Where am I?
“The hell do you mean, drugs?” the familiar sound was yelling from somewhere outside the white-painted door.
It was her father’s voice. And it sounded none-too-pleased.
Uh-oh.
The events from the night before had started to make their way through Lilah’s IV-induced grogginess. She struggled to sit up in the narrow hospital bed, but her wrist throbbed painfully when she put any weight on it. Now that she was thinking about it, her entire body was aching, as though a ton of bricks had fallen on her during the night. As the door slammed open, she quickly dropped her head against the starchy pillow and closed her eyes, feigning sleep.
“Oh, God!” Stanley moaned once he saw her. He hadn’t been inside a hospital in fifteen years – even when Manny had broken his leg in three places, Stanley sent flowers to the hospital and only paid him a visit when he had been released home for bedrest. Seeing his only daughter lying there with machines and IVs hooked up to her stirred up emotions that he hadn’t felt since the last time he set foot in that godforsaken place.
“Now, Mr. Quinn, the good news –”
“Doc, don’t ever start a sentence with ‘good news’ when you’re talking to me. The last time you told me that, my wife died of cancer.”
Dr. Kreuter’s lips were pressed in a thin line. “I remember. But I can assure you there’s no bad news today, Mr. Quinn. Your daughter suffered a partially-dislocated shoulder, which we’ve already corrected and shouldn’t require further treatment. She also sustained some moderate bruising on her right side and a sprained wrist from the fall. Her treatment plan for the next week will be rest and plenty of ice. Frankly, her injuries could have been – and probably should have been – a lot worse, given the balcony was fourteen feet above the ground floor. Sheriff Reid informed me that a serendipitously-placed set of speakers dampened their fall.” He pursed his lips, a poor attempt at hiding a wry smile beneath. “I do hope they weren’t expensive speakers, for your wallet’s sake.”
“Jesus!” Stanley huffed, raking his fingers through thinning hair. “I’ve heard of mosh pits, but what kind of idiot leaps off a balcony at a concert?”
“Mr. Quinn, it is imperative that you don’t upset her—” Dr. Kreuter started.
“Upset her? She’ll be lucky if I don’t kill her!” Stanley strode over to her hospital bed. “Lilah Marie Quinn, you open your eyes this instant! After sixteen years, I damned well know when you’re sleeping and when you’re faking it!”
Lilah grimaced, then obliged. “Hi, Dad.” She tried her best to force a cheerful grin, but she could feel the corners of her mouth quiver anxiously. “Nice to see you. Uh, what brings you here this fine Saturday morning?” Stanley’s face flushed purple, which caused Lilah to quickly drop her eyes. It was only then that she noticed the splint on her wrist. “Um… what happened, exactly?”
“What happened? What happened? Kreuter here says you were at a rock concert doing drugs with a boy and then you jumped off a second-floor balcony?” The vein in Stanley’s forehead throbbed furiously.
“Now, Mr. Quinn, to be fair, I said that drugs were found in her friend’s system, however no drugs were found in your daughter’s toxicology results – not even the drugs we would normally expect to see from someone being treated for epilepsy,” he added pointedly.
Stanley stared at the doctor for a long moment, as though he were trying to grasp the full meaning of his words.
“Now, Miss Quinn,” Dr. Kreuter continued, “I think we all have many questions, and I’m certain Sheriff Reid will be in shortly once he finishes interviewing your friend—”
“Jace!” Lilah gasped, suddenly remembering. “We fell! The floor disappeared! Is he okay?” Stanley and the doctor exchanged looks.
“Oddly enough, Mr. McKinnon – who suffered some minor lacerations and a badly sprained ankle, to answer your question – also claimed that the floor disappeared from beneath the two of you. Now, I would expect to hear such gobbledygook from a young man who had recently been experimenting with recreational drugs, but seeing as we found no MDMA in your bloodwork, I am curious to hear more about this phenomenon that you both believe you experienced.”
Lilah stared at him indignantly. “First of all, Jace didn’t take any drugs, I did.” She winced as her father shot her a look of pure death. “I mean, he had a beer, but he definitely didn’t take any pills… And second of all,” she continued, before her father could start yelling again, “I don’t believe the floor disappeared. It actually did disappear. Just… poof.” Something else brushed the corners of her mind, some hallucination about Jace looking first like a little kid and then like a forty-year-old man… But that had to have been the pill she took. And she wasn’t about to mention any of that at this particular moment, not with her purple-faced father looking like he might explode at any moment. Or suffer a heart attack.
Dr. Kreuter sighed, straightening his glasses as he looked down at his report. “Miss Quinn, you had absolutely no trace of anything in your bloodwork, save for a BAC of point-zero-zero-two, which I might expect to see after a single sip of beer in a young lady of your size.” Lilah started to interject, but Dr. Kreuter continued, “Furthermore, as I stated before, the tox report showed trace amounts of ethosuximide, but not nearly the amount we would expect to see had you taken your anti-seizure pill today. May I deduce from that measly sum that you have been skipping doses?”
“Only this morning,” Lilah mumbled, avoiding her father’s worsening glare.
“Because you only take one dose of medicine per day, missing that dose can significantly increase your chance of having breakthrough seizures. It can also lead to more frequent and intense seizures, or even develop into status epilepticus, which is considered a medical emergency.”
“But—” Lilah started.
“Be quiet and listen to the man,” Stanley snapped. Lilah’s mouth quickly clamped shut.
“Now,” Dr. Kreuter continued, “it is not uncommon to have auditory hallucinations with seizures, though visual hallucinations, with your type of epilepsy, are rather uncommon. That being said, given Mr. McKinnon’s account of Lilah’s behavior just before the incident—”
“Incident?” Lilah asked.
“Yes, the incident whereby you and your boyfriend jumped off the ledge of a concert hall balcony—”
“He’s not her boyfriend,” Stanley interjected.
“And we didn’t jump!” Lilah added.
“Given your friend’s account of your unusual behavior, the recreational drugs we found in his system, and the fact that Sheriff Reid has confirmed that the concert venue, including the entire second floor, is in fact entirely intact, it is my hypothesis that you had a seizure-induced hallucination, which was further exacerbated by the witless antics of your inebriated friend, and subsequently jumped off the balcony – which is what young, silly, prefrontal-cortex-impaired teenagers do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a man in the next room with a nail protruding from his foot.”
Dr. Kreuter spun on his heels with the celerity of a man half his age, then made his way for the door. With his hand on the door handle, he turned to look at Lilah once more. “Take your medication every day, young lady – no skipping doses! You should also take ibuprofen for the swelling in your wrist and shoulder, and above all, do try to behave yourself. Your father has had enough hardship in this hospital without you jumping off of balconies.” With that, he slipped through the door, letting it click softly behind him.