Free The System #2 by Shelbi Wescott

syrup.   He was in his own room, in his own bed. Everything was the way it had been before: there was his desk, still littered with homework from his college classes; and there, on his dresser, was a picture of him and Anna on the mountain, holding snowboards and each other, smiling under thick goggles. His laundry basket overflowed with the clothes he wore several weeks ago, those pants and shirts forever relegated to an unwashed pile.
    His blinds were shut tight, but light slipped between the slats. Ethan tried to raise his hand, but it barely moved. Nothing was working right—his body defied every command and Ethan groaned. Then he felt wetness across his abdomen and he turned his head to see the girl—the curly haired one, with the long legs, the high forehead, and the aquiline nose—bathing him, section by section, with a tub of baby wipes. The girl, Ainsley, he remembered, but only barely, lifted his left arm and ran a wipe down under his armpit and across his side; he emitted some noise of disapproval and tried to pull away from her, but his limbs were beyond his control.
    She set his arm back down and paused, looking at him, her head turned, without saying a word.
    “How’s your pain level?” Ainsley asked clinically when the silence had become too oppressive. No greetings, no small-talk.
    The mention of pain sent Ethan’s nerves tingling and his leg began to ache on command. Deep, throbbing, shooting waves of pain emanated from his upper thigh and traveled down to his toes.  
    “My leg hurts,” he replied.
    “On a scale from one to ten?” the girl asked.  
    He hated that question. His pain could not be quantified in numbers. It was excruciating, his leg throbbing; he was unable to think of anything else besides the pain. However, if he said ten, then there was nowhere to go—if the pain got worse, could he just add a number to the scale? And what if he said eight, but they assumed an eight was manageable? This was not manageable.
    “It just really fu—freaking hurts,” he snapped at her. But Ainsley didn’t flinch or blink or seemed disturbed by his outburst. She just stared at him, her big brown eyes locked onto his, and then she nodded once—a mechanical action, without warmth or objection. She picked the heavy blanket off of Ethan and folded it over her arm, and then she bent down over Ethan’s leg and inspected his stump.
    It was the first time Ethan had seen his leg after surgery. He had forgotten.
    He could feel his toes. His calf hurt. A sharp shooting pain traveled from his absent knee down to his aching ankles. But there was nothing there—he felt pain in places that didn’t exist. Ethan felt weak and light-headed. He had forgotten. And now he remembered. His right leg was gone.  
    “I’m sorry,” Ainsley said and Ethan didn’t know if she was sorry for his amputation or sorry for showing him the swollen, puckered remnants of his leg.
    “I need…something,” Ethan said to her, his mouth dry, the words barely forming on his tongue. He closed his eyes and Ainsley placed the blanket back over his legs, shielding the grotesqueness from the world, hiding it away.  
    “My mom will be up soon to administer your medication.”
    “Are you what, like, my nurse?” Ethan asked and he tried to smile, but it came off like a grimace. Ainsley didn’t seem to notice.
    “I was going to be a nurse. Before.” She moved the wipes to the side and stood by the side of his bed, her arms dangling down at her sides, unmoving. She didn’t continue, didn’t launch into the history of her life. She just looked at him, blinking.  
    “Not a doctor? Didn’t want to follow in your mom’s footsteps?” Ethan asked. He had no interest in keeping the conversation going, but Ainsley didn’t look like she was leaving and he hated awkward silences. He didn’t know much about the doctor and her daughter. They appeared in a blur, their initial introductions now lost in a drug and fever-induced haze, but