Sincerely, Jonah

Chapter 18

I watch the nurse as she places a cold ice pack on my forehead. I wince.  "It's really swollen," she says. "How did this happen?" She gives it to me to hold.
"I fell," is all I manage to say.

Dad walks back in and stands next to me. His eye bags are dark and purple. "How is everything doc?" He asks, softly brushing my hair out of my face.
Anne takes my temperature and frowns a little. "Well..." she says. "He has a fever of 104 for some reason. I don't know why. But besides that, nothings broken. He has a big concussion though and needs to stay home from school plenty before returning."

Dad looks at me. "Good. He's probably dehydrated. That happens sometimes due to his medication."
She nods as she takes off her gloves before asking what kind of meds I take.
"He's on Zoloft and Antipsychotics." She writes it down. "Okay. I'm going to grab Dr. Stephen and he will give him his prescriptions and another pill to help with the fever."

Later that day, I fell asleep and woke up to see someone sitting on the couch, looking up at the tv, hoping it's Fin or V. It takes me a moment to vividly see, since my vision likes to blur after keeping my eyes closed for so long. Once it clears, I see that the main light is off, and just a small lamp beside me is turned on. I look at Taylor. She's wearing Pjs under her coat.
"Hi," I murmured, before groaning at the pain it caused in my ribs.

She turns her head and her lips spread into a smile. "Jonahhhh, you're awake!" She rushes over to me.

I look at the time and it's the middle of the night.
"Where's my dad?" I ask, looking at the clock. It's 1am and my head is still slightly pounding.
"He said he has work to do and will be back in the morning."
Taylor hands me the bag that was sitting on the chair. "What's this?" She pulls out a
bag of popcorn, cookies, chips and drinks.

"He told me you didn't eat much for dinner, so I brought you some snacks."
I look at her. "Thanks. But you didn't have to come." I try to sound friendly, but it just comes off as rude.

She frowns. "What do you mean? I wanted to see if you were okay. You didn't look too good when the teacher carried you out."
I sit up a little and adjust my pillow. "Was it that bad?" I ask, embarrassed that I was knocked out in front of the whole cafeteria.

She nods, gritting her teeth.  "You should've seen the look on people's faces. Most of them were literally cheering Bryce on like he was some kind of warrior or something."
I glare at her. "I bet the majority of them were guys. They find that kind of stuff sooo entertaining, I could've been hurt worse" I gesture to my whole body that hurts every time I move an inch, "Worse than this from the way he slammed me."

Taylor frowns as she lightly touches my forehead. "It's still very swollen. Would you like to see?" She says, about to pull out a small mirror from her purse.

I shake my head. "I'm living just fine without looking at myself right now."  Every time I go to the bathroom or wash off, I look down so I won't catch myself looking in the mirror. I already thought I looked bad, now I look even worse. Dad says it's not that bad and it'd go down in a few days. I hope it does.

For the rest of the night, we watched boring crime shows on the small tv while eating cheese puffs. She asked me many times if she could lay down next to me and I told her that there wouldn't be enough space.
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I was able to go back home 2 days later. After laying in the same hospital bed watching Max and Ruby and eating soggy chicken nuggets. I was looking forward to it because Fin said he'd come and check up on me. He never did.

Elisa looked after me most days  because I had to stay home until the pain went away. Turns out when Bryce slammed me against the floor, I bruised my rib cage real bad. It hurts to walk, talk, and swallow. Dad wasn't too happy about the hospital bill. He says he's going to have a talk with his parents.