That Hospital Bed

I was easy prey.

I had just moved to a new state and knew literally no one. My family was a 24-hour drive away (yes, I’m from the Midwest. We measure in time not miles). I had no friends nearby. Granted, I Facetimed my two best friends from college and my cousin/bff pretty much every week, but it’s not like they were here.If something bad happened, I would have no one to fall back on. I often wonder if he realized that. I think he did. As soon as we started officially dating, he began to leach his way into every aspect of my life so it would be impossible for me to leave him. He knew about my finances. He didn’t own a car, so he convinced me to get a better “mountain vehicle,” though I wasn’t allowed to sell my Pontiac. He would drive my fancy, new Volkswagen. I still drove my Pontiac to work. His reasoning: I had a shorter drive. The Pontiac shouldn’t be going far in the snow. At the time, it all sounded so convincing. However, he hadn’t quite convinced me to move in with him. “But you can get a puppy if you move in with me. You can’t have pets at your place.” I did want a dog, but he and I had only been together for a few months at this point. No way was I moving in with him.

But one day, he gave an argument so convincing, I had to say yes.

We were going to spend the weekend in a quiet little mountain town since he entered a skijoring competition. How Western, right? Skiers got pulled by a horse as they navigated a course. The drive up to that little mountain town was interesting though. Like most girls, I had done an extensive amount of creeping on Christopher — something just didn’t sit right with me about him. I found he had a record in his home state back East. It bothered me that he hadn’t brought most of it up. I also found out his father had spent a majority of Christopher’s life in prison. Christopher would never bring up his dad even when I tried to ask casually. For some reason, on the drive to the ranch, he did bring up his dad. It was weird hearing him tell the stories I had already read online. I felt guilty already knowing. (Remember how Christopher’s life motto was all about honesty?) Well, I decided to fess up. I told him how I found out about his dad already from the internet. He wasn’t mad, just disappointed, which was worse. He said it felt like I had violated his privacy, which, to an extent, he had a point. But he demanded to know how I was able to find his dad since they didn’t share a last name. He then wanted to know what possessed me to even start looking or why I thought I needed to know. The questions just kept coming, and I suddenly didn’t want to be spending a weekend alone with him.The skijoring competition was completely foreign to me. I had never even heard of the sport before Christopher told me about it. It was fun to watch. He did awful though. I didn’t even realize he was that drunk until I saw him compete. He could barely stand on his board.Later that night, I paid for our fancy dinner, and at check-out, I paid for our stay in the cabin at the ranch. He had to work the dinner shift at his roommate’s restaurant, so we left the little mountain town right after lunch on Sunday. The car ride back was awful. I felt like I was getting the flu. I had just spent the whole weekend outside in the cold. After the hour drive, I felt completely sick. He dropped me off and took my car to work. I was stranded at home and desperately needed some medicine and soup. I’m also a firm believer that orange juice fixes any sickness. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but mind over matter, right? I didn’t have any OJ either.I remember being so cold. I had turned the thermostat all the way up and was wrapped in my biggest blanket sitting in front of the gas fireplace and still my teeth were chattering away. I had absolutely no appetite. Christopher came over after his work shift. I fell asleep early as we watched Parks and Recreation. He woke me up around midnight. He had went through my browser history after I fell asleep. He was angry and yelling at me. I was still so achy from whatever illness I had contracted that all his words seemed to go in one ear and out the other. I knew why he was mad though.

He saw my detective work, how I knew about his record and all the sites about his dad. It was probably a little much for him to handle.

He also saw that I had been keeping in touch with one of my friends from college, a guy he had never met yet decided to hate. I feel a little weird admitting this, but this guy from college meant a lot to me, more than I can put into words. This college friend and I did have a history; Christopher knew that already though. I didn’t hide anything from Christopher about Bryce. He knew how I had felt for Bryce at one time. But I didn’t think he would be jealous. Christopher made it very clear that he had hooked up with many girls in the area and just because he had a girlfriend now didn’t mean he would stop hanging out with them. He promised he had told them he would no longer hook up with them, but since I didn’t know how to snowboard, he’d be taking those girls up the mountain with him. Or since I had to work early, he would go to Monday night bowling with them or open mic nights. I wasn’t the jealous type, and he had earned my trust at this point, so I believed him when he said he was just hanging out. I didn’t think I had a reason to think otherwise. So anyway, Christopher had found out I still talked to Bryce. He had told me before that he didn’t want me to talk to him ever again, but Bryce meant too much for me to do that. But it wasn’t a big deal, at least in my mind. Christopher still partied with Janelle, and texted Brigette, and had beers after work with Izzy. I was okay with it. Why couldn’t I keep in touch with my friend? But to him, it didn’t matter. He was furious. He woke me up just to yell at me and then left. It didn’t matter that he had violated my privacy by going through my browsing history. Looking back, I realize it’s the guilty ones who blame the innocent ones for their actions. That’s called projecting, right? Was he already cheating on me that early in our relationship that he felt the need to go through my browsing history? The thought of going through his phone or computer definitely had never crossed my mind at that point. So here I was, terribly sick, my symptoms getting worse with no car, no OJ and no medicine. By morning, I had decided to call in sick from work (not like I could get there anyway). I didn’t even have the strength to leave my bed. I couldn’t walk to the bathroom or the kitchen and why were my legs itchy all of a sudden? I had developed a blotchy rash all over my legs. Christopher had decided to go snowboarding that morning, so he didn’t have reception. It was around 2pm when Christopher came by my house. He was on his lunch break. He said something to the effect of “After finding out your little secret last night, you’re lucky I decided to check on you.”I felt so guilty. Looking back, I shouldn’t have, but I did. He took one look at me, and when he saw that I was too weak to walk, he told me he was going to take me to Urgent Care. I had no desire to go. “It’ll pass,” I said. I knew I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch at the ranch the day before, and I thought that’s why I was so weak. He insisted, so he grabbed me some slippers and half carried me to my car.

The experience at Urgent Care was all a blur, and it only got blurrier from there.

I remember the doctor telling Christopher that my blood pressure was almost non-existent and my white blood cell count had dropped so low that I needed to be taken to the ER right away. “Can you drive her? Fast?” the doctor had asked him. He gave Christopher a piece of paper with some results on it. They didn’t even ask me to pay; they wanted me at the hospital immediately. Apparently, I was close to dying. I didn’t even know it. When we got to the ER, the doctors told me, “You’re lucky your boyfriend came to check on you when he did. Otherwise, you would be dead in your apartment right now.” I was so sick, what they were telling me didn’t even phase me. It was a crazy coincidence though that Christopher came to my house when he did.Doctors and specialists began to ask me a series of questions about my health, but nothing I told them was pointing them toward a diagnosis. I was put into weird machines where they did all kinds of tests. Eventually, they moved me into the ICU where I was given a spinal tap. Still, all the tests came back negative. I was still almost on my deathbed, and no doctor had any idea why. Next, was my least favorite part of my whole hospital stay. I have a huge irrational fear (probably from watching too many episodes of Game of Thrones) that I will die by someone (I can’t even type it, honestly, this is an awful moment for me)...anyway, let’s just say that I HATE people touching my neck, and the doctor had to put a GIANT IV in my neck. It was huge and cumbersome, and I could not move my head. I hated it. But “it’ll make it easier to draw blood” the doctor told me since they would be doing tests on me multiple times a day until they had an answer. I spent a week in the ICU. A week. No answers. And during this time, I was so drugged up that anything Christopher told me, I was okay with. Somehow, he had convinced me not to tell my parents anything. I remember them texting me and me telling them I was in the hospital, but because I had that IV in my neck, I couldn’t talk on the phone. My parents knew absolutely nothing. And because this still shocks the hell out of me to this day, let me repeat: my parents were 24 hours away and I almost DIED. Died. With no friends in Montana. No family around. Died. But I was too drugged out to realize it. Under other circumstances, I would most definitely tell my parents I was in the hospital and had almost died. I remember wanting my parents to fly out and see me so badly, but I was manipulated into thinking I shouldn’t tell them anything. I had never felt so alone in my whole entire life. Being in a hospital already sucks. Having literally no one visit you is worse. Not having your parents there is the worst. Christopher wouldn’t even spend the night with me. He said the hospital chairs hurt his back. He would (sometimes) visit in the morning. He worked 10am-8pm. Sometimes he would visit on his lunch break, but not often. And then he would come for an hour or so after work. How lonely is that? And when he did come visit, he would sneak in whiskey in his water bottle or stink like the pot he had just smoked in the parking lot because “it was too hard” for him to see his girlfriend in the hospital. He couldn’t deal on his own. I remember one night, I begged him to stay the night. The pain medication they were giving me was causing me to have these horrible nightmares. I remember dreaming that my nurse was trying to kill me. When I woke up, I didn’t realize I had been dreaming and started screaming when she came in the room. I couldn’t keep dreamworld apart from reality. I guess this happens often enough that my nurse understood what was happening, but, god, all I wanted was Christopher to stay the night with me after that happened. I pleaded with him, but he wouldn’t, so instead, I asked my nurse to take me off the medication, and I dealt with the crippling pain. It was better than the nightmares that reminded me just how alone I was. I couldn’t even see the fucking mountains from my window. I hated everything about being kept up in that hospital room. By the end of the week, they decided to move me from the ICU to a regular room. I wanted out so bad. I hated it there. I was so alone. I had finished every episode of Parks and Recreation. I didn’t feel like reading. I was going crazy. And where was Christopher? I had no idea. The worst part of it all was they still had absolutely no idea what happened to me. They never did find out, not even when I would go in for additional blood draws in the summer.

But back to the beginning of this story.

Remember how Christopher had managed to crawl his way into every aspect of my life in order to take complete control of me? Well, after I got out of the hospital, he finally had a convincing argument: “You have to move in with me. If you get sick again, you live on the other side of town. I can’t possibly make it there in time to get you to the hospital or be there to take care of you.”The bait worked. He was right. I didn’t want to die, especially not alone in my apartment. I guess I would be moving in after all. I was still hesitant, but I knew he had a point. How could I say no? The fact that they had no idea what caused my illness made me extremely anxious. Over a year down the road, after our breakup, a thought popped into my head, and it wouldn’t leave: he poisoned you. I’ve seen Breaking Bad. They wouldn’t test for poison unless they had a reason too, right? I texted a friend who was a nurse. It was definitely possibility. She couldn’t give any concrete answers, but that was all I needed – that it was a possibility. Christopher had gotten a hold of me. He needed some closure. He wanted to know why I had ended things – which “guy I was fucking” behind his back. He disgusted me. I almost ignored his message until I saw how he ended it: “I hope you don’t ever forget who was by your side in that hospital bed.” I shuttered. I felt a nauseous feeling build up in my stomach. How sick of him to bring that up and how unnecessary. It’s like he thought he could still manipulate me with those words. That hospital stay was no coincidence. There was no way I was turning down the opportunity to see him now. When we met up, the words “I know you poisoned me when I ended up in that hospital bed” left my mouth. His face turned white. He didn’t deny it, and his expression told me everything. He poisoned me. Almost killed me. But why? So I would move in. So he could have complete control over my life. So he could manipulate me with the fact that he saved my life. That’s exactly why.And that sick piece of shit is still out there roaming free.