Dreaming Of You

Chapter 20

My whole body was aching. It was a dull pain and my limbs were feeling heavy. I thought I had been slipping in and out of consciousness for a few days now.

During my few moments of somewhat clarity all I could think about were the girl and Joe. Had she made it? Was she safe? How was Joe handling all of this? How badly had I scared him?

Whereas normally those moments of somewhat clarity felt like a lifting fog that suddenly settled back down, it felt different today.

My head felt clearer even though I still felt a little dull and had a massive headache.

It took some energy but after a while I finally managed to open my eyes. I looked up at a white ceiling with the most generic ceiling light ever hanging in the center. I didn't hear any voices but the faint beeping sound let me know that I was at the hospital.

I closed my eyes again for a moment as it was taking a lot of effort to keep them open. Not because I was so tired but because for some reason every part of my body felt weak, including my eyelids.

After a while I heard voices coming near me, one male voice and one female voice. I opened my eyes again and tried to say something to get their attention. My voice however didn't seem to want to cooperate and once I finally managed to make a sound it was hoarse and hurt like hell. It felt like there were shards of glass making cuts in my throat.

"Ah miss Scott, you finally woke up." The male voice spoke up as the man in question made sure I could see him now. The man smiled gently at me. He seemed wise and kind. "I'm dr. Wayne. It might be a bit hard to move and talk but give it time. I'll have the nurse bring you something for your throat. I'll go inform your mother about you waking up and I'll be back to run some tests later."

I offered him a weak smile, or at least tried to, as I didn't trust my voice at all. I didn't feel like going through that pain again quite yet.

I know I should have been asking for Joe but I could do that when he came back for those tests and surely Joe would be somewhere around the hospital right?

A little later a nurse came and helped me drink something. My brain was still too fuzzy to comprehend what it was but it did help soothe my throat a little.

The doctor also came back a little after that. He and the nurse helped me sit up a bit. "I hope your throat feels a little better. Do you remember anything about how you got here?"

After a few tries, some effort and with still quite some pain I managed to answer "Truck... hit me."

"When did that happen?"

"Few. Days. Ago" I paused between every word to gather the energy for the next. Why the hell was it so hard to talk?

"I see." Dr. Wayne nodded solemnly "Well the good news is that you weren't hit by a truck. Sad news is that you haven't been here for just a few days."

How did he mean? It had been only a few days and I was damn sure that truck had hit me.

Dr. Wayne continued "I know it might be a lot to take in all at once but you've been in a coma for almost two years now. A few days ago, you started waking up. I suspect that the truck hitting you was your brain's way of explaining what was happening."

Had I heard that right? Two years? I have been in a coma? How? There were so many questions going through my head.

At that moment my mom and Evelyn came rushing in. My mom immediately hugged me and sobbed onto my shoulder "Oh my dear girl."

I wish I could hug her back but moving my arms turned out to be an even harder task than talking so I decided to just let her hug me.

Once she let go Evelyne immediately pulled me into a hug of her own "Never scare me like that again."

I looked at her confused and luckily dr. Wayne noticed it as well "She was with you when you fell into that coma."

"You came back from a walk, you had something on your mind. You laid down on the couch but as you were trying to convince me it was nothing, you suddenly stopped talking. I thought you were messing with me but you didn't respond to anything which is when I called an ambulance."

Suddenly I remembered the day she was talking about.

I had just come back from that walk. Evelyne had been watching tv as she pointed out that I only did that to clear my head. I was telling her I was fine once I had laid down on the empty side of the couch... Oh no.

That happened before I told her everything, before I dared her to even ask Matt out... speaking of that.

"Matt?" I asked her after some effort.

"Oh Raych... I'm so sorry." Evelyne looked at me sadly and I suddenly remembered something Evelyne had said to me in my coma.

'His family needed him with them.'

I broke down in tears. My best friend had passed away and I didn't even get to say goodbye to him.

"How?" I croaked out

"Complications of his congestive heart failure." Evelyne replied in a whisper.

I knew he had been diagnosed with it a few years ago but it still pained me to hear. I wish he could have been here. That I could have seen him just one last time.

This day had been nothing but a pile on of bad news. I just didn't realise that the worst of all was yet to come

"But there's also good news." My mom said in an attempt to cheer me up "Joe will be delighted to know that you can come to his wedding. He even asked her to marry him in this room so you would be there when he did."

And with that my whole world seemed to stop...

____________

It is I, the evil genius that came up with this plot twist! I managed to surprise you all! Well, everyone except the genius that is Wayne. Wayne is the fiancé of jayneclaire23, who is a loyal reader of this story and a great writer in her own right.

Jayne had been trying to figure me out for days. I admitted to her that I included a few hints to this plot twist in previous chapters. She did not find out until Wayne took a guess for her 'She is sleeping'. I accepted that as being correct since she was, like we all know now, in a coma. So, in honor of Wayne outsmarting me, I named the doctor after him.

Also, I have to admit that I legit started to cry when I wrote what happened to Matt. I wrote this story for the first time before he passed but started to rewrite this multiple years after it.

Lastly, for the people who are curious about the hints. These are a few of them:

-The most obvious one was the title itself. 'Dreaming' of You.

-In chapter 11 Raychel eats a red apple. In snow white, the red apple put Snow into a deathlike sleep (a coma). This is probably the hardest one to see if you didn't know my thought process behind it.

-In chapter 13 Raychel talks about how she feels like she's stuck in her head... which she quite literally is at that point.

-None of the girls had their period. Obviously, that's a dream.

Hopefully you all aren't too mad at me after this❤️😅