a lost girl

chapter 4: hospital

I stand outside crying, looking up at my mother who smelled of something I would later recognize as alcohol.

"Please mommy, it's too dark. Please don't go." I beg her, wrapping my little hands around her arm.

She looks at me with her hollow eyes and simply says, "Let go."

I sit down in the doorway, watching her as she saunters through the rain to get to the bar. At the time I didn't know what her job was. I didn't know why she was out all night at the bar wearing revealing dresses and going home with different men. All I knew was that I wanted to be tucked into bed at night by my mom.

The neighbors are staring at me, probably feeling an equal mixture of sympathy and intrigue. I close the door to shut out their prying eyes and crawl into my small bed. 'Bed' is a generous word. I sleep on a tiny mat in the corner of our little shack. My thin blanket barely covers my feet and only partially helps to keep the cold away. I curl up into a ball with my knees pulled into my chest. My tears soak the pillow as I try to fall asleep, and the night swirls around me, covering me in a blanket of darkness. The gentle sounds of rain falling on the roof calm me down and begin to lull me to sleep. I time my breathing to match the soft pattering of the rain.

As I began to wake up the steady dripping of rain turned into the beeping of a machine. I opened my eyes and saw the source of the beeping, a heart rate monitor. I looked around and saw various machines and other beds near mine. Hospital beds. I was not eight years old lying in my childhood bed, I was in a hospital. The stinging, sterile smell of the hospital burned my nose. The smell reminded me of hand sanitizer and fresh paint.

I felt a sharp pain in my arm and my head rolled over to locate the cause of the pain, the cut in my arm, which was bandaged up. I tried to reach out to touch it but something metal stopped my hand. A handcuff.

I tried to sit up and I heard a voice. "Hey take it easy, you're okay Sable."

My head whipped around and my eyes settled on a gentle, worried face topped with blonde hair. My foggy mind took a few moments before I could put a name to the familiar face.

"You here to arrest me Charming?" My voice creaked out, attempting to mock his ridiculous name.

"We'll talk about that once you're better," David said. He seemed so infuriatingly calm and nice. It's so much easier to deal with people who hate me.

He got up and walked outside the room to the window looking into my room. Hook and Emma were arguing on the other side of the window. It looked like he was upset and she was trying to comfort him. David interrupted and pointed to me, indicating I was awake.

Hook rushed in followed by the other two. He looked at me with a mixture of anger and relief.

"What the hell were you thinking? If you had died, your death would have been on my hands." Hook shouted at me.

Emma placed her hand on his arm and some of his anger melted away.

It took me a few moments before I remembered what he was talking about. It was his hook that cut my arm. "Relax. It wasn't your fault and I didn't die."

Just as I finished talking a man opened the door and walked into the room. By the looks of his clothes and clipboard I assumed he was my doctor. His name tag read 'Dr. Whale'.

He clearly heard my last statement because he added, "Well you may be alive but it was close. You severed your deep brachial artery and when you arrived here you were about a minute away from dying. If you were found any later you probably would have bled out. You're lucky the sheriff and Hook found you when they did."