Chasing Kate

Chapter 6. Zorro Medicine.

Day 4 of being awake and alert knowing I'm in the hospital. I want to leave but my parents have both said they would take away my trust and my bank account allowance if I do.

I'm so sick of this damn hospital. My doctor is a joke. She's hot but she thinks I'm a drug addict. I try to explain I only use "recreationally" but she said that is not what "this" is.

I can't handle much more of running to the damn bathroom every 3 minutes to shit my brains out, I can't keep getting up 13 times a night to piss because I've drank 8 pitchers of water, I'm so thristy. My hands are shaking still, but better. I keep sweating and I've go the a/c as low as I can get the temperature.

Fuck this upset stomach, it's 7pm
And I'm ready to go to bed. I'm calling my nurse and she's going to bring me some medicine for this nausea.

"Can I help you?" A woman's voice comes across the speaker on my
Bed.

"Um yeah. My stomach is all tore up and shit, can I get some of that zorro medicine shot up in here?

"Zorro? You mean Zofran? I will be with you shortly, Mr Wesley. I am working with a critical patient as of now."

Yeah, yeah yeah. Can't the nurse bitch understand, my stomach is critical now? I could own stock in Charmin toilet paper for the amount of it I've been flushing down the Jon.

What seems like 56 hours later, a knock is at the door and I see a petite blonde head pass through while I'm up watching Cops. I know the drill, the come in, the nurse doesn't speak, shoots a clear medicine in my IV and walks back out.

This nurse, it's almost different. I could feel piercing eyes looking at my face as I had it turned to get a view of the tv. Her hands were gentle but cold as she grabbed my arm to inject the medication.

My stomach eases in relief almost
immediately.

"Cops? So cliche." The blonde nurse says.

I whip my head to her.
I'm froze. My eyes are staring into baby blues, the color of the ocean. My eyes trail across the round shape of her face, as a smile plasters across her cheeks.

My eyes are deceiving me. I blink twice and then again.

"Kate-Anna?"

My medicine isn't working now. There's mammoth size moths flying in my belly.

"Hey Luke. How you holding up?" She says as she pats my arm.

She leans over looking at the machines that are attached to me and charts them down on a paper.

"Any fever? Vomiting?"

"No."

"Any nausea, insomnia, pain?"

"Really? You just gave me zoology medicine or what ever it is for nausea. And no I can't sleep, I'm in the hospital in this creaky ass bed. And pain? I've had enough to last me a life time."

Damn why am I such a jackass?

She pushes her lips in a thin line.

"I need to check your pulse."
She watches the hands turn around her watch as she firm places her hand on my wrist. When she lets it go, I jerk away.

"Look Luke. I don't know why the hostility but cut the crap
Ok? I'm going to be your nurse for the next 3 days. I would say you could switch but we are short staffed. I am trying to be professional here, so I would appreciate if you could answer my questions properly so that I can move along."

"Is there anything you need right now? " she asked.

"Water, ice? Some Tylenol for your headache? "

Ha! Tylenol. What am I? 4?! I need something stronger than Tylenol.

"I need something more than Tylenol."

"With your present medical history your doctor has advised me against anything further. Tylenol? Or no? You take your pick."

"I just want this fucking headache to go away, Kate. I need a Lora-tab or Oxy!" I shouted.

"I am sorry that you feel like the Tylenol isn't phasing your headache. You have to realize Luke, your body is still detoxing. Giving you anything more powerful than a common Tylenol is going to delay your progress."

"Detoxing? I am not a drug addict, Kate-Anna!" I shout.

"Lucas! You don't talk to me like that. I am not only your nurse, but I have know you and been friends with you for 23 years. Don't you dare take that tone with me. You are an addict, you over dosed on heroin. If I hadn't found your soiled body outside that emergency room coming back from my lunch that night, you would be dead! You're selfish actions would have taken your mothers son away! And you think you have a right to be angry?! You are not the same boy who left Compton to go play basketball. You have pissed your life away now, and who's to blame Luke? Huh? YOU!" She shouted at me.

Wait. What? She found me? She surely wanted to leave me to die. Kate-Anna was so mad at me when I left to go to Ohio state. Not because of going to college but because 2 weeks after high school graduation, she walked in and found Allie Redhorn and me in the bed together. I don't know what happened that night, but I know I wasn't with Kate. I felt like scum then just like I do now.

"I'm sorry Luke, but you have made a shit storm of your life. Do you realize how much you have put the people who love you through?"

"Kate, I didn't ask you to save me. I didn't mean to use that much heroin that night. But you're wrong. I'm not a drug addict. I'm not."
I said shaking my head, that words tasted bitter coming off my tongue.

I'm not a drug addict at all.