Annoying Adam

Technically Alive

Bright white walls, all around.

Is this really what H*ll looks like? I thought it was all fire and stuff. And there's no way I was in Heaven. There was an annoying beep every second or so, which I doubt would happen in Heaven. I blinked a couple more times, and some other stuff came into view. My mother, asleep in a chair in one of the corners, Lizzy, curled up on a blanket, and some big box to the side of me, where the annoying sound was coming from.

Looking over and blinking a few more times, I saw that it was a heart monitor. I was alive? What?

I tried to sit up, but then the heart monitor started to go crazy and someone rushed into the room and pushed me back down into the bed and shoved a glass of water into my face. I tried to swat them away, but my arms stung, and I quit struggling. Nothing was important anymore. I had been raped, abused, used, and now the only person other than my family that I had ever loved I had pushed away so far that he would never come back.

I was useless.

The nurse, who had been the pushy one, again offered me the water and some pills, and I took them without hesitation.

However, I had to know...

"What happened to me?" I croaked out.

The nurse looked from me to my mom, who had woken up and was staring at me.

"Well, you see, you were tortured for a long time; it looks like some form of water, cuts, tasers, burning, and maybe some gunshot residue. Then, it seems like the house you were in collapsed, which broke a few of your ribs. Three people were killed, found I  the rubble of the house."

Oh no. Please, not Adam. Please not Adam.

"However, all of them seemed to be older men, in their forties and fifties. There was a younger boy, about your age, that made it through. Would you like to see him? He hasn't woken up yet, but I'm sure you might be able to at least see him."

I thought about it, a spark of hope coming into me again.

"May I?" I asked. Rejection now couldn't drive me to do anything. Too drastic that is.

She nodded and started to wheel me out of the room on my hospital bed when my mother paused her, holding her arm out in front of the door.

"May I at least talk to my daughter first?" she asked, in the do-not-disobey-me-right-now tone of voice.

"Of course," the nurse said hastily, letting go of my bed and rushing out of the room.

I flinched when my mom turned her gaze on me.

"Okay, before you even say anything," I said, just about as quickly as I could, as my mother glared me down, "that this was not all my fault. There was a-a crazy guy who- who attacked me, and- and-and it was horrible."

At that moment, I was too angry with how weak I had been to not stand up more to Jeffery. Maybe then, I could have actually done something that would have stopped all of this pain that I was beginning to feel.

Tears started to stream down my face, and then a ball of fur jumped up onto my bed and curled in close to me, whimpering and whining, trying to make me feel better. At least I knew he had survived. The little Bandit of my heart. Well, one of them. I needed to go see the other one.

With a small nod to my mother, she called the nurse back in to wheel me into Adam's room.

When I was right outside and the nurse went to open the door, I took a deep breath, knowing this was the last time I was ever going to see him. I wanted to memorize all of him, because even though they say you never forget your first love, you could never be too sure.