleasure of pressing their warm, damp skins together. Weeks later, when they remembered and talked about this night, neither of them could decide who first started, but in a few seconds, sobs of relief surged up from deep inside of them and eventually they cried themselves to sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED