One Moment - 10. Chapter 10

One Moment

Chapter 10

After three days of throwing up nearly every thing he ate, Matt grew weaker and weaker, making it even a chore to get to the bathroom, let alone take a shower.

He was in bed, as he had been for over 72 hours, when Dr. Marshall and Mark both walked into the bedroom at just after 10 am Thursday morning. Both men looked down at the boy, who was lying on his back, his lips cracked and dried from dehydration parted slightly, his flushed face not looking peaceful even in sleep.

Dr. Marshall leaned over the bed saying the boy’s name and gently nudging him until his eyes slowly opened. “You have to get up son; I’m taking you to the doctor this morning.”

Matt shook his aching head; he had had a headache for two days now, one that just seemed to refuse to go away.

“I’m sorry you have no choice.” Jack wished after seeing the boy’s condition that morning that they’d gone the day before. He reached out and grasped him gently by the shoulder in an effort to sit him up.

Matt tried to shake the man off, growing angrier by the minute. “I’m not going to see him. He’s a jerk.”

“Your doctor?” Dr. Marshall asked once Matt was in a sitting position, though it was still aided by his hand gently resting against Matt’s back.

Matt nodded then clutched his aching head, it not liking the nodding motion at all.

“You’re not going to the same doctor Matt, and I’m sorry the last one was a jerk.” He added, though he doubted the man really was, but figured anyone who was constantly sticking you with needles and invading certain body parts would come off as one.

“Come on,” he said gently guiding him out of bed. “We need to get you showered so we can go; your appointment is in an hour.”

Matt was just around the edge of the bed when he stepped away from Dr. Marshall and pressed himself into Mark’s body wrapping his hands tightly around the man’s forearms. “Please Mark,” He said looking up at him with a pleading face. “Don’t let him take me.”

Mark moved his arms out of Matt’s grasp feeling just how weak he was and put his hands up on Matt’s shoulders. “You have to go Matt. I’m sorry but you’re not getting any better, we need to get this taken care of before you get even sicker.”

Sighing heavily Matt twisted his body dropping Mark’s hands off his shoulders. He grabbed some clothes angrily out of his dresser and started down the hall to the showers, balancing himself along the wall as he incredibly dizzy.

A half an hour later he was seated in the front seat of Dr. Marshall’s Lexus and they were headed for town. The doctor looked over at him as he sat half hunched over in the seat; his arms wrapped around his waist, and waited a few minutes before he tried to make any conversation.

“So do you hate doctors in general or just your last one?”

“I hate them in general.” Matt said moving one hand from his side and up to hold his head as the movement of the car was making it throb even more. “But I hated the last one more than most.”

“How was he worse than the others?”

“Because he was a jerk.”

Dr. Marshall couldn’t help but smile as he maneuvered the car closer to town. “Yeah you mentioned that, but how was he a jerk?”

“He acted like I deserved what I got. That he shouldn’t have to make me better, that it woulda been better if I’d just been killed by that man or something.”

Dr. Marshall’s smile quickly faded as he glanced over at the boy. It was not like Matt to lie, sure, he evaded the truth as much as possible, but Dr. Marshall hadn’t heard him outright lie before, which made him think that Matt was being truthful. “Did he say that to you Matt?”

“Not to me, but I heard him say it. The first night I was there.”

“What did you hear him say?”

Matt clutched his head even tighter wishing they could just not talk but feeling so miserable that he just wanted to get his mind off it. “He said ‘another one of these’ then he said ‘he was tired of patients that couldn’t pay’ and he said ‘he was tired of spending all his time on patients that get what they deserve.’”

Jack’s heart jumped into his throat as a deep anger filled his stomach. “He said that in front of you?”

Matt nodded again, “I think he thought I was sleeping.”

The Doctor gripped the steering wheel tighter and anger surged through him at the cold heartedness of the doctor. It saddened him to picture poor Matt laying in a hospital bed, having just been raped and in what he imagined to be a great deal of pain, and having to hear some asshole talking about him like that.

“I’m sorry Matt that was a terrible thing for that man to do, he should be reported.” He said having half a mind to report the man himself. “I’m sure the doctor I’m taking you to today will be much more hospitable.” He was confident saying that as he knew a doctor that was as big of a jerk as the last one couldn’t be that common.

He pulled the car into the parking lot of the hospital complex and pulled up in front of a two story building which held several doctors offices. Killing the ignition, he put one hand on the wheel and the other on Matt’s knee. Matt was looking up at the building fearfully.

“It’s going to be okay Matt, we are just going to see that you start feeling better.”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t want to feel better.”

Dr. Marshall nodded not surprised at what he’d said as Mark had filled him in on several of the conversations he had had with the boy where he’d stated he didn’t want to be happy, that he wanted to actually be miserable. “We don’t want you sick Matt, you don’t deserve it, and we don’t like seeing you punish yourself like this. It’s time to start feeling better.”

“I do deserve it.,” he said quietly.

“No Matt you don’t.”

“I DO,” He said as loudly as his weak state could allow. “I’m responsible for the death of my boyfriend…..” he stopped and quickly closed his mouth looking fearfully at the doctor then quickly turning away from him and pressing his forehead into the cool window cursing himself for his stupidity.

“It’s okay Matt.” Dr. Marshall said seeing his distress over what he’d just said. “I already know.”

Matt pulled his head away from the window and looked back at the doctor. “How? I haven’t told anyone.”

“Well I didn’t know, I just was pretty sure. You are devastated about Danny; I just had a strong feeling it was far more than a friendship.”

Matt studied him closely. “And I don’t disgust you?”

“No Matt, not at all. Moreover, you are not responsible for Danny’s death. You can’t keep telling yourself that, it’ll eat you alive.”

“I am,” Matt said quietly as he shook his head.

Dr. Marshall sat around in the waiting room of the doctor’s office for an hour after Matt had gone into the exam room. After that, he spent an hour hanging around in the hospital’s X ray unit and blood lab, then another hour waiting back in the doctor’s office before the doctor called him into his office.

The office was lined with books and several certificates, and a diploma hung on the wall. A large dark wood desk sat in the center of the room. The doctor shook his head before rounding the desk, a file in his hand, as he motioned for Dr. Marshall to sit down in one of the chairs facing the desk.

“I’m sorry this has taken so long.” Dr. London said apologetically as he sat down behind his desk and opened the file in front of him. “I wanted to run some additional tests. First off, I think it is necessary to admit him at least for 24 hours, we need to re-hydrate him. We can put him on IV’s and a heavy dose of vitamins and hopefully get his system in working order again.”

“Was there anything physical that’s causing this?”

Dr. London shook his head.

Jack nodded, having figured that already but wanting to make sure.

“I would suggest starting him on a depression/anxiety medicine as soon as you can. I think he’s at the point now where he can’t pull himself out of this funk, he needs the help of the medication.”

Jack nodded again having already decided to get the prescription filled that afternoon.

“What do you know about Matt? I mean about his childhood?”

Dr. Marshall shook his head. “Pretty much nothing, Matt doesn’t talk about it; all I know is that he ran away from home a little over a year ago.”

“So you don’t know why he ran away?”

“No, and his parents have been contacted, they don’t want him back. So something had to have happened between them.”

The doctor sat back in his chair and sighed. “I examined Matt very carefully. I wanted to make sure he was healing well from the assault. There’s very apparent evidence that he was abused growing up.”

Dr. Marshall took a deep breath; it certainly was news that was hard to take. He had been so certain that they’d just had a big fight or something; the idea of Matt being abused by his parents had barely entered his mind. He didn’t have to ask how badly, he knew if there was evidence of it still apparent over a year after he’d left his parents’ house that it was very bad.

“How could the last doctor not have seen that?”

“Well he had a lot of bruising and cuts on him after the rape, it could have been missed. However, he was at county, they are not thorough over there. They run on state funds taking in a lot of patients that can’t pay; they get them in and out the cheapest, fastest way possible.”

Jack nodded growing even angrier with the doctor that had taken care of Matt before. “Matt told me a little about that doctor today, he should be fired, or at least reported.”

“I think most of the doctors over there should be. It’s a last ditch job offer for doctors, many of them already fired from more prestigious jobs. Their bedside manner is pretty much nonexistent.”

“You want the TV on hon?” the nurse that had gotten Matt all situated in his hospital bed asked, as she held up the remote that was attached by a cord to his bed.

Matt shrugged not caring either way as he planned to fall asleep as soon as these people would actually leave him alone. He had been poked with so many needles and run through so many machines his head was spinning. He had to admit though, that the doctor who had run him through the mill was much nicer than any other doctor he’d ever met.

As soon as the nurse left, he moved onto his side, careful not to yank the IV lines out of his arm and settled in for sleep, the quiet sounds of the TV creating a nice background noise as he waited to drift off. He wasn’t quite yet asleep when his eyes popped back open to see Dr. Marshall standing over his bed.

“How are you doing?” The man asked smiling down at him.

“Okay,” he said quietly. He felt pretty much the same other than the fact his headache seemed to be going away, something he was grateful for, as he never remembered having a headache that bad in his life.

“I guess you have to stay here at least overnight. You okay with that?”

Matt nodded knowing he wouldn’t have a choice either way, and he could sleep just as well here as he could at the facility.

Dr. Marshall smiled down at him, his heart aching at what he’d found out in the doctors office. He’d had Matt pegged so wrong in the beginning and he felt terribly for that. He wasn’t a troublemaker, he was a kid that had never gotten a break and maybe made a bad decision or two. He didn’t even feel Matt really belonged at the facility, but he wasn’t going to send him elsewhere now, he was too attached and he knew he had the ability to give Matt a better outlook on himself and life.

“I see you’re tired, I’m not going to stay and bug you. Be prepared though Matt, you and I are going to have a long talk as soon as you’re up and around again.”

Matt looked up at him. “Am I in trouble?”

“No son, not at all. But I really want you to talk to me. So be thinking about it, okay? I want to know about you, I know you haven’t liked to talk but you need to know I can help, you just have to talk to me.”

Matt didn’t say anything, didn’t think much about what the doctor had said, he didn’t have to worry about that for at least 24 hours and was not going to lose any sleep in the mean time over it. Instead, he closed his eyes and welcomed the sleep that slowly overtook him.

When he opened his eyes a few hours later the sun was no longer shining in the room and he figured it had to be past five. The other bed in the room was no longer empty, it now being occupied by another boy that looked about the same age.

Around the other boy’s bed were several other people, two adults he figured must be his mother and father and a couple of other teenagers. He was immediately uncomfortable with all the other people in the room and really bummed that the other bed had to be occupied at all.

Not really wanting to have to sit there and listen to them he turned his attention to the TV where some movie was playing and it didn’t take him long to get interested in the story. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d just sat around watching TV; it certainly hadn’t been in the past 15 months.

Not much later, a woman came in with a cart filled with trays, something emanating from it smelled heavenly. She set one on the bedside table of the other boy’s bed then walked over and sat one on the table beside Matt’s bed. She then adjusted the table so it was actually over the bed and smiled at him. “Just a liquid diet for you I’m afraid.” She said as she lifted the cover to the tray.

Matt looked down at it realizing whatever the heavenly smell was it certainly hadn’t come from his tray. All that was on it was some yellowish broth, a cup of jello and a glass of what looked like ginger ale. He wasn’t too upset about it; his stomach wasn’t feeling a heck of a lot better than it had over the last few days.

He ate what he had slowly, not wanting to puke it up with an audience, while he watched the movie play out on the TV. He was relieved when he caught a bit of the conversation from the next bed over to hear that the other people were leaving, thinking it was about god damn time.

His head snapped to the right as he heard the woman say, “You don’t want to watch this crap.” He watched her pick up the remote, look right at him and change the channel, a look so smug on her face she must have thought she was president or something.

He quickly looked away from her, feeling angry enough that he just might say something but not wanting to, knowing he couldn’t handle any backlash she would more than likely throw his way. It wasn’t the fact that she changed the channel itself that pissed him off, it was the fact she’d known he was watching and didn’t care at all. In fact she seemed to enjoy that she was making it so he couldn’t see the last of his movie.

Hearing that the station had been changed to some stupid sporting event he rolled his eyes and returned his attention to his Jello. He heard the channel change again and looked back up to see the TV was back on his movie. He looked over at the boy in the next bed, now the only other one in the room.

“Sorry dude, mom tends to think we are the only people on the planet sometimes.”

Matt couldn’t help but smile glad indeed that the kid wasn’t an ass like so many other people he’d met in his life. “It’s okay; you don’t have to change it back.” He offered not wanting to look like a brat himself.

“It’s okay, I could tell you were watching it, it’s a good movie, I’ve seen it a few times myself. I certainly don’t mind watching it again.”

Matt smiled at him again. “Thanks.” He was definitely glad to be able to watch the rest of the movie, as the part he’d already seen was very good.

The other boy was quiet through the rest of the movie. As soon as it ended, he started talking again. “So what are you in for?”

“Here?” Matt asked a little confused.

The other boy chuckled and nodded.

Matt shrugged. “Puking too much I guess.”

“Eww that’s not fun.”

Matt found himself chuckling back, surprised at how at ease he felt talking to a guy he didn’t even know. “Well it’s not on my list of top things. Why are you here?”

“Knee surgery, I twisted it last year in a game and it’s just gotten worse so they decided to do surgery.”

“You play sports?” Matt asked surprised he was actually talking to a jock and said jock was actually being so nice.

“Well soccer and I run track or did anyways.” The boy sighed heavily and Matt could tell he must miss playing. “My name’s Jeff by the way.”

“Matt.”

“I haven’t seen you around school, are you not from around here? Or do you go to private?”

Matt shrugged not sure how to answer, then not wanting to have to come up with a name for any private school he said. “Not from around here.”

“Eww so you got sick on vacation then? That really sucks.”

Nodding, Matt had to chuckle again at the misconception but not about to clarify it. “Yeah it really does.”

“So where are you from?”

“West Virginia.”

“Oh never been there. Do you like it?”

Matt shrugged again. “It’s okay I guess.” He looked up past Jeff’s bed to see Mark walking into the room. He smiled, actually happy, to see him. He knew Mark was now off duty, and the fact he’d taken time out of his own personal life to come see him made Matt’s heart feel good whether he really wanted it to feel good or not.

Mark walked around the first bed and up beside Matt’s. “How are you feeling buddy?”

“Better I guess,” he answered shrugging. “You didn’t have to come and see me.”

Mark smiled down at him. “Of course I did, I wanted to come and see you, and I really missed you today.”

Matt looked up at him a look of bewilderment in his eyes. “You did?”

“Yes I did.” Mark smiled again, a wave of sadness running through him as he saw that Matt was so surprised by this news. Dr. Marshall of course had filled him in on what he had learned earlier in the day, and it had upset him as much as it had Dr. Marshall. “You already look better.”

Letting out a small nervous laugh Matt thanked him, not sure of what else to say.

“Did you eat your dinner?”

“Yes, it was some soup.”

“And you kept it down?” Mark asked hopefully.

“Yeah, so far, but I think I’m good, I don’t feel like I have to throw up.”

“Does your stomach still hurt?”

Matt nodded. “Not so bad though.”

Mark nodded back, glad to hear that as he pulled a big shopping bag up onto the bed. “I brought you a few things.” He pulled out a couple puzzle books, a book to read, a couple magazines and a blank notebook. He handed the notebook over to Matt. “Just in case you wanted to write.”

Matt took the notebook that had a pen stuck in its coil binding and flipped through the blank pages truly touched that Mark had brought it to him. That Mark remembered how much he liked to write and was actually encouraging him to do just that, and not in his stupid journal either.

By the time Mark left nearly an hour later Jeff was sound asleep. He felt sleepy himself but the notebook was calling out to him, he hadn’t had a chance to actually write his thoughts down, when they wouldn’t be read, in months. Even something as simple as a notebook was unattainable when you were homeless.

He turned on the small light over his bed and started writing away. He didn’t even notice the time flying by, as he wrote about Danny, how they met, the times they had together, everything he could think to write about the love of his life. Tears streaked down his cheeks during several parts but still his pen flowed quickly, filling the blank pages with the scrawl of his ink.

He didn’t even look up until midnight when a nurse walked into the room. He quickly closed the notebook not wanting her or anyone else to catch a glimpse of what he’d written.

“What are you still doing awake? You feel okay?” The nurse asked as she walked up to his bedside.

He nodded, feeling very good actually, at least compared to how he’d been feeling the last few days.

“You really should try and get some sleep.” She said glancing at the closed notebook before she grabbed the chart on the foot of his bed and started filling out some information.

“I will.” Matt answered just wanting her to leave so he could get back to writing.

“You want anything to drink or anything first?” She asked setting the chart across his legs before she walked over, pulled the blood pressure cuff off the wall, and wrapped it around his arm.

“No ma’am I’m good.”

She nodded before she stuck a thermometer in his mouth then squeezed on the black bulb attached to the blood pressure cuff, which made it tighten on his arm.

A minute later, she took out the thermometer and released the pressure on the cuff. She took the readings and wrote them down on the chart. “Well your blood pressure is much closer to normal. Your temperature is good; I’d say you are well on your way to recovery.”

Matt nodded absentmindedly still wishing she would leave.

After patting his knee and telling him again he should get to sleep she finally left the room and he opened his notebook and wrote feverishly again. He had no idea that much time had even passed when the nurse again walked into the room. He looked at the clock and saw it was already past 2am as he quickly closed the notebook again.

“Hon, I’m serious,” she said trying to look stern. “You really need sleep.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Matt nodded figuring he’d probably better listen as he didn’t want to be getting in trouble. She took his vital signs again, told him to go to sleep again, and left the room.

Figuring he’d just finish up on the part he was on, Matt opened the notebook up again and continued to write. It didn’t take long for him to get fully engrossed again and lose all track of time. It was nearly two hours later when the nurse walked in again catching him still up.

“Matt seriously,” she said walking up to the bed. She reached out to take the notebook but Matt quickly picked it up and pressed it to his chest.

“No!” he snapped. “Don’t take it, I promise I’ll go to sleep right now.” He turned his upper body, lifted his pillow and shoved the notebook underneath. “Here you can take the pen.” He handed that over to her figuring he didn’t need the temptation and knowing he didn’t want her taking the notebook.

The nurse grinned as she turned the pen in her hand deciding that would work just as well as taking the notebook. She again took his vital signs and again reported an improvement then very sternly told him to get some sleep.

Matt rolled over onto his side pulling the blanket up to his shoulders. He rested his head on his pillow and slid his hand underneath laying it flat over the cool surface of the notebook. It was all he had to remind him of Danny, he had more to add, but what he’d written in there were all his favorite memories of the time they’d spent together. He knew in fifty years he could go back and read it and remember all the great times they’d had as if it had just happened. It was all he had, so he had to protect it and keep it safe. The notebook was as close to Danny as he’d ever get again