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The gurney Laney was sitting on had a wobbly wheel. Laney always seemed to have the terrible luck of wobbly wheels: it was her curse in supermarkets especially, every cart she steered trying hard to veer itself left or right on that damned wobbly wheel. It squeaked when it moved, just the sort of garish noise that was so often synonymous with Laney's presence itself. She was a wobbly wheel -- generally it rolled like wheels were supposed to, but with non-stop fidgeting and always getting itself off-course. She was prone to tangents.

Actually, she wished she'd gone off on a tangent clear out of this hospital, if the truth were to be told. The hospital reminded her of things she had no particular care for. She'd lost more than a year of her life -- her stupid, dead-end life -- sleeping under its flickering flourescents. Laney hated everything neat and orderly and regimental about it now, from the meals that came at the same times daily, compartmentalized into sections on the orange plastic tray, to the lights that shuttered off mercilessly at ten o'clock at night. She hated the bedtime, and the sleeping -- God, the sleeping! -- and every night, she had fought against the downward sink of unconsciousness pulling her down.

The next one will be permanent, her mind always seemed to warn. The next time, you won't wake up. Not everyone has a right to a tomorrow.

So instead of sleeping, she napped now -- her cell phone alarm ringing her safely awake after two hours at a stretch -- from ten to midnight, from four to six, from ten to noon, and from four to six again. Maybe it was meaningless. Maybe, as the internet suggested, it was unhealthy. But it was within her control -- and that feeling was heady and addictive. Every time she forced herself awake and out of bed, or off the couch, in the face of the exhaustion and the slightly queasy feeling, was a victory.

She hated it here at the hospital, hated all their tests and their charts and the way it all made her feel powerless and unsure again. She was tired of measurements. There were so many measurements.

And Laney was tired of waiting. Hospitals were never prompt -- she'd been sitting outside the MRI room for the last twenty-five minutes, dangling her feet back and forth off the side of a gurney, her usual cheerful face on, in hopes of attracting company. Waiting was so lonely. Across the way was a flatscreen television, and although at first she'd been relieved to have it there, she soon realized it was just playing a six-minute loop of drug commercials and health advisories. Was she watching her cholesterol? Did she know that fifteen minutes a day outdoors could stave off a Vitamin D deficiency? Had she heard about the benefits of Levitra? Well, she had now.

Someone turned the corner to come down the hall, and Laney's ears perked up immediately. A doctor, finally? No -- she was too young, unless Doogie Howser, M.D. had come stunningly to life in the body of a young girl. That was unlikely. Still, she was someone, a real live human person, and Laney was feeling as desperate as she ever had.

"Hi," she called out from her gurney, waving one hand and both legs. "Hi! What are you in for?"