"I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one." -Marilyn Monroe
My eyes slowly fluttered open as I looked around the dim, unfamiliar room. My head was pounding, but I felt something cold moving around on it too. I looked straight above me and saw a toffee colored face above mine, gazing at me intently. I almost started when I saw the marred half of her face. It looked like she had been mauled by a bear. But I could tell that she was once amazingly beautiful, and still retained some of that beauty. She smiled at me and took the ice pack away from my head. "Well, look who's up," she said, sitting up straight. I squinted my eyes at her and asked,
"Where am I?"
"My fiancee found you fainted in the woods," she said, now frowning at me. "What in the world were you doing wandering those woods at night?" she questioned suspiciously. "Don't you know those woods are dangerous?" I rubbed my head tenderly and closed my eyes.
"Lara Croft would have done it..." was my only explanation.
"What were you looking for?" she asked me. I opened my eyes and looked at her, frowning slightly.
"I don't really know," I admitted. "I guess I just wanted some kind of adventure. But that probably wasn't the smartest idea, huh?" The woman shook her head and grinned.
"Let me take your temperature honey," she requested, reaching for the thermometer on the bedside table. I looked at her as she gently slid the thermometer under my tongue. She watched the thermometer intently as the numbers climbed. 84...92...99...
"101 degrees," she said as the thermometer beeped and she pulled it from my mouth. "You're going down," she informed me, turning the thermometer off and placing it back on the polished wooden table.
"Going down?" I whispered hoarsely, sitting up on the bed. "How sick was I?"
"When Sam brought you in, you were at 107 degrees," she stated. I raised my eyebrows at her.
"Oh," I muttered. I looked down at my body and saw that I was in blue flannel pajamas, the gouge on my calf bandaged.
"What's your name?" the woman asked me.
"Calypso," I answered. "Calypso Kinnear. What about you?"
"Emily Clearwater. How old are you?"
"I'm seventeen and from Brooklyn, New York. I ran away from home, but I'm not going to tell you why," I said, answering several questions at once.
"Okay," she said. "Now whaddya say to a shower and some breakfast, huh?" I grinned and nodded. We got up and she showed me to the bathroom. After I had taken an hour long shower, and gotten dressed in some of Emily's clothes. I walked downstairs, my head still pounding. I smelled eggs, bacon and pancakes and as soon as I sat down, a plate of breakfast along with a glass of orange juice was placed in front of me.
"Eat up," Emily said, waving the spatula at me as she went back to cooking some more. I ate like I had never eaten before. I started out cutting my pancakes, but before long I had placed the bacon and eggs on top of the pancakes, poured some syrup on, then rolled it up and ate it like a burrito. Emily looked over at me. "You're enjoying that breakfast, huh?" I smiled and nodded at her, my mouth dripping with syrup as I kept chewing. My stomach was churning a quite a bit, but I figured it was just because I was still hungry. She grinned.
"But don't eat too fast," she warned. Just as she said that, I felt a little bit of bile rise in my throat. My jaws began to tighten once again and my throat contracted.
"Oh god," I muttered. I sprinted upstairs to the bathroom and got to the toilet just in time to shove my head in and puke up all my breakfast. "Ohhh..." I moaned as I crawled away from the toilet. I sat up against the wall, panting with my eyes closed. I sat there for a few minutes before I dragged myself up to flush the toilet and walk back downstairs. Emily placed a bowl of hot broth before me this time.
"How bout we start out light, huh?" I nodded and began to slowly slurp down the yummy liquid. I heard the door open and a big, very muscly man walked in, without a shirt on. He was the same color as Emily with brown eyes and quite intimidating.
"How's our guest doing?" he asked Emily while looking at me. She turned the stove off and put one hand on her hip as she turned to face Sam. She looked at me.
"Well, she recently decided to share her partially digestsed breakfast with the toilet." The man laughed as he went to hug Emily. He held her tenderly and lightly kissed her lips, but even that small action seemed to fill the room with enough love to end a war. I had to look away, feeling like I was intruding on something sacred and special. I began to drink my broth once again as the man sat next to me. "Calypso, this is Sam, my fiancee," she said introducing the man. "Sam, this is Calypso," she introduced. Sam reached out his big hand for me to shake. I was a little scared to shake it, thinking he might break my hand, but he turned out to be quite gentle. As soon as our hands touched, I found that it was a little warmer than mine.
"So you're the one who found me in the woods, huh?" I asked him. He nodded.
"Yeah," he answered. "I was hiking when I found you lying on the ground in the mud. Luckily, you were breathing, but only barely, so I carried you back here. Emily's been caring for you since then."
"How long was I asleep?" I asked him.
"About twenty-six hours," Emily answered, now sitting on the other side of me. I raised my eyebrows. I slept a lot, but I had never slept for over a day before. I finished off my broth and laid my head down on the table, closing my eyes.
"Are you tired?" she asked me. "Do you wanna go to your room and sleep?"
"My room?" I said, opening my eyes and looking at her.
"Well yours for now, yes," she answered, smiling.
"Huh," I muttered. I closed my eyes again. "No. Not really. I kinda wanna do something today." I heard Sam get up and walk somewhere.
"What did you have in mind?" she said as I heard cereal being poured into a bowl.
"Clothes?" I asked. "I don't have any clothes," I told her, closing my eyes again.
"Didn't you pack anything when you left?" she asked me incredulously. I shook my head.
"No. It would've been too loud and taken up too much time. I just had to get out of there," I explained.
"Get out of where?" Sam asked as he sat back down next to me and began eating his breakfast.
"Her home," Emily said, anwering for me. "She's a runaway."
"Not my home," I corrected, opening my eyes and sitting up to look at her. "The place I lived with the people who are related to me. Not my home." Emily scrutnized my face, obviously trying to decipher whether this was me being a teenage drama queen or if I had a real problem in that place.
"It was that bad, huh?" Sam asked from beside me. I looked at him and sighed.
"Can we go shopping today, or what?" I asked, turning back to face Emily. I didn't mean to be rude, but I was a little upset that they seemed to be brushing off my running away as typical teenage behavior.
"Yes," Emily finally answered. "Go get some shoes and a coat out of my closet, and we'll be on our way." I nodded and headed up the stairs to Emily's room and got ready to go.
