I hoped she was doing well, the paramedics had said that it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed. I made my way over to the hospital, watching the people I passed. It was strange to know that some of them could’ve felt like Emily, and they didn’t show it to anyone except themselves. It was quiet when I entered, there were a few people in the lounge, and an old lady talking to one of the receptionists. The other one looked up and waved me over, I told her that they had called me regarding Emily, she told me to wait until one of the nurses could escort me. I sat down and waited, there was nothing else I could do really. I started thinking about what mom had asked, why did she call just me? We had just started talking, couldn’t she at least call her parents, even if she doesn’t like them? They would’ve probably done better than me. To pass the time, I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out one of the books I brought. I thought of giving the other one to her, it was the least I could do. I read about a chapter or two before I was called to walk with the nurse. It was quite a large hospital, her room was on the third floor, it was quite the view from up there. I could see all the way to my school, my house was in the other direction.
The nurse showed me to Emily’s room before he walked back to the other patients. When I walked in, I saw Emily sitting on the hospital bed staring out of the window, I closed the door gently and put my backpack on the chair next to the door. Either she didn't hear me or she wasn’t focusing on me, I walked over to the chair at the end of her bed. She turned her head to me, she had recently cried, her eyes were red, and her cheeks were glossy from the tears.
“I’m sorry.” Her nose was stuffy, she sniffled and turned back to the window. “I don’t know why I did it.” The scars on her arms weren’t covered by the gown she wore, the staff surely would’ve noticed them.
“It’s alright. How are you feeling today?”
“Better than yesterday, at least.” She scoffed, “they gave me stitches. The bandage you used was soaked before they even drove me here.”
“Jeez…” I had to choose my next words carefully, or it’d just make it worse. “Does it hurt? I’ve never had stitches.” Basic conversation topic, great choice.
“A little, they gave me painkillers for it.” She cocked her head towards the bedside table where a box of prescription medication laid.
“That’s nice,” I was running out of things to say, I fumbled with my fingers before I remembered the book, “oh! Hey! I got you something.” I stood up and walked over to my backpack, Emily looked at me confused. I dug around for the book until I saw the cover and picked it up. “This one, I thought you might like it. It’s the first book in a series I’m reading.” I handed her the book, she looked at it with curious eyes.
She turned it over to read the back, “What’s it about?” I smiled, it was a good book, and I hoped she would find it to be good as well.
“It’s about a lady detective who started solving random cold cases when she was young, and she got a bunch of credit for it so she made a career out of it when she graduated college. I think there are like five books so far, and the author is still alive! So there might be more books in the series.”
“That’s cool! I love detective stories, especially the older mafia 50’s ones.”
“Those are so gre- Oh yeah! There’s also a massive plot twist in it, you’ll be so shocked when you read it.”
She chuckled, “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.” She definitely felt better now, she started flipping through the pages. “I like this font, and the pages too, the publisher did a great job.”
“I know right? You’re gonna love it.”
We kept talking for a while until I was told to go back home, I promised to be back the next day after her check-ups. Somehow, I felt like I had known her forever, it made me feel more relaxed knowing I had helped her.
As I opened the door, I saw mom sitting on the couch with her headphones on, hunched over the coffee table. I walked up behind her, watching as she moved her hands across the surface, shuffling images and sketches around.
I pulled her headphones to the side and whispered, "whatcha doin'?" She yelped as she jumped up from the couch, glaring at me in shock.
"Mike! Stop sneaking up on people! It's not nice." She exclaimed firmly.
I tilted my head to the side and looked at her. "Not my fault you have noise cancelling headphones, oh right, I bought them for you." I replied, she scoffed as she sat down and started arranging the sketches.
"I prefer listening to music when I work, thank you very much. And why are you home so late? You didn’t answer my texts!”
"They had me turn off my phone when I was there, I was gonna turn it on when I left. But I forgot, “I excused myself, she turned back around to her sketches.
"How dare you forget to reply to your birth giver? How awful!” She joked in despair before chuckling. "There are some leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry."
"Awesome." I replied and walked into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and grabbed the plate with leftovers, I heard her shuffle all the papers into her folder before she closed it.
“How was she?”
“Good, she had to get stitches though. But she had painkillers for it.”
“Poor girl, I can’t imagine how her parents must’ve felt when they saw her.”
“They weren’t there.”
“They weren’t?” She stared at me with an irritated look, “not at all?”
“She didn’t mention them coming there, so I don’t think so.”
“That’s awful… Wait, what’s her last name?”
“Huh? Er… Something with an n.”
“N?”
“Yeah, like, Nour… something.”
“… Nourie?”
“Oh, yeah! Nourie. That’s it. Why do you ask?”
She looked down at her nails, studying the dirt under them that she couldn’t reach. “I know who her parents are, I’m not surprised why they didn’t show.”
“Really? Huh, nah, they don’t seem like good parents.”
“That’s debatable, but it’s not for us to meddle with.” She sighed, looked up at me and smiled. “Are you gonna visit her tomorrow as well?”
“If I’m able to, I don’t know when her check-ups are finished compared to school. But it—”
“I can put in a ‘Doctor’s appointment’ for you tomorrow, if her parents aren’t gonna be there, you sure are.”
“Mom… I- That’d be great.”
Monday
I woke up the next day hearing mom closing the front door and driving to work, I looked over at the clock, 11 a.m, I had slept for over 12 hours. I stood up and rubbed my eyes before walking out of my room. I walked into the bathroom and washed my face, I looked at myself in the mirror realizing that I fell asleep without changing clothes. It was probably best to change them. After some time of trying my absolute best to comb my hair I was finally done with twenty minutes of cursing at my genetics. I walked into the living room and dropped onto the couch, I turned on the TV and zapped through the channels until I came to one showing a game show. I almost fell asleep to the game show’s uninterested and monotone voice, but before I even had the chance to close my eyes I woke up with a jerk. I looked at the clock, 1:30 p.m.
"Shit.." I groaned to myself. "The promise! Goddammit!" I jumped up from the couch and rushed into my room to find my shoes, only to realize that I was already wearing them. I sighed at my stupidity before hurrying out of the house and locking the front door, I ran as fast as my legs could handle towards the hospital.
As I entered the building I was completely out of breath, letting my hands rest on my kneecaps, never again, I thought to myself. I stood up and took a deep breath, the people in the waiting room looked at me confused. But so would anyone who just witnessed someone sprinting into a hospital and then act like what they did was normal. I talked to the receptionist about my visit, this time I didn’t have to wait for too long, before I even made myself comfortable in the seat, the nurse called my name.
I stood in front of her room, the door was closed. It was awfully quiet in the corridor, it almost creeped me out. When I finally built up the courage to open the door, I saw her standing right in front of the opening, glaring at me. I couldn’t tell if she had stood there since I was supposed to come, but it didn’t matter. She stood there now, and she was very upset.
"Em—"
"You weren’t there!" She screamed as she started hitting me.
"Listen t—“ I couldn’t fight back, she hadn’t done anything wrong.
"You don't care, no one does!" Her hitting stopped, her whole posture sunk together, tears poured as she started to cry. "I-I’m sorry it’s—"
"I do care! I didn’t mean to be late, I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t. It’s not your fault, I… they had me talk to a psychologist.”
“…Psychologist? For the…?”
“Yeah. I’m still shaken up over the session, it… it was bizarre. I didn’t mean to lash out, everything is just a mess in my head.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry.” She walked further inside her room and sat down on her bed, wiping her eyes, “have you started reading the book yet?”
“…Huh?” Emily looked over at the book, it was beside the medication. “Oh, I read a few chapters yesterday.”
“What’s the last thing you read?” I tried to get her mind on something else, and there was nothing else I could think of other than the book. “What do you think about it so far?”
“I read about uh… When she found that guy that kept stealing specific sets of cutleries, to build a statue of his ex.” She laughed quietly, “it was a weird case, but I didn’t expect it to be the librarian dude.”
“Oh yeah! That case!” I gasped. “It’s just gonna get weirder from that one, but the storytelling is great, yeah?”
“It sure is.” She smiled. “Oh, by the way…” She reached over for the book and browsed the pages, she stopped somewhere towards the end and pulled off an attached bookmark. I had forgotten where it was when I was looking for it, I ended up buying a new one in a different color. “I found this bookmark, do you want it back?” I shook my head as she reached it out to me.
“Nah, you can use it. I bought a new one when I couldn’t find that one.”
Emily laughed and put the bookmark on the page she had left off at. “Alright, thanks.”
“You’re welco—”
“Miss Nourie?” We turned to the door where a nurse stood. “You have another visitor.” I heard Emily mumble, but I couldn’t hear what she said. “Mr. Williams, would you mind waiting outside?” Another visitor? Surely, it couldn’t be Ashley? God, what if it was Ashley? “You can wait in the lounge on this floor.” I looked back at Emily, she grabbed my arm, pleading that I’d stay.
“Please… I don’t want it to be her…” Who was her? I figured she meant her mom, I tried to reason with the nurse. But she wouldn’t let me stay in the room.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t permit more than one visitor at a time in the rooms, and family is prioritized.” I accepted defeat and stood up, Emily was contempt. She started to put up a façade for the other visitor.
“I’ll be back later, okay?” She nodded distantly, as she had done a few days before. I smiled to the nurse as I walked out of the room and to the lounge. It was awfully quiet, but there wasn’t much happening either. I sat down in one of the chairs and pulled up my phone. I would’ve ended class at that time, but instead I was in a hospital, talking to a girl I barely knew after saving her from blood loss. I could hear hurried footsteps in the hall, some frantic mumbling and someone yelling from the other side of a phone call. It felt rude to stare if they were walking towards me, I kept my eyes on my phone as I heard the footsteps turn to the corridor I had just walked from. Before I could look up, I got a call from mom.
“Hey! Are you still at the hospital? How’s Emily?”
“Yeah, I am, I’m in the lounge. And she’s okay. We were talking about that book series I’m reading.”
“Oh right, the one with the really weird cases?”
“That’s… one way to put it, yes. But there’s someone else in her room now.”
“Really? Do you know who it is?”
“Nope, didn’t see them. But from the look of Emily, it was one of her parents.”
“Huh, probably her dad. Anyways, I was thinking of what we should eat tonight. And if Emily is released today, she can join too!”
“U-uh what? Really?”
“Of course! I wanna meet the girl my boy saved from a ’slow and agonizing death’.” I could hear her laugh.
“Ha… Ha… Funny.”
“I should be a comedian. But tell me if she goes today, it should be at any time if she’s only had stitches. I gotta get back to work, love you!”
“Yeah, love you. Bye.” I hung up and put my phone in my pocket, I looked around the lounge only to notice Emily running towards me. I stood up to walk towards her, she stopped a few feet away from me, hesitated, and then wrapped her arms around my chest.
“Hi to you too,” I chuckled and placed my hands on her back. “Who was the other visitor?”
“It uh, it was my dad. They had called him instead of my mom because she’s kind of a nuisance.”
“Aha, what’d he say?” She shrugged while keeping her arms around my waist.
“He was worried, but he wasn’t gonna tell mom.” I nodded, her mom didn’t seem to be that good of a parent. “I get to go home today, that’s why dad came.”
“Really? My mom uh… You’re welcome to eat with us if you want to, she wants to meet you.” Emily looked up at me, I realized that she was quite cute. “It’s okay if you don’t want to—”
“No no! I’d love to meet her! I have to go and ask dad though, he’s talking to the nurse.” She let go of me and started walking back towards the room she had stayed in. She stopped to look at me, shook her head as if something felt wrong and proceeded to walk. I saw her disappear into the room as the voices died down, I could faintly hear her voice asking something, and a stuttering voice replying. After some minutes she ran back out with a wide smile. “He said yes! He would drive my stuff home and pick me up later. But I can eat with you.”
“That’s great! Shall we get going then?”
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