Harrison Woods is a 17-year-old girl attending Arbor Coast High, a boarding school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her dark past including her rocky relationship with her parents and her esteemed older brother's suicide are the reasons she landed herself at...
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Sitting back in the waiting room, I made sure to keep my distance from Otto this time. Although I didn't mind being comforted by him (his touch only made me calmer despite my conflicted feelings), I knew that it was wrong, it was bad. Everything that Jason had told me about what he saw in that book made me even more afraid of what Otto could have been hiding. I needed space from him to be able to sit alone with my thoughts. If I sat too close to Otto, if I felt his touch or his hot breath against my neck, I wouldn't be able to resist him. All of the bad thoughts and worries would flood away and I wouldn't be able to deny my love for him. So I needed my space.
I tried to breathe deeply: breathing in for 5 seconds, holding for 5 seconds, and releasing for 5 seconds. It was a trick that Mrs. Tate had taught me, a trick that had actually helped me in many cases where I wasn't sure how to act. Surely now was one of those times. So I breathed. In, hold, out. I repeated it in my head as a sort of affirmation, trying to convince myself that everything was going to be fine, and I soon felt myself drifting off into a more peaceful state of mind.
But the sensation didn't last long, as the door to the waiting room flung open, and a red-hot West came charging through the door. His face was red, his eyebrows were drawn in, and his lips were pressed in a thin line. He was angry, angrier than I'd ever seen him before, and he was looking right at me.
"Where is he?" West asked as he made his way over to where I sat and I stood up to match him. It was rare that I saw West this mad, and I remembered he had always scared me when he got like this: his over 6 foot tall figure hovering over me, and his expression cold. West looked like he could have snapped and killed me on the spot. He had always been terrifying when he was mad, but he'd never actually been this mad at me. It felt different this time, and I could barely speak when I replied.
"Room 106," I said. "He just had some tests done, but I'm not sure"
West interrupted me, "Some tests?" He questioned. "What kind of tests, Harrison?"
And, as if on cue, the doctor walked out into the waiting room and made his way over towards us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Otto look up to the doctor, but he didn't stand up this time, which was probably the best call on his part. If West was so mad at me, I couldn't imagine his feelings towards Otto.
"So, I came to give an update on Jason. We ran some tests on him, starting with an x-ray. With it, we hoped to see if there was any damage to his spine, and, unfortunately, there was. But, of course, more tests were necessary. So we decided to perform a myelography. A myelography is a radiographic test. What happens is we insert a spinal needle into the canal of the spine. We put a contrast fluid on the needle that allows for what we call a real-time x-ray. What this means is that we get to see exactly what is going on with the spinal cord right then and there," The doctor explained. "I took the images personally to our hands-on radiologist, and the results just came back. I'm afraid it isn't good news."
West's jaw tense, and his fist clenched into a tight ball. I was afraid of what he might do.
"Earlier, Jason may have mentioned he was unable to feel his legs. I had an idea as to what may be the problem, but I didn't want my assumptions to be correct," The doctor sighed. "Because of the bullet wound to the spinal cord, Jason is now paraplegic."
