In the spotlight

39

Sofia Christensen

"Ms. Christensen!" Ugh. What the hell was going on? I felt bright lights surrounding me; I could see them through my closed eyelids.

"Ms. Christensen, good morning!" I turned my head as I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to regain consciousness to open my eyes. A sudden wave of the worst headache of my entire life hit my head, as if somebody was hitting it with an axe.

I managed to open my eyes slightly but was completely blinded, partially from the headache and partially from the bright lights shining at me. I felt as if I got hit by a truck.

I blinked twice, my vision slowly clearing. Thankfully, my contact lenses were still in, allowing me to make out the doctors in their white coats, with stethoscopes around their necks. At least three of them stood around my bed, though I couldn't focus on counting—every part of me was consumed by the overwhelming wave of nausea.

As a sudden reflex, I leaped up from my standing position and bent forward. The doctors knew exactly that was going to happen, and one of them was handing me the basin, which I grabbed as if my life depended on it.

I threw up multiple times in a row while my intestines were twisting and burning inside me. I felt someone's hand slowly caressing my back, but at the moment I couldn't even catch a glimpse of whoever was there because vomiting was the only movement I could execute at the moment.

When there was nothing else left to throw up, I took a few deep breaths. I coughed and spat, not caring the slightest that multiple doctors were standing around, watching me. They have probably seen worse stuff before anyway.

Slowly, the stomachache started to calm down a little. I couldn't move from my forced and bent position because that eased the pain the best, but I felt the progress. I have been drunk and have vomited before once or twice from alcohol, but this pain was nothing remotely like that drunken nausea. Everything was burning.

"Are you feeling better?" The youngest of the three medical staff leaned in a little closer to me. I just nodded silently in agreement, watching him take the basin away from my lap as I leaned back slowly on the bed.

This was the first time I realized that my parents were standing next to me. My mom had her hand on the back of my head, her blue eyes scanning my face worryingly. My dad was standing behind her, his hands on my mother's shoulders, and worry was clearly glistering in his eyes as well.

They knew that something weird was going on. Never in my life have I drunk so much to end up in a hospital before, and especially not during a gala dinner after a runway. I wanted to let them know this just in case, but the thing is, I didn't remember anything at all.

I traced my eyes back to the doctors for an explanation. The oldest of them cleared his throat, holding a black chart in one hand while putting on his glasses with the other.

"Ms. Christensen, I need to ask you some questions. Can you answer them?" He inquiried.

"Yes." I cleared my throat, but my tone remained awfully hoarse. It was hurting from the vomiting, and combined with the piercing headache, I just wanted to get over it and make them leave so I could rest.

"Do you remember anything about what happened last night?" Last night? The question caught me off guard. I turned my head to the side for a brief moment, and only now I realized that the sun was already up and the bright lights shone from outside. Waking up in a hospital was scary enough as it is, but blacking out so hard that I couldn't remember the night before?

"I was, uh, working." I began a little more panicked now. "I had a runway show. Then a dinner after." I listed them slowly. I gathered all of my energy I had at the moment, but unironically, the last thing I could remember was me dancing with Matteo. I was completely fine before that, and a complete blackout after.