Read Coma Girl: part 2 for Free Online Page B

isn’t a visitor. And now that my brain is working more efficiently, I remember the first time a photo had been leaked, I suspected it was someone who’d recently been in the room, but I couldn’t remember their identity. But now I remember, and once again, the timing is right: the volunteer who reads to us.
    I’d thought he was visiting to be a nice human being, but while I was soaking up the poetry, was he snapping photos of me to sell to the highest bidder?
    Who was he, exactly?
     
     
     
     

August 17, Wednesday
     
     
    “PEACE BE WITH YOU, ladies.”
    And also with you.
    Sister Irene stopped by each bed and murmured a prayer for my ward mates, and for me. But I confess I blocked out the words—God and I are not on the best terms of late. I’m pretty perturbed at being trapped like this, and to have glimpses of hope snatched away… it’s inhumane. And it goes against everything I was taught in school about a loving God. What possible good could come from me lying here? From all of us lying here? It’s starting to feel as if we’re being toyed with.
    “I see the flowers are still coming in, Marigold.”
    Yes, the scents I’d once found comforting were now cloying. But she made a show of sniffing and cooing over the arrangements.
    “I heard on the news the young man involved in your accident is going to be charged with DUI. And it sounds as if other charges are pending related to your condition.”
    Rightly so.
    “I don’t know what God has in store for you, Marigold, but in the event he chooses to take you home, you should use this time to confess your sins, and offer forgiveness to your enemies so you will meet Him with a pure heart.”
    Ack—I hadn’t thought of that. Am I so wicked that God is giving me a chance to come clean before taking the rest of me?
    Leave it to a nun to put it all back on me.
    “If you can hear me, Marigold, try to put yourself in this young man’s shoes—imagine the guilt he has to lie down with every night. This incident will taint the rest of his life.”
    Sister, I’d love to put myself in Keith Young’s shoes—because he’s walking around, talking, and feeding himself. He wasn’t thinking of anyone but himself when he drank and then got behind the wheel, and now I’m going to be selfish, too.
    “You will feel better if you forgive him.”
    I’m not listening… la la la… la la la.
    “At least that’s what they all told me,” she murmured.
    I stopped. Huh?
    “They all told me I’d feel better if I forgave the man who killed my sister,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “But actually, the only thing that made me feel better was imagining gouging out his eyeballs with a snail fork.”
    Wow. Wait—there’s such a thing as a snail fork?
    “So I told everyone—Mother Superior, the priest, and even the bishop that I forgave the murdering scumbag, but I didn’t. That would have been a betrayal to my dear sister, and to me, that was a bigger sin.”
    I’m with you, Sister.
    Then she made a rueful noise. “You want to know something?”
    There’s more?
    “He’s out on parole, the animal. And ever since I found out, all I can think about is finding him and killing him.”
    What? She couldn’t mean that.
    “Not just killing him, but torturing him… filleting him like a fish, then cutting him up, piece by piece, like he did to my sister.”
    Okay, maybe she did mean it.
    “I know where he lives,” she whispered.
    If I could feel anything, I’m pretty sure the hair would be standing up on my arms.
    Then a mewling sound escaped her, like a wounded animal, grating against my ear drums. But in that one guttural noise I sensed a tiny bit of how she had suffered. Her footsteps sounded quickly in the direction of the door. She stopped suddenly.
    “Peace be with you,” she said in a rush, then left.
    And also with —wait… holy crap, had a nun just confessed to planning a murder?
     
     
     

August 18, Thursday
     
     
    YOU MIGHT THINK ALL COMA