Lawless Read Free

us when we touch down in the parking lot outside the hospital. The stretcher I’m strapped to is lifted, legs kicked down, and they run me toward the Emergency entrance as the responding medics give all of my information to the hospital staff. Heart rate, time since the attack, location of the attack.
    That’s what they keep calling it; an attack. I don’t know why but it sounds so weird. Like it’s somehow not enough. Like that one word can’t encompass the sheer terror and trauma of what it felt like to be pulled under the water against my will by something I couldn’t see. Something I could never fight off.
    One word can’t possibly be all there is to describe how it feels to barely make it out with my life.
    I’m pushed down a hallway, through a bunch of doors, and into a stark white room. They change out the blanket draped over the top of me and the chill in the air sends me near convulsions. The room is freezing cold, even after they wrap my torso in a new, warmer blanket. A nurse wheels over an IV drip and injects the needle neatly into my arm. That I feel – the pinprick of a needle going into the tender flesh of my arm, but my leg is still missing. The nurse injects something into the IV, someone else secures the oxygen mask on my face so tightly the rubber straps pull at my face, and then the fog rolls in.
    People come and go. The warmth is gone, then it’s back, then it’s everywhere and I’m nowhere.
    I’m lost.
     
    ***
     
    It’s morning when I come to. The sunlight is pouring in through the window in the hospital room. I know immediately that that’s what it is. There’s no mistaking the stark white walls or the blue curtain pulled far across my right. I can hear a TV playing but I can’t see it. I must have a roommate. I wonder what happened to them.
    I wonder what the hell happened to me.
    “Rachel?” my mom asks hesitantly.
    She stands up from a chair in the corner, her face tight with concern. Her eyes guarded and hesitant.
    “Hey, mom,” I answer thickly. My throat is bone dry. My tongue is made of thick cotton.
    She smiles, her body sagging with relief at the sound of my voice. “How are you feeling?”
    I start to laugh at the absurdity of the question but it turns into a rough cough that won’t stop. My mom quickly pours me a glass of water and I gulp it down in one long swig. I hand it back to her and immediately ask for more. This cup I take more slowly, enjoying the feel of the cool liquid on my throat.
    “Where’s Dad?” I ask.
    Mom walks to the blue curtain next to me. She pushes it back to expose my neighbor – my dad. He’s in his work clothes (coveralls and heavy boots) passed out with the TV remote in his hand and a juicer infomercial on the screen.
    “He worked a double yesterday,” Mom explains. “He was exhausted when we got here and then you were in surgery for hours and—“
    “How many?” I interrupt.
    She blinks in surprise. “Oh, um. I think it ended up being three total. It was after midnight before they brought you out.”
    My eyes flicker nervously down to the bottom of my bed. To the white blanket laid across my legs. To the two feet standing tall at the end.
    I sigh in relief when I see them. “I didn’t lose my leg,” I breathe.
    “Oh my God, no!” Mom cries, shocked by the idea. “No, not even close.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “You don’t remember?”
    “I know it was a shark.”
    Mom’s mouth pulls into a grim line. “A great white.”
    “Wow,” I sigh, amazed by how real those words make it.
    I never saw it. Until this moment, it was some abstract horror like a tornado or a tsunami. You know what they look like but you’ve never tangled with one up close. They’re not really real until you do.
    This shark bite just got real for me.
    I lick my cracked lips, thinking. “I remember being in the water. I remember being pulled under. My leg hurt when I tried to swim away. Then… I don’t really know.” I look around the room