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It happens fast.
They have a few hours until their gig and decide to go swimming beyond the festival grounds. Have to climb a fence to get to the water.
One second Olli is climbing the chain-wire fence, is right on top of it, and the next he’s falling the rest of the way, ankles bending all wrong when he hits the ground, and an excruciating pain lights up his right hand. He yelps. Niko, having already climbed the fence, is blinking down at him.
“What the fuck was that, Olli?” he asks, amusement coloring his voice.
And Olli is blinking back tears because his hand really fucking hurts, more so than his ankles or ass.
“I fell,” Olli says, trying to process what happened. “I think my foot slipped.”
“No shit,” Joel says from the other side of the fence.
Olli shakes his hand, trying to dislodge the pain then pushes himself to his feet.
“Fuck Olli, your hand!” Joonas shouts next to Joel.
Olli looks down at his hand for the first time, he’s squeamish and usually avoids looking at injuries, but Joonas seems concerned and if it’s concerning Olli should know, right?
He’s bleeding, enough for it to have pooled in his palm and dripped down his fingers.
Except his pointer finger.
It’s just gone, only a gory wound left where the bump of his knuckle used to be.
Olli’s vision blurs before his eyes, he feels bile rising up his throat, instinctively covering his mouth with his uninjured hand. It’s no use, it fills his mouth and runs over his hand, dripping to the ground. He can feel himself stumbling, and then Niko is catching him by the shoulders, stabilizing him. Olli closes his eyes knowing that Niko is holding him upright and that his own vision is absolutely no help to his balance at the moment.
“Hey, hey, stay with me!” Niko says, voice serious. A moment later Olli feels more hands on him and Joonas’ voice—a lot closer now—says, “He should sit down.”
And the hands are gently pushing him to the ground. Joonas must have climbed the fence, Olli’s fuzzy brain supplies—without ripping out his own finger. Unlike the fucking clumsy idiot that Olli is. He can feel tears burning in his eyes, hot as they roll down his cheeks and neck. The others have propped him up against the fence. His bleeding hand is in his lap, he thinks that might be the wrong way to deal with the situation, but his mind is too fuzzy to voice it.
“Stay with me,” Niko says again, shaking his shoulders which makes Olli’s head rattle against the chain-wire fence, and he blinks his eyes open. Niko looks relieved.
Olli makes himself say, “I’m awake. But I feel like I’m going to puke.” He presses his hand against his mouth again when he feels bile rising. Heswallows it down. “Please don’t make me say more stuff.”
Niko nods in understanding. “Okay. You’ll be okay…” he reassures Olli, voice all mumbly, like perhaps he’s trying to convince himself, too.
Then Joonas is crouching down next to him also, he looks apologetic as he says, “Sorry bro, there’s no road on this side of the fence. You need to climb over it again. You can rest for a bit while we try to wrap up your hand.”
Olli nods, closing his eyes again. He hears fabric rustling and then someone is lifting his hand, pressing fabric into the nothingness next to his middle finger. Fuck. He can feel them wrapping it around his hand a few times.
Then Joonas and Niko help him to his feet and Joonas climbs to the top of the fence, Olli follows on autopilot, paying extra attention to both hands. His right is wrapped in Niko’s dark t-shirt. Niko helps him push up, holding his hips, while Joonas grabs him when he reaches the top.
Back on the other side Joel receives him, holding him up when Olli stumbles in his direction. He’s exhausted, lets his eyes slip closed again.
The others’ crowd around them a second later and Olli hears Joel whisper to them, “I found the finger. It fell.”
Olli’s stomach turns.
Joonas makes the call for an ambulance while they are walking back to the backstage area of the festival, Olli is stumbling along with Joel and Niko supporting him on either side.
It’s chaotic after that. Olli is deposited on a sofa backstage while Joel runs around yelling about getting ice to cool the finger. Niko has run off to the gate to guide the ambulance in the right direction while Joonas is staying with him.
He’s rubbing soothing hands down Olli’s back and mumbling reassurances, “The ambulance is going to be here any second, they are going to sew it back on, you’ll be as good as new, I promise.”
Before long he hears the siren of the ambulance. Distantly, he wonders what the fans waiting for the festival to open will think.
When the paramedics enter the tent Olli lets himself be maneuvered into the ambulance by them. He hears bits and pieces of Niko recounting the story to one of them. One of them is allowed to ride along with him. Joel volunteers and is told he has to sit in the cab.
The paramedic in the back with him tells Olli that she’s going to place an IV line to administer pain medication. Olli makes a noise of agreement. Pain medication sounds nice.
After that they start driving and Olli drifts off again, this time because of the dulled pain.
When he wakes again it’s in a hospital bed. He blinks, trying to remember how he got there. His right hand is throbbing and Olli looks down at it. It’s wrapped in thick layers of gauze and Olli remembers.
Shit.
He sighs, lets his eyes wander. Which is when he spots Joel sitting on his left side, wearing earphones and his phone in his hand.
“Joel,” Olli says to get his attention and Joel’s head snaps up.
“Oh shit, Olli! You’re awake,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
Olli has to think about that for a second. “Weird.” He settles on.
“I can imagine,” Joel replies, voice somber, “I should get the nurse.”
And with that he’s out of his chair and the room. Olli follows him with his eyes, then keeps looking at the door, waiting for him to return.
Some time later, Olli has almost drifted off again, someone knocks and a nurse followed by Joel enters his room.
He sits down again, scraping the chair’s legs over the linoleum floor while he repositions it closer to Olli’s bed, taking his uninjured hand into his own. He squeezes it.
On his other side the nurse greets him and introduces herself. She looks apologetic when she tells him that they couldn’t re-attach his finger.
Olli’s blood roars in his ears, drowning out the rest of what the nurse says. He feels Joel squeeze his hand harder.
After that he only nods along to what she says, nothing really sinking in but he seems to appear collected enough because she leaves.
Then it’s only Joel and him again. Olli looks at him and Joel is resting his chin on the bed close to Olli’s hand. He has tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry. All of the guys are. For everything,” he says.
“It’s not your fault,” Olli replies on auto-pilot.
Joel looks up at him, swallows visibly, then he says, “But what if it is? Olli, what if it is?”
He sounds wrecked, voice hoarse.
“We climbed that fucking fence. And I overheard the doctors. We did it wrong. Fuck, we did it all wrong. You went into shock because we didn’t lay you down and elevated and bandaged your hand fast enough. We made you walk back to the festival!” Joel sounds so upset.
“It’s okay,” Olli croaks, he feels his throat closing up.
“It’s not! Fuck, I didn’t give them the cup with your finger and took it with me on the front seat. Fuck, the paramedics would have noticed sooner that I did it all wrong. I googled and we should have wrapped it and then put it into a knotted plastic bag. Then put that plastic bag into a second one and filled that one with cold water and maybe a few ice cubes. Instead I put it straight in a cup of ice!” Joel is speaking fast now, having gotten louder and faster as he went on.
“Hey, it’s okay, perhaps it couldn’t have been saved anyway.” Olli says, the lump in his throat expands. It hurts to say that. To accept that his finger is just gone now.
Joel protests again, “Olli, I read it. It’s not! We froze your finger and then they would have had to thaw it. They say it's like microwaving frozen berries. I turned your finger into mush… It’s my fault…”
The silence after that is deafening. Olli feels sick. He sees his mushy severed finger getting tossed into the biohazard waste of the hospital. The Cup upended over a trash can, his finger and the melting ice falling. Like spoilt food. No good anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Joel says over and over while Olli looks at the ceiling, tears running down his cheeks again. He will need to re-learn to write, to tie his shoes.
He will never play bass the same way again.
He wishes Joel wasn’t this honest.