Second Chance

Chapter 15

The next time I woke up, I was in a hospital bed wearing some scratchy hospital gown. I looked around and noticed Chloe asleep in a chair in the corner.

"Chloe," I hissed. "Chloe!" Nothing. She was out cold.

I stared around my room and found the button that would call a nurse. I pressed it and leaned back into my bed.

My leg was up in a sling hanging from the ceiling. There was a curtain next to me, probably separating me from another patient. It was silent from the other side, though. I furrowed my eyebrows as I thought back to the competition.

The dance, the music, Abby changing my routine last minute, thinking of Kenzie, not seeing the leak, the rain, slipping, falling apart right on stage. I just didn't remember anything after that.

I was mortified. I had ruined my dance with carelessness, and it would be shown on national television in just a few weeks.

I let out a groan, but quickly shut up when the nurse came in.

"Uh, Madison?" She asked, looking at her charts. "I see you're awake! How are you feeling?" She came over to me and started checking my vitals.

"Um, it hurts. My leg I mean. It hurts really, really bad."

"Mhm," she mumbled. "I can give you some medicine for that."

I stayed quiet as I checked out the bandage on my leg. It was so thick, probably three times the size of my leg.

"Looks good!" She exclaimed as she came over and sat on my bed. "I'm Leigha, by the way. And I bet you have a lot of questions."

"Can you just tell me where I am?"

At this point, Chloe woke up. She looked around, clearly disoriented. I could see the change on her face when she remembered what happened.

She saw that I was speaking with the nurse, and stayed quiet.

"You're in Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Well at first, the ambulance took you to a local hospital, but your mom had you brought here for the surgery so that she could see your sister and you at the same time."

"Surgery?!" I gasped. Chloe came and sat beside me.

"Hey," she whispered. I looked up to her and shot her a half smile.

"To repair your shattered ankle and the break in your shin bone."

So that's why it hurt so bad. I couldn't believe I stayed unconscious for this long, which leads me to the question. How long has it been?

"How long have I been asleep?"

"A while..." Chloe muttered under her breath.

"Four days. But that's because we have kept you unconscious due to the amount of pain you would be in from the breaks."

"And my sister, can you tell me about her?" I said desperately.

"Yes, she's uh, she's doing... Badly. She's on life support. Brain dead. We're just waiting for your parents consent to, you know... Let her go."

Panic took over all of my emotions.

"She's brain dead?" I gasped. "What, um, what does that mean?"

"It means," Leigha bit her lip. "That her brain is shutting down and cannot ever recover. It's dead, and the only thing keeping her alive is the life support she's on."

Before I had time to react, someone burst through the door.

"Mom?!"

"Oh, sweetheart. You're awake. Good."