CHAPTER 42

When my eyes crack open, the world is black and empty. Maybe I"m not awake after all. Maybe I"m dead. But as I turn my head, something cool and soft glides across my cheek. Satiny sheets. They"re over me and under me, and my head is cushioned by a fat, fluffy pillow. The green numbers on the digital clock next to my bed read 11:51. I"ve woken up plenty and not known where I was, but as the hotel room comes back to me, I realize I"ve done it two mornings in a row. The blackness from the heavy curtains doesn"t help. My arm is numb. It"s an improvement over the first time I woke up this morning, when it felt as if each muscle was being peeled from my fingers to my elbow. Once when I was a kid, a brick from a construction site my friends and I were screwing around at fell on my hand from a stack a few feet high. I couldn"t feel my fingers for a co