Core Memory (Lolix)

Chapter Three

A Week Later....

As the days passed by of a week's worth of doing nothing but lying in bed, Rue came by whenever he had the time to. Sometimes it was just to talk and hang out, other times Felix found himself helping the kid out on some school assignments. Who knew he was pretty damn good with English work? Especially when it came to presentation prep.

However, today would be the day he'd get his exo-brace and finally be able to get out of the damned bed. The tubes connected to him had been removed the day before, and currently, he was only waiting for the doctor to walk through the door with the brace.

He fiddled with the sheets of the bed. He found himself doing it more whenever he happened to be excited about something. Well, he didn't exactly find it, Rue was the one to point it out to him in the first place. Still, he couldn't help but feel a bit giddy at the thought of being able to walk around instead of having other people doing shit for him.

There was a knock on the door, and his eyes immediately snapped towards the doorknob as it turned. In came the doctor, who greeted him with a smile.

"Well, Mr. Gates, what a lucky day for you, huh?" She asked him, motioning the nurse behind her to come in as well.

"I'm getting my brace today, right?" He asked, his fingers almost frozen in place.

"That is correct. Nurse Alana has it right here." She motioned towards the nurse who had come in behind her, who held the brace in her hand.

Felix smiled brightly at the sight of it. He was pretty happy that it didn't look too ugly or noticeable, plus, it had nice hints of orange spread across it.

The doctor came over to his bedside, telling him to step by step how they were going to move him and get him standing so they could attach the brace. He didn't care what they had to do, as long as, in the end, he had the brace on him.

The nurse, Alana, set the brace aside so she could aid the doctor in moving him. While the doctor hooked her one arm under his own, the nurse was already helping him slowly move his legs so he could be sitting up. It hurt like a bitch, so much in fact that he found himself digging his teeth into the skin of his lip as he did his best to move along with them.

It felt like ages before he was sitting up straight. They let him take a bit of a break, to ease himself into it more.

"We're going to have to remove your shirt, is that alright?"

Felix nodded his head, like he said, anything to get the damned thing on him. The doctor aided him in taking it off, he was able to pull the shirt up to his chest before he needed assistance in getting his arms out and the shirt over his head.

Once it was off, he couldn't help but look down. The bandages had been taken off three days ago since his injuries healed well enough to not need them anymore. He took notice of the large scar on his shoulder, leading up to his neck. He wondered what had happened there.

"Now, we're going to have you stand up, this is the last part."

Taking a deep breath, he took the doctor's hands that were held out to him, and after the count of three, pulled himself up to stand. A pained noise had escaped him, but other than that he was standing. Holy fuck he was standing!

The laugh full of relief that had left him was refreshing, even the doctor had looked proud of him.

Now that he was standing, the nurse was quick to have the brace in hand, setting it up against his spine as the doctor strapped it onto him.

"With this, we can get you started with some physical therapy, and then have you discharged in a few days. After a month or so we'll have the brace removed, alright?"

"Sounds good to me, doc." He hummed.

Once the brace was on, they were to do a few checks to make sure it was working properly.

The first check was to have Felix with his feet together and bend forward as far as he could without hurting himself. He didn't make it far, but so far so good.

The second check was having him turn his body towards his left, and then his right. He did better on this one, but still, didn't make it too far.

The final check was to have him raise his arms above his head without hurting himself. He could only raise his hands to his cheek before he had to stop.

"Everything seems to be working well. We'll leave you here to explore your room a little. A nurse will be back tonight to help you remove it for bed."

Felix almost forgot to respond with thanks, being too occupied with being able to move around the room.

He couldn't wait to show this shit to Rue.

---

"-and then Sarah told the girl to back off of her, but of course she didn't want to, and they ended up starting a fight in the hallway. Sarah was lucky she got a couple of days worth of detention instead of being suspended as the girl did."

Unsurprisingly, Rue arrived not too long after Felix had gotten the brace put onto him. According to him, some girl and Sarah had gotten into a fight about how she wouldn't leave him alone. All Felix could think was that the kid was either telling the truth or really dense about why they were really fighting about him. He didn't speak up about it though and only listened.

"I mean, at least Sarah won, right? I wouldn't want to be the one who couldn't end the fight." He then asked, blowing a stray strand of hair out from his face since he couldn't raise his arms enough to fix it himself.

"Of course she was, she was beating her ass. I'm surprised she didn't end up killing her! She's being way too reckless."

"She's just protecting that honor of hers. I'm sure she's not gonna get into any more fights any time soon though. No one would want to mess with her after that." He chuckled lightly as took a sip out of the cup he held. It just had water in it from the bathroom sink.

"Yeah, I know...Still, we're both graduating this year, she can't be getting into fights and shit." Rue pouted, "It wouldn't look good on her college applications."

"Eh, unless she's enlisting in the academy or the army."

"I hope not..." He trailed off, rubbing his eyes a bit. "Anyways, how much longer till you get out of here?"

"Well, I was told after a bit of physical therapy I'll be able to get out of here in a few days."

"Right, and then you can come and stay with me-"

"Didn't I say to wait and see what your parents say?"

"Actually," Rue now wore a small grin on his face as he turned to look towards Felix, "You said to wait until we neared your discharge date."

"You asked them already, didn't you?"

"Yeah, like, two days after I first visited. They said yes though!"

Felix let out a laugh, shaking his head as he walked over to ruffle the kid's head. "You really listen through your ass huh?"

"Yuppp" Rue caught his hand, removing it from his head to fix his hair.

"Well, I guess I'm staying with you then, kid."