Insufficient

Chapter 40

Juliana's POV

I'm locked in the car. Whoops. Apparently doors lock. What can you do about it?

"Juliana open this door right now!" My dad yells through the door, his voice muffled. I ignore him, staring ahead at the front of the children's hospital. I'm not going in there. I told him I wasn't. My mom stood off to the side, speaking incessantly on her phone, looking stressed.

She looks really pretty. If you ignore the extra grey hairs I've given her since she's been back. She was beginning to get her complexion back, however her Russian blood was not helping. Her yellow sundress was blowing slightly in the wind. She was clutching her cardigan, which I now knew she used to cover the bruises and scars on her arms.

Her hair was down around her face, too short to do much with it. I'd learnt from Justin that when she first got back, her hair was so matted that she had asked Aunt Stephanie to just shave her head.

I flinch when a loud bang comes from the roof of the car before I see my dad stomping off to where my mom stood on the sidewalk. He looked mad, as he should be. Even I could attest that I was being a little shit right now.

I had asked Dad for the keys when they were checking me in, having conveniently left my phone in the car. That was a mistake on his part, because now I was locked inside the air conditioned car while they stood in the hot sun, trying to figure out how to get me out of the car.

As of right now, they have tried bribery, threats of grounding, reasoning, threats of grounding, ice cream, threats of grounding (Are you seeing a pattern here?) but nothing is getting me inside of that building.

Those little shits called Aunt Teresa. Now, I'm not saying I'm scared of her, but she's a little scary. To some people I mean, not to me. No. Definitely not.

On another note, this lobby is oddly colourful.

"Juliana Bianchi?" I continue watching the episode of Paw Patrol they have playing on the big screen. Juliana Bianchi? Never heard of her.

Oh... Okay, so we're doing it this way then. My dad has a tight grip on my uninjured arm and is pulling me towards the two barn sized doors the nurse is standing between. Someone's moody today.

"I take it you're Juliana?" The nurse asks, looking at me with a sympathetic smile.

"Yes, she-"

"-No, my name is Fernando Hernández-Guerrero-Fernandez-Guerrero." I say with a straight face, giving my best spanish accent.

Yeah the nurse didn't think it was funny... But I did!

She walks us down a long hallway with lots of doors, followed by another hallway with a lot of doors, followed by- yeah. When we get to a room, it's your standard torture room, I mean doctors examination room. A bed with a single strip of white, annoyingly loud and useless, wrapping paper. Or maybe it's parchment paper. Am I a cookie waiting to cool off or something?

Does anybody actually wait for cookies to cool off before they eat them? If they do, then I fear for their childhood. Cookies that are still so hot you'll lose a fingerprint and a tastebud trying to eat it are the best, and only, way to eat a homemade cookie.

"That nurse was a bitch." I say once she's left the room, shifting on the parchment paper, making it crinkle and shift a whole two inches to the left. Whoops.

"Juliana! Don't say things like that." My mother exclaims, looking mortified that I would dare speak with such language. One thing I've learnt about my mother, she's having a hard time accepting that her little 5 year old babies are now almost 15 year old bratty teenagers.