childrens ward

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  reverie
"i don't want it!" i screamed, desperately clawing at my arm with my other hand, trying to wipe the blood off. "stop! god, please stop!" i screamed out again, telling them no for what felt like the millionth time. the pain in my right arm only intensified, and the blonde nurse hovering above me gripping my shoulder only gave me a look of sympathy, or maybe pity, doing nothing to help me. "please" i sobbed out, feeling crumpled and small. a second later, the raven haired nurse who was trying to put my iv in moved her hands away, and grabbed a small cotton wipe, swiping it across my forearm to mop up some of the red liquid that had seeped all the way to my fingertips. "i'm sorry sweetheart, you're so strong. so so strong." she said, looking at me with the same look of pity id become all too familiar with.

      before i could respond, i felt the feeling of cool liquid flowing through my iv, and i looked to my right, seeing a syringe instead of the tube i expected, and i felt my stomach sink. i opened my mouth to ask what i just got, but before any sound could escape, i felt myself sinking into a deep sleep.

                                   billie

billie shut her eyes tightly, trying not to listen to the girl scream. this is the worst part about being in the hospital, she thought. not treatment. not needles and bloodwork. not the uniform white color of the walls. not even the ever-cheerful nurses. it was the screaming, and the sobbing, and the youth of the voices. even worse, the older voices, screaming that this couldn't have happened, that their baby can't be gone. this girl sounded older, which brought billie some peace of mind, though small. it hurt her all the way to her core to hear the smaller voices, the young ones, to know there were people dealing with the same things as her, only their life has barely even begun yet.

as her screams filled the hallways, billie wondered if maybe it was her first time here. she wondered if they could be friends. billie hadn't had a friend since she was admitted a year and a half ago. mostly, it was just little kids here. the girl screaming her head off sounded maybe 16 or 17. billies age. yes, maybe they could be friends.

her mind began to drift to her own friends back in highland park, and she felt her stomach twist. she missed them. she missed everything about How It Used To Be. her heart ached as she thought of zoe, and drew, and zoe's small house next to the one she'd grown up in, now unsure of whether to call it home or not. they said they'd miss her. so so much billie, we're going to miss you soooo much. and then they did, for a few months. they visited all the time, bringing her new clothes they'd found, showing her new music, cards from friends and dance teachers and updates about ex lovers and estranged friends, and they'd sit and eat cherry jello and wander around the hospital with her, pointing out fish tanks and finding the board games in the teen room. a hundred games of sorry later, the visits began to slow, and then only zoe came one day, only drew the next time, until neither one came, and billie couldn't eat cherry jello anymore without feeling their absence, which is a shame, because it had always been her favorite kind of jello.

although, finneas never stopped coming. every other day, he would knock four times on the door of her room, and slide in with a goofy grin on his face, and play with her hair as he recalled all the events of the week. claudia and him rearranged the shelves in the closet, and he doesn't see a difference but claudia and her instagram followers are over the moon, shark misses her but is loving having peaches to play with all the time, now they sleep together every night and it's PRECIOUS. mom and dad are thinking of putting a fish pond in the backyard, and finneas thinks it's stupid. sometimes claudia comes, and billie loves when claudia comes, because she's like a sister to billie. a few times they've even tried to bring shark in for her, but they'd gotten yelled at by billies nurse every time, no matter how secretive they tried to be. billie savored their visits, and locked the memories away in a white photo box under her bed for the day she thought they would inevitably stop coming.

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