Or as emotionally drained. The hospital room is quiet except for the beeping of Carly's heart monitor. She's been out for eighteen hours. I rub her fingers, my own hand bandaged with heavy white gauze. Her face is swollen down the right side; her mouth is almost twice the size it should be. A big white bandage covers the eleven stitches she needed to close the wound on her head and her swollen eye. Nick has major head trauma as well as a broken nose, but that's not enough. I wanted to kill him, to rip his head right off. Claire peeks around the edge of the door before coming in with a big vase of sunflowers. Her eyes are red and she looks terrified. "Hey," I say, concentrating on Carly's sleeping body. "How is she?" she asks, placing the flowers on a table by the window. She puts her purse in the other chair and sits down. "Same as this morning," I mutter. "She did squeeze my hand earlier, though." "That's a good sign," she says. Claire's eyes fill up and she lets the tears fall. I turn to her and shake my head.
