Renegade-N.H-

Gold Standard

Gold Standard

When I wake the room is full of light my curtains are pulled over the two large glass windows but the sheer white is doing nothing to shield me from the sun. I completely forget about the wound on my leg as I sharply sit up in bed. I grunt in pain and shift myself so I'm sitting back against the headboard. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to get to my bed but I was there, warm and comfortable.

A crumpled, recognizable figure is asleep in my father's old chair. I remember the day I dragged it down the hallway and shoved it into my tiny room. It took up ninety percent of the space inside my room but the smell of it made it better, and it was large enough to sleep in. Lou's head lifts heavily from his shoulder and his eyes flicker open slowly until they are completely fixated on me.

"I..my head hurts," I say quietly. He nods and tucks out of the room, it's not until he leaves that I notice that I'm no longer in jeans. But in a clean pair of pajama shorts and a overly large t-shirt.

I turn the sheets over seeing that the once cream colored comforter has been stained with a deep red color. My wound has been stitched, poorly with thick black thread but it was closed and would leave a terrible scar.

"Happy Birthday Lee," Louis comes sauntering back in with a glass of water, a banana and a handful of advil. I let a small, pitiful laugh go that comes from my stomach but hurts to do so. My eyes close as the pain shoots through the entirety of my body, opening only once it has subsided.

"Jesus did you stitch this?" I say pressing my fingers to the incision. He just laughs, which I can't tell if that means he did or didn't.

"Shittiest birthday...ever," I say. He only smiles at me setting the glass down on the beside table and kneeling beside me.

"Are you okay?" He asks abruptly, he takes my hand in his large one and stares at me with his soft blue eyes.

I cringe as a sharp pain fills the back of my head again, like a fire had been lit in the base of my skull. I scream out, gripping to Lou's hand so tight that I feel him cripple underneath me. My nails dig into his hand, leaving imprints. Concerns paints his face and he leans forward trying to comfort me but nothing works, the pain is too strong.

"Breathe through it," He whispers.

One the pain runs it's course I open my eyes to see him still staring at me with his blue eyes. He wants to know what I'm thinking, I can see it all over his face. I wait a minute before speaking, just to give myself a second to think about what to say. My mind is so scrambled that I only ramble on.

"I don't know what happened, one minute I was enjoying a night of normality and the next was like everything was being flipped upside down."

"I know he told me everything," Louis says running his hand over my head. He stands back from me sheepishly, pressing himself against the back wall of my bedroom as the door pushes open.