Objectify Me: A Fireworks Novella (The Fireworks Novellas) by Bibi Rizer Page B

gone home without saying goodbye. I wouldn’t blame her. I want to put this night behind me, too, but…
    I’m a complete failure as a man. I didn’t get her number, her Facebook, her Instagram, nothing. I don’t even know her last name. And I was so dazed when we went to her house to get her car that there’s no way I could ever find it again. And even if I could, what am I supposed to do? Just turn up at her door? Isn’t that a little weird?
    I try to get up, because I really do need to piss, but when I lean forward, a bolt of pain shoots through my ribcage so bad that I feel like I might vomit. I look down at my body and realize I’ve been hugging my left side since we left the party. Slowly, I edge my hand out of the folds of my t-shirt. It looks wrong, not like a hand should look. I try to move it, and that makes me nearly puke again. Two of my fingers are pointing in the wrong direction, and the whole hand is swollen and blue.
    “ Fuck …”
    That’s not good.
    With my other hand, I hoist myself off the toilet and head out of the stall. Standing in front of the mirror, I lift my t-shirt up. One side of my ribcage is bloated and eggplant colored. The minute I see it, the pain actually processes. And that’s when what’s left of my late night snack comes up and splatters all over the floor. The heaving multiplies the pain in my ribs by about a million.
    “God…” I manage to squeak out, easing myself down onto my knees so I don’t fall over. “Help…”
    The worst part about thinking I’m going to die kneeling in a puddle of my own vomit is that I know somehow I deserve it. That something I did once caused a chain reaction that lead to Valentina chained up in that place. I watched seriously questionable porn when I was younger. In high school I had sex with a girl at a party who turned out to only be fifteen. And a hundred other things. A bachelor party here. A website there. Any one of those stupid, self-indulgent acts might have been the butterfly wing that created the tornado Valentina got caught up in. And how many others are there like her? Maybe I’m no better than the men who chained her up.
    “Oh God…” My vision starts to go black at the edges, and I shiver even though I feel like I’m burning up. “Someone help me…” I’m not even hoping for someone to help with the pain, with whatever injuries I have. I think I’m looking for someone to save my soul.
    Then, like an angel of mercy, Charlotte is there.
    “Levi? Levi!”
    I hear her screaming for help and register the blur of several dark figures joining us in the restroom.
    After that, things get a little fuzzy.
     
    “…cracked in situ, but the other was broken with peritoneal intrusion, and that’s what caused the lung to collapse. We needed to deal with that first. There was a small bleed on the spleen that we repaired, but no other internal damage, so you can rest easy about that. Now the hand…”
    “Mom?”
    She’s kind of blurry, but it looks like my mom. Maybe I’m dreaming.
    “There are several fractures and dislocations in the hand. We realigned and splinted some of the bones, but one of them is going to need surgical repair, I’m afraid. Orthopedic is pretty sure it won’t need screws, but she’ll need to open it up to make sure. We’d like his lung function a bit better before we proceed with that.”
    “We’d like to get him home for –”
    “Mom?”
    The blur moves closer and comes into focus.
    “Oh! My baby boy! Oh, darling, thank god. You’re going to be all right.”
    She hugs me delicately, avoiding tubes and wires and the side of my body that still feels bloated and numb.
    “What are you doing here?” My voice is a whisper, all air and effort.
    “I got the first flight. Right after Buck called. He said you were going to be arrested, but when I got here, you were in surgery!”
    “ Am I going to be arrested?”
    Mom strokes my head, smiling down at me in a way that makes me feel about five