Angel

Chapter 20

This time when my sleep was disturbed by the strange nightmare, I couldn't bring myself to sleep again. I laid there for several hours replaying both nightmares in my head. I tried and tried to come up with an explanation for them, but I just couldn't.

I didn't want to wake Zack, so I waited until around 9:15, when he woke up, to pick out another movie to watch. I decided to go with High School Musical 2 since I watched the first one of the sequel last night.

Today was Monday, which meant I may be able to go home within the next few hours.

I didn't really know how to feel about that. I felt safe here, but at the same time I didn't. I wanted the comfort of my home.

I enjoyed my movie for about an hour, until Dr. Pasterik came in around 10:20 to tell me the details of the day.

"So, Vanessa, I've got good news and bad news."

I didn't like the sound of that. I looked over at Zack, who was looking right back at me with a concerned look.

"Okay. What's the good news?" I asked him. I figured I'd rather hear the good stuff first.

Dr. Pasterik came and sat down on the end of my bed.

"The good news is that you get to come off the breathing machine."

I didn't say anything. That wasn't much of a big deal to me. I knew I'd come off of it eventually. It wasn't worthy of being called "good news" in my opinion.

Zack was eager to know the rest of what Dr. Pasterik had to say.

"What's the bad news?" he asked.

"She can't leave today," the doctor said, now directing his voice towards Zack.

"And why is that?" Zack asked, confused.

"The tests. Some came back positive. Well, it was more of an x-ray, not a test."

"Okay. Which ones? What did they say?" Zack didn't care that he was throwing so many questions at Dr. Pasterik.

"The C T scans that we took of her chest area yesterday showed that Vanessa has an enlarged heart. This is why she has blacked out several times and why she gets so weak so easily, and it also explains the extreme heart rates. The internal bleeding most likely caused this. You may have been born with it, as well, being you've never been to a real doctor where they would check for that kind of thing. We can't know for sure, but you can't leave the hospital. It's too dangerous."

I was a bit overwhelmed with everything he just said. So many questions and what-ifs were going through my head, but I couldn't build the effort to open my mouth.

"How do you treat it?" Zack asked for me, as if he'd read my mind. His voice was quiet, and it was obvious that he didn't like this at all.

"The only thing that will treat it at the stage it is at is a heart transplant. All we can do for now is put a heart monitor on her and keep her in the safety of the hospital. You two must understand that this is fatal and is developing quickly. It could take months to get an available heart, and heart transplants don't always go as planned."

Zack got the hint.

"She could die," he said.

"Yes," said Dr. Pasterik.

"Excuse me," Zack said. He got up and walked out the door, letting it slam shut behind him. The thought of what he was probably about to do didn't sit well with me.

"I'm so sorry, Vanessa."

"Don't be. I'll be fine. I'm not sure I can say the same for Zack, though."