The Fall of Family

Chapter Nine

The next few days flashed by. I threw up a few more times from nerves and got frequent heart burn. I continuously asked the nurse, Ms. Fluker, who I hated even more as I got to know her, if I could see Stephanie. Drew called me until I answered, which afterwards he brought me a change of clothes and some food at the hospital. Mathew came everyday and talked to me about what was going on.

On Friday, a nurse I have never seen before came up to us. Jeanine, her husband, Mathew and I looked up, hopefully. She had a concerned/sad look on her face and said, with no sugar coating or nothing,

"I'm so sorry, she didn't make it,"

...

I felt the look on my face slowly disintegrate into despair. I felt like I had nothing to live for now. My tilted my heads down, shaking. The shaking was so bad, I fell into Mathew's arm, as did Jeanine. I dug my face into his shoulder and let the tears fall.

The nurse watched us and then spoke again, "I will prepare her things and get Claire's body prepared"

My heart stopped. I pushed my head off of Mathews chest and looked at the nurse.

We all were stunned and I was the first to speak, "Cl-cl-Claire?" She nodded in response. "But we are here for Stephanie..." I spoke as my voice rose in hope. Jeanine's head raised from the body of her husband.

The nurses face scrunched into a face of confusion and she said, "Stephine? Okay, let I will be right back with her report."

My hopes flew and my heart started beating agian. Where was Stephanie? Is she okay? She's not dead!! What kind of condition is she in? She's not dead!!!

As we started to freak out and sweat from excitement, we saw the nurse walk over to another family. As she told the news to another family, they started breaking down and we're going through the the same hell we just went through. I walked over to the family and sat down next to them. I started hugging what looked like Claire's grandparents, parents and siblings. Jeanine, her husband and Mathew followed my lead.

As I finished giving them all hugs, they thanked me and we walked back to our seat and waited for the nurse to come back.

We waited for about 10 minutes and the nurse came back in. Then she gave us much better news than for Claire's family.

"Stephanie, correct right? Okay, just wanted to make sure. Her left leg is shattered, but can be healed, bruised ribs and some cuts and scrapes." She said as she folded paper on the clipboard in her hands and held it down by her hips. "She went into surgery and her leg is now stable. Her bruised ribs are not severe, but she will have to rest for a few weeks."

We all let out a breath of air we were holding in. I was estatic. She gave even more better news on top of it. "She is now ready for you to see her. She is awake, talking and stable" I felt as if I could fly. I immediately felt my stomach flip, end over end over end.

We followed the nurse that I now loved and we led us to the "Recovery Unit" and led us through many hallways to a blank, white door. I let Jeanine and Stephanie's dad go through the door first. We walked into the room and I was glad the few days of stress was over. We carefully strolled into the equally blank white room and saw Stephanie, with her chest wrapped up and her leg dangling from the frame of her bed.

She glanced at us from the muted 10 o'clock news on the small TV (that looked like it was from the 90's' if you knew what I mean) and her face lit up when she saw us. "MOM, DAD, MAR!!" She exclaimed. She hugged us best as she could as her ribs were wrapped up like sausages.

"Thank gosh it's you and not that nurse coming in to give me more of those stupid shots! How are you? Oh mom, please don't cry." I glanced at Jeanine and saw that tears were falling down her face as well as her husband, who's eyes were tearing up. I reached my hand up and wiped my own tears away.

As I bent down to hug her, she whispered in my ear, "Who is the boy?"

I smiled and withdrew from the hug and wrapped my arm around Mathew and said, "Stephaine, this is Mathew. Mathew, Stephanie." They shook hands and we continued our conversation.

After a while, she was making puns and laughing until her side hurt, and I felt ten times better about my life and I was glad she was okay.

After we saw her, I said good-bye and drove Mathew and I home. When I stopped at the house he directed me to. I said thank you and gave him a huge hug. We started to shift our weight from one foot to the other and stayed there for a few seconds. As we shared the moment, I whispered in his ear, "Thank you for supporting me. I couldn't of done it without you." He stroked my hair and whispered "Sure, no problem" back.

I pulled away from the hug and he waved back as he walked up to the front door and unlocked it. After he was in, I left his house and drove to the park, where I pulled out a blanket from my car and sat out in the middle of the field, under the stars. I texted Drew I would be home tomorrow morning and smiled as I leaned back and realized I was in love, and fell asleep in the field.