Kyle's P. O. V.
The first thought I had when I opened my eyes in the Lightwood Memorial Hospital was: What the hell just happened? All I felt was pain in the midst of numbness when the bullet entered my body. I was scared. Not just for my life, but for Sophia's. If someone just tried to kill me, what would stop them from trying to kill her too? Tears filled my eyes as I heard my little sister cry for help. I hated to hear her cry; especially for me. My job as her big brother was to prevent tears from falling down from her eyes. This time I was the cause of those tears and I hated myself for it.
I knew I was going to die. I hated to give in so easily, but there was no way I was going to live through this. I didn't know where the bullet entered, but I did know that it hurt a lot. I probably would've died if it weren't for the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my eighteen years of life.
The first time I saw Rosie Mills was in tenth grade. We shared two classes together: English and Science. I was always fascinated with her and her outlook on life. In English, we had been assigned to do a project together about whether or not humanity was inherently evil and her opinion took me by surprise. Before I got to work with her, I had just assumed she was like every other girl that wore glasses and liked to read and got good grades in her classes. A nerd. Sure, she did like to read and she wasn't "popular", but that didn't define her. After our project, I would see her in the halls and at lunch and at school events and gatherings. She enticed me, and I didn't know why.
So when I opened my eyes and saw her angelic face in front of mine telling me it was going to be okay, I immediately believed her. I trusted her even though I didn't really know her. I squeezed her hand as I felt something shape dig into my already torn and burning flesh. It hurt, more than actually getting shot. It was like someone decided to take a knife and poke at my muscles repeatedly not caring if it hurt me. But Rosie cared, she told me to hold her hand and squeeze when the pain got immensely worse. She tried to be as gentle as she could, and for that, I was thankful.
I knew that Rosie was into doctors and the biology of the human body. We had biology together that semester, and I could see the excited gleam in her eyes when our teacher spoke of the human anatomy. I liked that about her. When she or others spoke of her passions, her entire face lit up and she smiled wider than I have ever seen her smile before. She was so gorgeous and she didn't even know it. She received so much attention, yet she never seemed to notice or care. She was carefree, and I envied her for that.
There was always stress in my life. With my father being a high-class businessman with so much success it was unbelievable, I had a family reputation to uphold. I was expected to be great and do great things. So many expectations had been set by my parents, I never got to have time to think about what I wanted to be. What I wanted to do with my life. It sucked having your life already planned out for you without being able to get a say in what you want to do and what you want to be.
Sophia waited for me to get out of surgery to visit me. I felt bad, seeing as she had plans that night that she had been waiting for months in advance. She never really got to do anything for her either, so when her friends invited her to go on a week-long camping trip and our mother granted her permission to go, she was ecstatic. But now, I was in the hospital with a bullet wound in my shoulder.
She and I waited for our parents to show up, and they did, two hours after I was released from surgery to be exact. Sophia never left my side since she was granted access into the room I would be staying in for three weeks. I loved my little sister. She was always there for me, always. No questions asked.
"Hey, are you even listening?" The voice of Sophia sounded, laced with annoyance and amusement, tearing me out of my thoughts.
She and I were playing our third game of cards since she wanted to "keep my brain active so I didn't become brain-dead". As much as I loved her, I was quite annoyed by her as well.
"Of course I am." I replied. "You asked if I had a 2 and the answer is no."
She rolled her eyes. "No, that isn't what I said at all. I was talking about Rosie."
My chest tightened in excitement at her name. When did Soph meet her?
"Rosie?" I asked. "What about her?"
"She saved your life. She took the bullet out of your shoulder and cleaned up the blood until the ambulance got there. She was amazing, you should've seen her."
Yeah, she really is, I thought to myself as I scanned my cards for the next available move to play.
"Any jacks?"
She narrowed her eyes and handed the card over without a word.
•°•°•°•
My parents arrived later in the night. My mother rushed to me and bathed me in kisses and tears of relief while my father remained standing at the doorway with his neutralized gaze rested upon me. I wasn't sure if my father hated me, or just really disliked me enough to care whether the bullet went through my shoulder or my heart.
"I don't know what I would've done if I lost you, Kyle." Mom said as she stroked my hair after trailing wet, gross motherly kisses all over my face. "I'm so sorry we couldn't get here sooner, your father had a very important mee—"
"He has a very important meeting he absolutely could not miss even if his only son was hospitalized because he got shot. I get it, Mom." I gave her a small smile for her benefit and Sophia's. "You wouldn't have—"
"Rosie saved him, Mom!" Sophia exclaimed, interjecting into the conversation after conversing with my father's bodyguard, Tony. "She was the girl that took the bullet out before the ambulance came. I was freaking out and she calmed me down and..."
As Sophia explained the scenario to our mother, Mom smiled widely and my father's eyes actually peeked up from his cellphone for two minor seconds to listen to the story. Finally, after Sophia was finished, he uttered five words that brought a jolt to my heart and a nervous flutter in my stomach.
"I want to meet her."
