"Emelia?" the nurse said, a gentle smile on her face. I looked up, and she almost instantly started to frown. "They told you, huh?" I nodded, and bit my lip to keep from crying again.
"Sorry," I managed to whisper, and she just nodded.
"You're okay. You don't need to apologize." I smiled gratefully as she came to sit down next to me. "Now, I hate to do this to you when you're so upset, but I need to ask you something."
"Yeah?" I asked, sitting up as well.
"The hospital's a bit full at the moment, so we need to know if you're okay with having another person in here. You're the only person in this area that we feel comfortable doing this with."
"Yeah, yeah, that's okay," I shrug. "Just, can you answer some of my questions first?"
"Of course. What do you want to know?"
"Um, what exactly is wrong with me? Like, I can see that my arm is broken, but what else happened?"
"Well, you got hit pretty hard to the head, and we're pretty sure not a whole lot of damage was caused by that. We just need to keep you here to make sure that not a lot of damage was caused."
"Oh," I replied, and my voice sounded extremely small.
"Anything else you'd like to know?
"Yeah, when will the new person move in here?" I asked nervously, biting my lip.
"As soon as possible," the nurse replied, another bright smile on her face, "Now, love, I've got to go help get things ready. If you need anything, my name is Lauren, ok?" I only nodded as she stood up and walked out of the room.
About an hour later, I was starting to get hungry. I was about to try and call Lauren when she and two other nurses came in, wheeling a bed behind them. I sat up, anxious to see who was in the bed.
"Okay. Charles, this is Emelia. Emelia, this is Charles." Charles? I was expecting a girl, not a boy, but oh well.
"Hello," the boy said, smiling.
"Hello," I said shyly. Lauren smiled, telling us that she'd be back in a few minutes with dinner. Charles and I sat in awkward silence until he started to talk.
"Please, don't call me Charles. I can't stand it."
"What would you prefer I call you?"
"Charlie. Please."
"Yeah, of course. Charlie," I said, testing his name out. "In that case, don't call me Emelia. Emmy or Em, but not Emelia. Please," I said, feeling as if I had spoken way too much.
"All right, Emmy. If you don't mind me asking, why are you stuck here?"
"I was in a car crash," I said quietly, remembering Aria and becoming sad for just a minute. "What about you?"
"I managed to fracture my knee pretty badly."
"Oh."
"Yep," he said, popping the p. I felt the waves of awkwardness rolling through the room and tried to come up with something to say, but Charlie beat me to it.
"How old are you?" he asked me.
"16. You?"
"17," he said, and it was back to the awkward silence. Thankfully, Lauren and another nurse brought in trays with our food on them.
"Thanks," I smiled as Lauren handed me my tray.
"Thanks, Amy," I heard Charlie say to the other nurse. The nurses walked out as I began to eat. Honestly, I don't know why everybody caused such a fuss about how bad hospital food was. I didn't think it was all that bad.
"Wow, hospital food isn't all that great, huh?" Charlie asked me from the other side of the room.
"Yeah," I said, even though it wasn't that bad. We ate in silence for a little while.
"So, Emmy, what kind of music do you like?" I froze, unsure how to answer this question.
"Do you mean, like, what genre?"
"Sure, or you could list a few of your favorite artists."
"Um, I really like My Chemical Romance, Muse, 5 Seconds of Summer, All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, Sleeping with Sirens..." I trailed off, afraid I'd embarrassed myself, afraid that he'd think that I was a freak.
"Cool," he nodded. "I think Muse is one of my favorite bands." I grinned and blushed at the same time, glad that he didn't think I was a freak.
For the first time, I really tried to get a look at the boy I was sharing a room with.
