Her Recovery

PTSD

According to the ticking clock on the wall, I've been up for 23 minutes. The nurse (I learned her name- Verónica), walks into the room, followed by two "nurses in training" according to the tags on their coats. She sits on the edge of the bed, and I wince. She looks down at me, with a pitying frown on her face. Handing me the medical report, she looks away, and instead focuses on the dripping of the sink in the far right corner.

Patient: Violetta Giovanni
Date of birth: 3/13/99
Origin: Florence, Italy
Current location: Florence, Italy

Diagnosis: 3rd degree burns to the waist and lower, and 2nd degree burns up to the mid chest, covering arms down to the elbow.

Additional concern(s): Patient suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) due to the tragedy of the accident, and counseling is suggested.

Signed:
Dr. Verónica Fionni

Two things register in my mind before I feel woozy again: Verónica's last name: Fionni. She's Merca's daughter. That's how she knew. She knows everything.

The second thought to register: I have PTSD. At 15. The cause is medically from the experience of near death in the fire, and although that may have something to do with it, I know that that's not the cause. The cause is from a different kind of trauma. The trauma I live through every single day, in the place I call home.

My mind secludes this information before the pain hits, and I am sedated once again.

I wake up in Merca's house. I plop down on her lap, with my head up against her chest, while she strokes my hair calmingly. Mother sits across from me, talking quickly and sorrowfully. She's talking about him. About Johnny. I don't like to call him my father. I refuse to acknowledge that.

I left myself be comforted in Merca's arms, while Mother tells Merca about everything Johnny did recently. But then, the door swings open, and Johnny bursts in, and rushes a gun to Mother's forehead. I run towards him, yelling for him to stop, and then Merca's living room transforms into the hallway at our house, and I'm sitting in the closet, watching. I open the door quickly, and jump towards him, and right when he places his thumb on the trigger, I reach him. My fingers expect to grip the rough arm of Johnny, but instead, they grip the rough canvas cover of the mattress in the hospital room.

Panicked, I look around, looking for a gun, Johnny, my mother, or Merca, but I only see the concerned face of my nurse Verónica staring down at me, hushing me soothingly, stroking my hair gently, just like her mother Merca used to when I was a child.