Page 72 of When the Smoke Clears

“Luke, it’s Ryan. Stay with me!”

Ryan. Yes, Ryan. I need to throw him a pass, make our town proud.

But I can’t throw it now. My arm won’t move.

The voices around me are frantic now, a cacophony of urgency. My eyes are squeezed shut, yet the harsh brightness bleeds through, painting stars on the back of my eyelids.

Suddenly, my skin ignites with a blazing inferno as fire courses through my veins. The pain is excruciating, like shards of glass piercing my insides.

Voices return and slice through the fog. A few words escape through the dense veil, but the beeping of machines drowns them out.

A hand touches mine. It’s warm. It’s familiar.

“I just want him to wake up. Why isn’t he waking up?” I recognize the voice as my mother’s. She’s here. I’m still here, too.

My body hurts. I don’t mind because it informs me I’m alive. I’ll mind later.

“Luke, can you open your eyes for me?”

What does she think I’ve been trying to do for the past thirty minutes?

It hurts, but I manage to flutter my eyes half open. They’re too heavy to go further until a weight lands on me, and then they snap open from the pain.

“He’s awake!” Eden screams in my ear.

Maybe I should’ve stayed dead?

My throat is gravel, but I rasp, “You’re hurting me.”

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry!”

She’s still yelling at me.

Finally, my vision sharpens. For a second, I don’t see my loud, indestructible family. I see a ring of pale faces, eyes swollen and wild, like they’ve all just had to imagine a world without me in it.

“Glad to see you awake, Sheriff.” The doctor glances at something behind me. “Your vitals are looking good.”

A slow turn of my head reveals my mom standing beside me, her hands clenched in prayer.

“What’s your pain level from 1 to 10?” he asks. He points to that ridiculous chart of the cartoon guy with the varying grimaces. I’d say I’m about a mid-level grimace right now.

“Six,” I choke out. “My throat…”

He nods. “That’s from the intubation. It will go away. Let’s sit you up and get you some water.”

The bed begins to rise at my head slowly and pain sears through my left shoulder. Number ten grimace for sure.

The nurse offers me a cup of water with a straw and holds it to my lips. The liquid drips down my throat, coating the inflamed tissue. Soon, whatever they put into my IV begins to bring down my pain to a more tolerable level.

Thankfully, everyone gives me a few minutes for my brain to begin to catch up. Once I can form coherent thoughts, I speak slowly and deliberately. “Can someone tell me what happened?”

Chase and Dalton exchange glances. “You don’t remember?” Dalton asks.

“I had some crazy stuff running through my mind. I’m still trying to decipher reality from drug-induced hallucinations.”

“You were shot, Luke,” Sav’s voice breaks like a fragile glass beside my mom.

Fleeting images begin to flicker in my mind like a broken film reel. “When did it happen?”