Chapter 162 Burns

• For the second time since I emerged from my coma six days prior, Tyrone and I were alone in my room, and there seemed to be a wedge of stillness between us that stretched as far as the horizon. The doctors worrying over me, sticking tubes into my arms, or my mom's nonstop love marred every time we had together. She wouldn't stop crying for hours after I got up, and she didn't get off my bed until I made her this evening. Her expression twisted for a moment, but I quickly reassured her by saying, "I love you," and then I begged her to turn out the lights so I could go to sleep. Although my intention was not to sleep, the brightness of the lights in my room was too much for me to bear.
• I was going mad because everything seemed too bright like spotlights were shining on me from every direction. Here, I was losing my mind. I was being railroaded into a state of anxiety by the overpowering love, the bright lights, the continual supervision, the worry, the tears, the painkillers, the numbing of it all, the initial shock, and the forgetting about my brain injury. My days were being ruined by restlessness until Dr Alex increased my dosage the previous night, which left me unconscious for several hours. My mother was worried that I wasn't getting any sleep.
• Every morning, I felt like I was suffering from the greatest hangover, with a pounding headache that got worse as the day went on. I didn't like how clinical this hospital was. The cardboard-like texture of the meal I had to swallow, the rubbery gloves the physicians were wearing, and the overpowering smell of disinfectant were too clinical. It gave me a homesick ache in my chest. I thought everything was about to fall apart as if my head would separate from my neck, which would separate from my shoulders, and so on, leaving me to float into nothingness.