Starting Over Anderson || ✔

Twelve: Choice

3 days A.D.

Waking up is very disorientating. 

It feels like I'm here, but not actually here, because part of me is somewhere else.

The doctors rush to check me up once the nurses notify them that I have regained consciousness. They shine their flashlights into my eyes, poke around my body, read statistics off their charts, and key in details to the monitor hanging overhead. They are finally satisfied with my responses and instruct me to down a pill and a glass of water before leaving me to rest.

I barely register what they do, until the last nurse leaves my room, I call for her.

"What is it, sweetheart?" she asks softly, a patient smile on her wrinkled face. She looks very old, her gray hair tied neatly into a bun. Roberta, her name tag reads.

"Did - was anyone admitted - admitted with me?" My voice falters towards the end as I see Roberta's change of expression. I shut my eyes, already knowing the answer yet unwilling to accept it.

The old nurse shakes her head sadly. "I'm sorry honey. I heard there were a few others involved in the crash but... only you made it. You're lucky the young man brought you in, or you would've died as well from the amount you were bleeding -"

I don't hear the words after. Only I made it. Isa didn't. Brian didn't.

"Darling, are you alright?" Roberta rubs circles on my back as I cry, rocking back and forth, trying to numb the pain.

How am I alright when the only person who has ever loved and cared for me is gone? She is my foundation, the one I know who would never leave me no matter what - hell we even made a promise! But looks like she has gone on before me. How can she do this? She's my sister, my mother, my best friend, my everything. How do I live without her?

I wail out in agony, tearing out the tubes sticking into my body. I don't need the drips. I just want to be with Isa.

Roberta gasps and coaxes me to stop. She's holding onto my hands in an iron grip, while shouting for a Doctor Whale.  A few other people runs into my room, pinning me down. I see them, but I don't really see their faces. All I see are shapes, outlines, all blurred into one. I'm sobbing so hard my chest heaves heavily from the lack of oxygen. I struggle against their hold, going for the tubes, gasping for air yet somehow bawling my insides out.

"Increase her propofol content!" Someone shouts over the commotion.

"No!" I scream. "Let me go! Let me be with Isa!"

It's no use. All I can do is let the tears fall helplessly as I feel the cold liquid seeping into my veins, sedating me. "Isa," I whisper, before the drug knocks me out.

This time, my thoughts are clearer when I come around.

I blink at the harsh glare of the light and finally notice Roberta dozing off in a chair beside my bed. I lift an arm, using a great amount of strength to complete such a small movement, and place it over Roberta's. She jerks awake, readjusts her hair and smiles warmly at me.

"Hello there, darling. How are you feeling?"

I try to answer her, but it feels like sticking a knife down my throat so I just nod. She understands immediately and hands me a glass of water from my bedside table. It sure feels like I've been living in the desert my whole life at the dryness of my throat. Strangely, the rest of my body seems hydrated. It must be the drips.