✰𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝✰- 𝐃𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧

✰𝟏𝟖. 𝐒𝐢𝐜𝐤

✰𝐌𝐚𝐲

✰𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢'𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐯:✰

A week had passed and my hospital stay was finally over. The nurses didn't really want to let me go, they thought that I needed more monitoring and didn't feel comfortable leaving me without proper care in their words. That made Dally angry, the nurses calling his care inadequate. They assured him that it was just because there was no adult watching over me and that it was just because he was only 17, but that didn't help calm Dally.

He was furious at those nurses for implying that he couldn't take care of me. I ended up getting him to take a breather after reminding him that if he curses out the nurses then he probably won't be back to see me and they would for sure keep me longer. Dally ended up calming down after smoking a few cigarettes and beating up an annoying soc boy but I had to get a new nurse, I liked her as well so I wasn't mad at Dally, but I did think his reaction was dramatic and I didn't understand how his mind had perceived that comment.

I hated the hospital, my hatred for it never faded and only grew with each day. The white walls and thin blankets were driving me mad, and I had to stay in the hospital gown the whole time. I hated my every move needing assistance. It felt worse to me because I wasn't sick, I was just hurt and injured. For some reason being sick sounded better to me than being injured, injured sounds more serious and I guess that was the case for me. If you're sick it will eventually pass and you will go back to normal, I thought, but I may feel the effects of my broken hip forever. It was more serious than just being sick, the list of broken things on my body constantly ringing in my ears.

I hated the food as well. They kept trying to shove the horrible food down my throat but I refused and refused every time out of embarrassment mostly. I didn't want to eat anything, especially in front of Dally, but I knew I had to if I wanted to gain some strength and get out of here. The nurses ended up giving me whatever I would accept, that being mostly broth because I found it less embarrassing to drink in front of others than to eat in front of others. I prayed that Dally would assume the cup had water or something else with not many calories in it. When Dally would sleep or go out though I would eat bread and fruit, but that wasn't very often.

Dally was there, he hardly left my side. I told him multiple times every day that he could go, that he didn't have to stay with me. I was sure that he wanted to go hang out with his friends and cause trouble like he did every other day, maybe even flirt with a girl or something. The last thought made me angry and I mindlessly crushed a styrofoam cup. But every time he said that he didn't want to leave. He would claim that he wanted to stay by my bedside and that he was having fun, I didn't believe any of it though. I knew that he wanted to leave and I was dumbfounded of what was making him stay.

Dally always did what he wanted, not a care in the world or a consideration for another's feelings, so what was making him stay in the plastic chairs beside my hospital bed? Maybe there was some invisible force shoving him back down into the chair or an ounce of guilt in his mind. I felt bad though, that he sat in those chairs all day. I'm sure he was bored out of his mind and had some crazy joint pain from sleeping there as well some nights. All I did usually was sleep and wince in pain.

We had grown closer, almost like it were a social experiment or something. Like the universe was seeing if the confinement and stress would bring us closer or break us apart forever since we were mostly acquaintances before this whole situation. People usually try and escape stress I thought, I'd had multiple people leave when I had something going on. All of my school friends fading away rapidly after Charlotte passed and I had to live with my dad who everyone knew was a bad guy. Whispers in my ears turned to whispers in others ears about me.

Each bruise I gained an acquaintance gave me the cold shoulder, I never understood that. I just wanted some basic conversation, contact with the outside world since I felt like I was living in a bubble of misery. I had no intentions of bringing up my life at all ever, just a simple "What did you do this weekend" or something, but I guess everyone thought I would be saying stuff like "My dad beat me last night." I'm not stupid or something despite what a lot of people think, just because I had a rough time at home didn't mean that I lost basic conversational skills.