Never Lost, Always Found

Chapter Three

        I wake up in a room. The scent of iodoform floods the air around me. I sit up, pushing myself up with my left arm groggily. I stare around me. I'm lying in a hospital bed. Suddenly, I wince at the sharp jolt of pain shooting through my arm.

There's a cast on my left arm, and I gasp at the sight. As if I was just an average kid to pick on, now everyone would pick on me more and laugh at me extra because of this stupid thing. At least I'm not wearing the hospital gown at all. I'm merely wearing my original clothing my foggy memory can remember. I guess that means I'm leaving soon?

Mom comes into the room, looking more frightened than I have ever seen her. She runs over to me. "Oh, Paige!" she cries. I sigh. She looks into my eyes, "Please promise me you won't get yourself hurt again!" I sigh. "It wasn't my idea to jump in there to protect Benji," I protest. "You what?" Mom says, her lip trembling, her eyes growing wider than saucers.

"Tanner...he hurt Benji. Where's Benji?" I cry. Mom strokes my hair, "Benjamin's at school, dear. You've been out cold for a few days now." I'm trembling with fear. "Mom, was Benji hurt?" I ask. She shakes her head. I let out a breath of relief.

A nurse enters the room. She's wearing a mask, but I can still see her beautiful freckles. She has gorgeous red hair and emerald green eyes. "Mrs. Tristan, you have to sign this paperwork and then Paige is free to go," she says. Mom nods, taking a clipboard from the nurse's hand. Medical papers and bills and everything you can imagine with a hospital visit go on.

The nurse quickly checks my arm out. "The cast can come off in, at least, seven weeks," she says. It's going to be a long seven weeks then, I think to myself. She applies pressure to my arm. "Does it sting?" she asks. I shake my head. My arm's simply gone numb. It's also just stuck in that position. They don't put it in a sling, something of which I'm grateful.

I stand up, moving my arm slightly. The cast is itchy on my arm, but when I notice I can't scratch it, I just drop my attempt and continue looking at the nurse. The nurse takes back the clipboard. She leads me and Mom out of the room and down a stairwell to the lobby. She takes us to the front desk, where she talks to Mom for about ten minutes. While they talk, I pace around, taking in the events of a few days ago.

Mom finishes talking, she waves, escorting me out of the sliding automatic doors. I walk quietly behind her. She unlocks the door of her car, and I jump into the backseat. She gets in on the driver's side and pulls out of the parking lot. We get onto a highway, and Mom speeds up.

"So, Paige, you're suspended for a day," she says. "Me? Why me?" I ask. "Apparently, you fought back," she says. I sigh. "I did," I admit, "but in self-defense." Mom pulls off an exit and gets into Apple Lake. She drives in silence the rest of the way home, something of which I can't tell if she is sad or angry with me.

When she pulls over at our house, which is jammed between two other tall buildings. It has a white staircase and brick walls with small white shutters. It's pretty quaint for a streetwise three-story house. I stare at it. I guess I won't do schoolwork at all today.

Mom storms up to her office again, making sure she locks the door behind her. I sigh. I head to the dining room, where I spot that my report card is ripped in half, there are dozens of snotty tissues, and a neat pile of three or four papers stacked next to my report card.

I am sorely mistaken.

I stare at the mess on the table. I walk over to the tissues and clean them up, throwing them in the garbage in the kitchen. I'm disgusted because the tissues are freshly soaked in my mother's snot, so it covers my hands. I wash my hands in the sink and turn off the water. I grab a pencil from its holder on the counter and head back to the table.