The Soup of Sleep

I tried to open my eyes, but sleep crusted them shut. Instinctively, I tried to raise my hand to my face to drag my index fingers through the crust, but there was a problem. My wrists were secured. In an attempt to sit up, I found my torso secured to a gurney or hospital bed or something. I tried to jar the crust loose by trying to blink with my eyes closed, raising my eyebrows, changing my facial expression. Tears of frustration, anger, and cold terror finally won out, lubricating my eyes and lids enough to dissolve the formed crust.

With my eyes open, I attempted to scan the room and found it difficult to get my bearings in the dark. It wasn't pitch, though. I made out the outline of a window or a door or a door with a window or something that seemed like it wasn't completely solid wood, plaster, metal, or drywall. My last move was to call out, but everything was garbled, and there was something in my mouth. It didn't taste like metal, like a horse bit. It was probably leather, although that was a guess. I wasn't in the habit of having leather in my mouth. When I tried to turn my head from left to right, again, I found my head secured to whatever I was lying on.

Where was I? What was going on? How had I gotten here?

I went back to sleep.

When next I awoke, I saw there was a window to my left, and a door in the far right corner of the room. Light peaked in through the edges of the window where the coverings didn't quite meet the window frame. Someone had been in to see me. My head was no longer immobilized. I raised my head just enough to see I was, indeed, strapped to a bed. There were no sheets or blankets, and my clothes had been removed. There was a chair in the corner of the room across from the door. It looked like my clothes were folded and stacked there. I looked down at my naked body, and realized how cold it was, or how cold I felt when I viewed the hard points of my nipples. In whatever this situation was, my nipples stood tall like proud soldiers, which was the complete opposite of any emotion in my head at the time. I was so very tired, and now I wasn't just frustrated or angry, but I felt shame and embarrassment and a total loss of self-control and agency.

My lids became heavy again, and I went back to sleep.

The next time my eyes fluttered open, I found the room awash in the light of mid-day. My feet were no longer bound, and I decided thrashing in the bed would only result in having them secured again. I felt something on my hand, and turned my head to see my mother holding my hand. How was she here? She died in a boating accident three years ago. However, there she was, her hair, makeup, and twinset, dress pants, and heels totally on point. Her blue eyes took me in with love, and I saw the care blooming across her face.

"How are you here?" I croaked. My throat was dry, and it hurt to speak.

She stood in that moment, leaned over me, brushing her hands against my cheeks and forehead, and dipped down to kiss my forehead. She didn't say anything, but her kiss said everything would be all right. She turned to go, and I saw the bloody mats in her hair from where the blunt force trauma had landed on the back of her skull, ending her life. I couldn't make sense of what I had seen and felt, and my brain shut down.

It had to have been afternoon when I heard the dull ringing of what could have been a dinner bell or a buoy or a teacher's bell on a playground. It could have been the bell ringing to recognize a good tip in a bar, or the bell after riding the bull for eight seconds in the rodeo. But, yes, the ringing was dull. I felt a warm breeze crossing my body, and I sat up, no longer secured to a bed and no longer naked. I was wearing a red and blue striped bikini, and was on a coordinating beach towel and white blanket. There was a tall tanned man lying on the blanket next to me. His face covered by a bucket hat. I heard the gulls barking at each other across the dunes, and the surf creeping out to sea. There were two children playing in the sand only two or three feet away. I didn't know them, but I knew they were my children. They were both girls, one blonde and one with sandy-colored hair. I could only guess, but they had to be around four and six.

The man next to me, my husband or partner, touched my hand. "How long have we been here?" I asked. He squeezed my hand, and I knew we hadn't been here. Not yet. I lay back down on my towel, drifting off, content in the knowledge of what could be my future.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was a response to something bitter smelling infiltrating my sinuses. I coughed and sputtered, "Oh, my god," I wheezed, "what's going on?" I couldn't move my hands (again), but my legs were still free. "Where are my clothes?"

There was a nurse in scrubs next to my bed. She was speaking into a walkie-talkie clipped to the V in her top. "She's awake," she said. "Please send the on-call doctor."

I looked down at myself, and I was now covered in a hospital gown. I repeated, "What's going on?" and for good measure, I added, "Where am I?"

A woman I had never met entered the room, followed by a man in scrubs. The man, I assumed he was the doctor, deferred to the woman. She wore a smart pantsuit, and I wanted to ask her where she shopped, but I had so many questions that shopping quickly faded into the background.

"Ms. Bartelt, hi. I'm Detective Alvarez. Your friends called 9-1-1 after they found you unconscious in the bathroom of the club you visited last night."

"What club? What friends?" I asked.

"They're in the waiting room. They've been here for the last fifteen hours. You all were celebrating the Jessica's engagement. Does that ring a bell?" she said.

Jessica. Jessica. Jessica. Right. College roommate. Engaged to Collin. We all liked Collin.

Detective Alvarez continued, "You were drugged. Your clothes were bloody. Your underwear was ripped, and there were signs of sexual assault. We have run a rape kit, and the results were negative. It appears you fought off your attacker. There was skin under your finger nails, which we have collected and are sending for DNA analysis."

"What?" was all I could respond. My eyes filled. "How?"

The next time I awoke, the room was dimmer. Jessica was next to my bed. She startled when I abruptly sat up.

"Hey. You thirsty?" she asked. Her eyes were puffy, but her hair was a perfect honeyed cascade flowing over her shoulders.

"Do you know who did this to me?" I asked.

"I don't know who the guy was, but there's surveillance video from the bar. There's video of a guy following you into the bathroom," she answered. "The video also shows him leaving the bathroom. I think you may have stabbed something into his eye because he was holding his hands over one of his eyes when he left."

"Every girl needs a Swiss Army knife," I quipped.

Jessica gave a weak smile.

"Do you remember Jamie from our chemistry class sophomore year?" Jessica queried.

"Yeah. Cute. Nice guy," I said.

"He's your doctor," she said.

"Really," I said, not a question, just a statement of acknowledgement.

"I'm going to go to the nurse's station to let them know you're awake. Please try to stay awake, okay?" Jessica quickly left the room. I pressed the call button hanging from the bed because I could.

Jessica returned with a nurse and the doctor. I hadn't seen Jamie for…hmmm…we graduated from college seven years ago. I guess I hadn't seen him for seven years.

"Bailey," Jamie said. "Glad to see you're awake again. You've been in and out of consciousness in small bursts for a while now. You've suffered some trauma, and you're lucky nothing worse happened to you."

"That's some bed-side manner you have there," I said dryly.

"Sorry," he said. "It was very unnerving having someone I know arrive as a patient, and the circumstances were, uh, quite worrying. This guy put a lot of drugs in your drink."

"I don't know how it could have happened," I said.

Jessica nodded in agreement.

"From what the police have been able to confirm from the video recordings in the club, your drinks were made at the bar and left unattended for just a moment until the server returned to deliver them to your table. During that very short time, a guy leaned over and dosed one of the drinks. He then watched the server and took note of who received the bad drink," Jamie said.

"And I was the lucky one," I said, chagrined.

Jamie nodded, and Jessica said, "You sure were."

"We're going to run a few more tests before we release you, but I don't see why you can't go home today." Jamie paused. "Do you have someone who can take care of you for the next day or so?"

I shook my head. "No. Not really. I live alone. My mom passed away a few years ago. My dad still works full-time."

"I could swing by your place and check on you if you want." Jamie's face reddened. "I don't want you to think this is weird. I'm offering because you're an old friend from college." He paused again. "If you'd rather I didn't come over, just let me know. I don't want to overstep."

He logged in to the computer on the stand next to the bed to review my chart.

Jessica said, "Jamie, it would be lovely if you could swing by. I have to go to the office to get some work done. When are you off shift?"

"We have hand-off at 4:30. I could swing by after 5:15 or so…if that time works with your schedule."

I said, "That would be great. I'll order a pizza when you arrive."

Jamie jotted his phone number on a brown paper napkin, and Jessica gave him both of our phone numbers. The nurse suppressed a small smile while she observed the awkward interaction between Jamie, Jessica, and me.

Jamie typed a few more things into the computer, logged off, and said, "Right. Okay. I put in orders for some more labs. I want to know that the drugs have been metabolized or how close they are to being out of your system. It shouldn't take long to get results. After that, one of the nurses will give you your discharge instructions, and then you can go."

The nurse logged in to the computer after Jamie left and reviewed his orders. "Okay, Bailey. I'm going to take a couple tubes of blood from the IV catheter in your arm and get these sent to the lab. If there's anything you need, press the call button. You can wear a pair of scrubs home since your clothes were ripped. I'm sure you don't want to go home in a hospital gown. I'll be back in just a minute with those scrubs."

"Can you tell me something?" I asked her.

"Sure," she answered.

"Was I in restraints?" I asked.

"Just your arms. In your condition, we didn't want you to rip out your IV. As soon as you became conscious for more than just a tiny bit of time and were oriented, we removed the restraints," she said.

"Wow," I said. "I had some crazy dreams."

"You're lucky you had that knife with you and the presence of mind to use it. Most young women don't have that luxury."

The nurse took the tubes of blood with her, leaving Jessica and me alone in the room.

Jessica said, "I am so, so sorry this happened. I only wanted to go out with my girls, have a fun night, and celebrate my engagement."

"You couldn't know," I said, and I felt tired again.

Jessica said, "I think Detective Alvarez wants to take your clothes for testing. I'm supposed to call her when you're awake."

I simply nodded. Fatigue had overcome me yet again. "Could you let her know I'm going to be discharged soon? We can take everything home, and then she can just pick it up or whatever. I should probably call my work so they don't think I just decided not to go to work today without telling anyone."

"I already called this morning to let them know there had been an accident. I hope that's okay," Jessica said. "I know I was outside my lane, but I figured you'd want to let someone know something."

"Thank you," I said.

"Oh, gosh, Bailey. It was the least I could do. You want to watch a movie while we wait for discharge instructions? They have HBO here."

"Sure. Sounds like a plan."