There was an Accident

"Fuck fuck fuck," she swore as she climbed down off the bed, still staring at the package on the tray table.

"What? What's wrong?" Todd asked. He sounded scared, even to himself.

"I brought it, and fucking forgot to use it," she said as she held up the unopened condom for Todd to see.

"I gotta go, Todd," Kim spoke quietly as she pulled her pants on.

"Sorry, Kim."

"Not your fault. It's OK, probably. See you tomorrow night. I love you, and that big erection you get just for me," she whispered before kissing her brother on the lips and hurrying out the door.

He was sweating and breathing hard by the time he managed to get his diaper fastened closed and the sheet pulled up over his body. In addition to using a condom when she fucked him, she had forgotten to cover him up before she left.

Chapter 24

"Todd?"

"Todd?"

"Todd."

"Todd!"

"What!" Todd tried to shout, but it came out as a half strangled squeak. He tried to sit up, but felt like he was buried in sand too deep to push himself out of.

"What?" he whispered, but not at whatever demon from hell was calling his name, but what he was feeling.

He had been dreaming.

He was running and dancing on a beach, hand in hand with a beautiful blond girl. Her long, straight hair flowing behind her as they moved together, laughing.

His mind almost refused to remember reality, but it came flooding back as the cobwebs of slumber and dreaming were swept away.

He wanted to go back to sleep, to continue the dream. Reality sucked too much for Todd.

"Todd, it's breakfast time."

He slowly turned his head to look at the nurse. She was holding up a pouch filled with clear, light brown liquid and a tube coming out one end.

"Breakfast?"

"You need to eat something. Liquids only, to start with. You're not going to get your strength, or muscles back until you can eat solid foods, but you need to start with liquids. Your body wouldn't react well if you ate anything solid just yet."

"What's it taste like?"

"I'm supposed to say strawberries," she told him, but continued in a whisper "did you ever eat paste when you were a kid?"

"I don't remember ever being a kid."

"Oh yeah. Well, it's not good."

"Great."

"Try to drink at least half of it. You may not keep it all down. Baby steps for right now."

She smiled as she set the pouch on the tray next to his head, adjusted his bed, then held the end of the tube to his lips.

"You can squeeze the pouch just a little to help, so you don't need to work so hard right now. Take your time."

"Thanks...maybe."

The liquid was thin. Todd wondered if the slight sweet taste behind the heavy nasty taste on top was strawberries. It tasted kind of pink, and he wondered what a strawberry looked like.

"Are you here just to supervise, and make sure I don't dump it under my bed?"

"Not really. Take your time." She was still smiling at him, but remained standing next to him.

Todd pressed his hand down onto the pouch, and swallowed a big gulp of the nasty fluid. He reasoned that the quicker he got through, the sooner it would be over and he could do more important things. Like sleep, and maybe dream.

He threw up.

The mess down his chest, across his lap and onto his upper legs seemed to contain more fluid than he had swallowed.

"That's why I'm standing here," the nurse told him, as she stepped into a doorway behind him. When she returned a few seconds later she had clean bedding and a fresh gown in her arms.

"You need to go slow. Your stomach hasn't had anything in it for...a while, and needs to get used to it."

Todd noticed her hesitation when she came to saying how long.

"Six months."

"Somebody told you," the nurse nodded. It wasn't a question.

"Can I see a mirror?" The question just came out. Todd hadn't thought about it until he heard himself ask. He didn't remember what he looked like.

"Not right now. You need to finish your gruel, and then we need to get you up and take a tour of the hospital."

"You're afraid it will make me throw up if I look at myself when I'm supposed to be eating?"

He actually was worried now. He was sure his injury involved his head, and was imagining how disfigured he might be from it.

Kim had not seemed to find him repulsive looking, but she had several months to get used to it before he woke up.

"No, Todd. It's just that you have more important things to worry about than your pretty face," she replied with a smile and wink.

Chapter 25

Todd managed to consume about half the pouch of his breakfast, the fast he was breaking had been about six months long. He had managed to keep the rest of it down, after considering what he had vomited, and only gagged a few times.

"Good job, Todd. How was it?"

"Mm, yummy," Todd replied sarcastically. "You were right, not good."

"You did good. You kept most of it down. How are you feeling?"

"Just like it tasted, not good." Todd's stomach was feeling like it didn't want to have anything in it.

"You'll be fine."

The nurse left without saying anything else, and Todd closed his eyes.

"Nap time," he told himself.

"Todd, there's no time for a nap now," the nurse announced when she returned a few seconds later.

Todd opened one eye and scowled in the direction of her voice.

He opened his other eye. She was flanked by two men, also dressed in scrubs, and one of them was holding the handles of a wheelchair.

"Am I going somewhere?" Todd said with trepidation in his voice. The only thing he knew was this room, and the view directly outside his door.

"You're getting a tour!" the nurse told him. He could hear excitement in her voice.

Todd knew he could barely move himself. The memory of his arm flopping off the bed last night when he tried to comfort Kim played in his mind. He couldn't envision getting out of the bed and into that wheelchair.

Having two men was overkill. The men approached his bed and one of them, the smaller of the two even, scooped him up with an arm behind his back and the other under his knees, turned, and gently put him in the chair.

Todd hadn't considered really examining himself until the man lifted him off the bed. He gave himself the excuse that it had only been a day since he could move himself, and that day had been filled with doctors and nurses, his family, and sex with his sister.

His legs looked like sticks. He could see the bones of his shins and feet. His skin seemed stretched around his bones. His gown clung to his thighs and hips, and he looked like a skeleton under it.

Todd's head rolled back against the chair and he closed his eyes. His head was spinning, and he felt like he was going to throw up again.

"Todd! Todd, keep your eyes open," the nurse ordered.

He opened his eyes, but made no effort to raise his head. He saw spots, everywhere, and everything looked dark, in spite of the room's lights being on.

"You're dizzy. Your heart is fine, but it's struggling right now to pump blood to your extremities. It hasn't had to do that for a long...for six months."

His vision cleared as she spoke, but he still felt light-headed. He tried to raise his head, but only managed to get it almost off the chair before he had to let it rest again.

"Oh, this isn't fun," he whispered.

"Just like your stomach, Todd, baby steps."

Todd started to close his eyes again.

"Keep your eyes open. It will help with the dizziness."

The nurse snapped a buckle closed on a belt around his waist.

"Ready?"

"I don't know. You tell me," he replied weakly.

Chapter 26

The tour wasn't as much fun as Todd had hoped. The nurse walked beside him as he was wheeled through a seemingly endless maze of hallways. She chattered constantly, without really saying anything interesting, and eventually he quit listening to her words.

He had no idea how long they wheeled through the hallways. To Todd it seemed like days. He wanted to look outside, but the only windows they passed were small, and too far away for him to get a good look out.

His dizziness never completely went away, but it did improve, slightly. He was glad when they finally returned to his room and he was lifted back onto his bed. He was exhausted.

Chapter 27

Todd wasn't happy when the nurse woke him, mostly because he hadn't been able to conjure the dream of being on the beach again.

"Lunch time!" she said after his head cleared from sleep.

"Oh good. What do we have now? Strawberry flavored crap, or another delicacy?"

"Banana this time."

"Banana," Todd mumbled slowly. That was a strange word.

He closed his eyes and said the word again in his mind. He pictured a boat, a large sail boat with several sails. He hoped that wasn't a banana; he couldn't imagine a boat tasting better than strawberries.

"All I taste is crap," he told her after his first sip.

"Yeah, banana isn't my favorite either."

"Am I getting another ride after lunch?"

"Not today. Baby steps. Maybe you'll get a morning tour and an afternoon tour tomorrow, but probably not."

"I didn't really enjoy the tour anyway."

"It will get better, I promise, Todd."

He hoped she was right.

"Anyway, there's a woman here to see you. She's been waiting. Do you feel like a visitor?"

"A woman? Who?"

The nurse shrugged. "Do you feel like a visitor?"

"Is it Kim? My sister?"

"No, I don't know who she is. If you want me to, I'll tell her you're not up to it."

"You do know my sister, right?"

"Yep. Everybody knows Kim. Lovely girl."

"I guess I can see her."

Todd was curious.

"Hello, Todd," the woman said firmly from his doorway soon after he finished his lunch. She was dressed in a loose tan blouse buttoned up to her chin and a dark brown skirt. Her skirt wasn't exactly tight, but form fitting, and stopped just below her knees. Todd saw few, if any, curves on her body. Her posture was very straight, and her feet, inside dark, high heeled shoes, were perfectly lined up beside each other.

"Hi?"

"I'm Zahra Muzainah."

"Hi."

Her name sounded exotic, but her voice didn't have an accent. She spoke just like everybody else. Maybe a little deeper than the other women he knew, but not foreign.

"May I sit down?"

"Sure, I guess."

Todd watched her as far as he could without moving his head, as she strode toward the chairs against the wall.

His bed was inclined about halfway to the upright position. He would need to turn his head almost completely to the side to look at her, and he didn't feel like it.

"Sorry, can you move your chair? Like maybe next to the foot of the bed. It's hard for me to move much."

"OK, sure."

He did cut his eyes toward her as she struggled with the chair. Her dark red fingernail polish at the end of her long, graceful fingers as they wrapped around the arm of the chair looked sexy to him. She had a nice butt poking out behind her. Her knees were together and feet splayed out, pointing inward in her high heel shoes while she struggled to move the chair. His penis twitched in his diaper.

She looked different than the people he knew. Her hair was solid black with straight bangs just above dark eyebrows and black eyes, and it swayed back and forth in front of her chest as she struggled with the chair. Her skin was more light brown than the pink he was used to seeing.

"Thank you," he whispered as she got the chair positioned at the side of his bed, further away than Kim sat, but not as far as the foot of the bed.

She sat down and crossed her legs. Her skirt rose up over her knees as she brushed her hair back behind her shoulders. She appeared to be older than Kim, but by only a few years. Todd thought she had very nice legs.

Todd could feel his penis thicken inside his diaper.

"I'm sorry. Zahra, is it?"

"Yes, my name is Zahra.

"I don't remember anything from before, um, I got like this. Do I know you?"

"We've never met. How are you feeling?"

"Um, OK, I guess."

"That's good. I've been following, well, your recovery. In the news."

"Thanks. Why?"

"I wanted to meet you, and maybe talk just a little."

"I mean, why did you follow my recovery?" He really wanted to know why the news involved him, but maybe a total stranger wasn't the one to ask that.

"I have, well, a vested interest in it, I guess you could say."

"We've never met. Why would you have any interest in my recovery?"

"Because your condition, and prospects for recovery, have a bearing on how much of my inheritance I will be sharing with you."

Todd studied her face. It sounded like English to him, but very little of it made sense.

Zahra stood, and looked around the room.

"This isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I thought there would be a window I could look out of when I had this conversation with you. I didn't want you to have to look at me."

Her eyes were on the floor as she took a tentative step toward Todd.

"My father was driving the car that hit you and Kelly."

"Who is Kelly?" Todd wondered to himself. It took him a second, then he realized Kelly had been his girlfriend. He hadn't known her name until Zahra said it.

"They, my parents, had been celebrating. My grandfather was a rather wealthy man, back in Qatar, and his estate had just settled."

"My father didn't usually drink. He was a Muslim, but my mother wasn't, and over the years she had influenced him to break his traditions more and more.

"They were both extremely intoxicated.

"I'm really sorry, Todd," she whispered.

Todd nodded. He thought he should be angry at her story, but he wasn't. He didn't miss Kelly. He didn't remember her. He didn't know what his life was before what he knew now.

Zahra raised her eyes to Todd's face. He saw tears glisten on her light brown cheeks.

"Your mom is a white woman?"

Zahra cocked her head quizzically.

"Yes. She was."

Todd nodded again. That explained her features and complexion. She was half Arabic, and half white.

Her word choice then struck him.

"She was?"

"They both died. He immediately, but she died the following day."

"Nobody has told me anything about the accident, except it was a drunk driver."

"My parents only had to go one mile on the freeway to get home, but in that mile they got to over a hundred miles an hour, crossed through the median and hit you and Kelly head on. They were only half a mile from home. He shouldn't have been driving at all, but they almost got home."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Todd consoled her.

Zahra stared at Todd.

"Seriously? You're sorry for my loss?"

She sat back down, and covered her face in her hands.

He could hear her sobs.

Todd watched her cry. When he noticed her knees were open and that he could see up her skirt, his erection grew to full size and throbbed inside his diaper. He felt a little uncomfortable but couldn't stop staring between her legs at her white panties.

Zahra leaned back and let her head hang back over the top of the chair back, still covering her face with her hand.

"I wasn't going to cry," Zahra moaned.

Todd reluctantly tore his gaze from her light brown thighs and white panties.

"I don't really feel like I've lost anything. My life consists only of this bed. I don't remember my girlfriend. Kelly? I can't miss a life I don't remember. You shouldn't feel bad for me."

She sat up and pushed her knees together. Her black hair was a little disheveled and her black eyes were rimmed in red.

"I can see what you've lost. I saw the pictures of you in the papers and on TV. There were videos, a cross country meet, home video of you and Kelly. You're not even the same person now."

"What? My pictures were in the papers and on TV? Why?" Todd couldn't imagine what she was describing.

"It's kind of a thing. The accident, the aftermath, your coma, Kelly's funeral...It's been a shit storm of anti-Arab hate."

Todd tried to shake his head, but he was too weak.

"I don't get it."

"An Arab was drunk. That Arab was driving a car. That car, driven by a drunk Arab, killed a blond haired teenage white girl and maimed a blond haired teenage white boy."

Zahra stood up and smoother her skirt over her thighs. She took a few steps toward Todd, then turned away and walked behind her chair. She seemed to be looking into the hallway outside his room.

"People hate Arabs because one of them hit a couple of kids while he was driving drunk? Is it a rare thing for people to drive drunk or something?"

"No."

Zahra stood motionless. Todd felt a little uncomfortable. He didn't know why she was here, and he didn't know what to say.

"You don't hate me, Todd?"

"I don't have a reason to hate you, do I?"

"Some people would."

"Zahra, I don't even understand why you're here."

"Todd, thank you for listening. Maybe one day you will hate me, but I hope not."

Zahra turned and looked at Todd, and smiled through the tears still running down her cheeks.

"Good bye, Todd."

Chapter 28

"Dinner time, Todd."

It was a new voice that woke him. He didn't remember dreaming, but tried to hide his disappointment. He opened one eye to look at the person bringing his crap flavored meal.

This was a younger woman than any of the nurses he was familiar with, and quite plump.

"So what flavor crap do you have for me?"

"Peach tonight. It's delicious though."

"So it's better than strawberry and, um, what was the other one? Some weird name. I don't remember."

"Cherry? Fruit Medley? Banana?"

"That's the one. Banana. What's banana?"

"Long, yellow, fruit. Or is it a vegetable? One of the two. It's what monkeys eat."

"Monkeys eat them, and you're trying to feed them to me?"

"People eat them too."

"What's a monkey?"

Chapter 29

Todd woke up slowly, and opened his eyes. His room was dark except for the lamp behind him. When he turned his head to look around the room, he found Kim curled up under a blanket in a chair beside his bed.

She was asleep.

He felt a smile blossom on his lips. He wished he hadn't made her wait on him, but was happy he got this chance to just look at her. Her curly blond hair hung loosely over the blanket across her shoulder, and a few strands draped across her face. His mouth watered a little bit at the sight of her pink lips, barely parted around just a tiny hint of her top teeth. He wanted so badly to kiss them, but knew he couldn't reach.

Todd slowly let his eyes roam down her body under the blanket. One hand clutched the blanket to her chest, her delicate fingers peeked out, and wrapped around a wad of the soft material. He could make out her knees pulled up, not quite into a fetal position, and one bare foot seemed to be trying to escape toward him.

She was the most beautiful creature Todd could imagine. He knew he had little to base his assessment on. She was the only girl he knew.

Besides Zahra.

Todd frowned.

Why had she intruded on his thoughts? Her face came into focus in his mind. She was staring at him, tears running down her cheeks and past the corners of her open mouth. Even then, she had a pretty face.

He had not enjoyed her visiting him, neither today nor tonight in his memory.

"Todd? Are you mad?"

Kim's voice chased Zahra from his mind, and his eyes moved from her pretty little toes, now pulled up under the cover, to his sister's blue eyes.

"No, Kim, I'm not mad. Why did you think that?"

"You were frowning."

"I was just remembering...something."

"Oh my god! You remember something?" Kim sat up in the chair and the blanket fell down her body into her lap.

"No...no. Not like that. Something from today."

"Oh," Kim sighed, her disappointment obvious on her face.

"Do you know Zahra?"

Kim's eyes widened, then quickly narrowed into a scowl.

"Yes. I mean...I know who she is, I don't actually know her. We've never met, but I've seen her...around."