An Apple A Day

01. White

I REALIZE, you can not get much excitement from staring at a boring white ceiling. However, staring at a boring white ceiling gets much worse when doing any other thing obtains you just the same feeling.

White is such an ugly color.

I sigh, fixing my position on the bed so that I'm sitting down. I take a quick glance at the entirety of the hospital room I was put in for most of last night. I inwardly groan at the memory.

I was hospitalized last night after getting food poisoning. Food poisoning.

I stretch in bed for a bit before taking a good long look at the four corners of the small white room. I notice that it's raining quite hard and also, there were three things on the lefthand bed table -- my favorite book, a pencil, and my old sketchpad with an ugly yellow sticky note attached to it.

"Huh," I wonder out loud before reaching out and grabbing first the note on the sketchpad. Squinting as I read, I neared the paper to my face. I glanced both left and right. My phone was on the right hand bedside table. No glasses.

I sighed in irritation before raising the paper nearer to my face.

DEAR LI, it read, in my mother's writing.

THE DOCTOR SAID YOU WERE DOING FINE AND SO WE JUST BROUGHT OVER SOME STUFF TO HELP YOU KILL TIME BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOSPITAL. SORRY WE'RE NOT THERE TO SEE YOU BEFORE OUR FLIGHT BUT IT'S IN AN HOUR AND WE AIN'T PAYING EXTRA FOR THE FLIGHT CHANGE. AND DON'T WORRY, IT WAS JUST A SLIGHT CASE OF FOOD POISONING SO YOU'LL BE JUST FINE. EAT A LOT OF IRON. WE'LL SEE YOU ON THE HOLIDAYS SWEETIE.

KEEP SAFE. LOVE MOM AND DAD

My eyes widened at the letter.

Holy shit. "Ain't". My mother said "ain't".

Hm.

"Wait, something's missing." I narrowed my eyes as I flipped through the pages of the sketchpad. Still nothing.

Maybe they've finally given up on that. I think contently, reaching for my book and flipping the familiar pages open. The minute I open the book, though, a small paper fell out.

After grabbing it, I read. "Goddammit, really?" I groan.

"AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY, SWEETIE."

"Really? In a hospital? You've got to be fuc-"

"Lilith Thompson?" The door burst open, revealing a guy with glasses and slightly disheveled hair in a crumpled white labcoat. A doctor, I presume.

"Gah!" I yell in surprise, absently crumpling in turn the piece of paper. The man raised an eyebrow in my direction.

"Y-Yeah?" I say, regaining my composure. "That's me."

Said unnamed boy looked me up and down. His mouth quirking into a crooked smile. "Hello." He said in a deep, smooth voice.

"H-Hi?" I reply questionably.

He continued to stare.

"U-Um, what do you want?" I asked. He cleared his throat and walked over to the end of my bed to grab a blue clipboard before speaking once more.

"Oh, just checking up on you," He took a pen out of his pocket, and started glancing back and forth between me and the clipboard, then he started to confirm the current filled in information.

"Name, Lilith Thompson. Sex, Female. Birthdate, October 31, 1997?"

I nodded until he stopped talking.