Taming Life

Wake up Alex

It seemed like forever that we were sitting in the waiting room, longing for some news. It was agony. I craved Alex's arms around me, holding me and promising me that it would be okay. Mum held me, my family were all quiet. No one knew what to say and I didn't blame them. What do you say when the love of your daughters' life could be dying?

Alex's aunt's family sat next to us all, staying as quiet as we were. Amanda, who I'd learned was the girl with Alex's aunt, Gina, kept biting her nails nervously as she tried not to cry. I was shaking uncontrollably. My mind kept wandering to all of our memories. Our fights and kisses and all of the times she made me know that she was my home. My everything. Her eyes kept flashing before mine. So breathtakingly beautiful, oceans and skies melting into one, I could stare into those sapphires all day. I couldn't bear the thought of her fading from me forever. And yet, I kept thinking repeatedly that I could never see her again. I could never see her again. I could never see her again...
"Hazel." I opened my eyes, dad was shaking me awake. Alex. I sat up, disgusted with myself for falling asleep.
"What's happening?" I said.
"They stopped the bleeding, and she's asleep at the moment but we can go in to see her. When she wakes up she'll be in a lot of pain." Her aunt said.
"I'm so glad she's okay." I said, standing up shakily as tears rushed down my face in shock and happiness. I almost smiled at the thought of Alex teasing me for being so soppy. "God, all I did was almost die. Relax babe." I could practically hear, and I was happy to think that soon I would hear her tease me again. How ironic, after our entire history I was just waiting for her to softly mock me. Alex Priestly, my angel.
I let Alex's family go in first, not wanting her room to get too crowded. She needed to sleep, plus the nurses wouldn't be happy with all of us in there. I tried not to be bitter about Alex's mother going in there, whether she was her mum or not she had no right to go in there, into her hospital room, when she more than likely did very little to stop her husband from almost ripping her up like she was a piece of paper.
"How can someone do that to somebody?" I asked. It was the first time I'd properly talked to my family in hours.
"I don't know honey. He's not human." Mum said with disgust.
"Promise that we'll make sure that she's safe?" I asked. Dad nodded, so did Michael.
"Nothing will be allowed to happen to her again." Michael said. I smiled slightly.
My hands were still shaking violently, and I paced up and down whilst Alex's family were in the room. I knew that she was mostly safe but I couldn't believe it until I saw her. I had to know that she was okay.
"I'm sorry but you just need to wait out here whilst Alexandra sleeps for now. The doctors need to monitor her and it's vital that you wait before seeing her. Let her recover for now." A nurse was saying as she opened the door to Alex's room.
"Of course," Gina said, walking down the corridor towards us with the nurse, her husband and daughter trailing behind her. "But please let Hazel see her, just briefly." I looked up, and smiled.
"I would only be a minute, I promise." I said, rushing over to the nurse.
"Okay, but please be careful. She has seven broken ribs, a broken arm and collarbone as well as various bruising all over." The nurse said, and I nodded.
I tried to prepare myself as I walked over to Alex's room. I knew that she would be bruised a lot and I'd want to take care of her but right now I had to let the doctors do their job. They're looking after her, I thought, as I turned the handle.
I walked in and gasped, before covering my mouth. The room was incredibly white and clean, I could smell disinfectant everywhere. Alex had been sedated so wouldn't wake for a while, but I was still careful not to wake her.  All I could hear was her breathing, and a nurse next to me taking down various notes. She was still my Alex, my beautiful Alex. But she was covered in bruises and cuts, black blue green and every other colour you could imagine. Her eye was swollen, a merging sea of black and green. Her cheek, her jaw, her eyebrow were all covered in various cuts and bruises. Her arm didn't look very comfortable in a sling, and her breathing was jagged glass. But she was my Alex. My beautiful, hurt Alex.
"I love you." I said, starting to cry. I grasped her good hand lightly, and kissed her forehead where it was free from cuts and bruises. "I promise you I'll take care of you and never let anything like this happen again." I brushed her hair out of her face, away from where it was sticking to her forehead, and walked away.
"Thank you for everything that you're doing." I said to the nurse as I walked out, and he smiled back at me.
I walked through the corridor in kind of a daze, thinking about Alex and how different she looked, but still the same. How many times must he have hit her and hurt her? His own daughter. It took me a moment to realise that the police were here.
"You are under arrest, Mrs Priestly, for child neglect." The officers were saying, as they handcuffed Alex's mother and started to walk her away.
"You have the right to remain silent, though anything you will say can and will be held against you." She was walked away by officers, and I just stared blankly, knowing that she deserved everything that was coming to her.

Alex's aunt said that I should probably go home and get some sleep before Alex woke up. I gave her my phone number and made her promise to call as soon as she woke up, or they heard anything. My parents took me home with my brother, and I fell asleep in the car, exhausted with the day. I found this out later, but Michael carried me in. He carried me to bed and I was so exhausted that I just slept.
All of a sudden I woke up and sat up, worried about Alex. It took me several minutes to remember and realise that she was okay before I settled down a little, and then checked the time and realised that I must have been asleep for two or three hours. Two or three hours too long, I felt. Now that I was awake I just willed for Gina to call. Call me. Call me. Call me. Wake up Alex. Wake up Alex.
It was another two hours until Gina called me, telling me that Alex was awake. In that time I paced a lot, and sat around impatiently. I missed her so much and kept rereading through old soppy messages of ours. My heart beat faster reading them, convinced that I'd never get messages like these again, whether she was okay now or not. Something bad kept happening. I tried not to cry in front of my parents as I realised how many times bad things had happened recently. But finally, as we all sat around watching a film-I'm fairly sure that no one knew the title as we didn't pay attention-I got the phone call.
"She's just waking up honey. Get down here as fast as you can." Gina said. She said it in a tone that meant she knew how much I wanted to be there as Alex was waking up, and it mattered to me that she did. It was incredible how different to her sister she was, how accepting. It warmed me, and I was seeing more and more why she talked to Amanda all the time, and why her aunt was important to her.
Without saying a word to dad he put on his shoes and we started to leave.
"Wait, what about you guys?" I said, turning to my mum and brother.
"We don't want to take up space where we're not needed. Your father will wait for you but this isn't our place. We're just here for you and we love you." Mum said, and I hugged her, and then my brother. It took him by surprise, but he hugged me back. I looked up at him, smiling as we walked out.

Me and dad didn't say a word as we drove to the hospital, but he drove quickly. I was guessing he could sense my anxiety about seeing Alex soon after she wakes up, and I was grateful for that. We got pulled up outside the hospital and I rushed in as Dad found a parking space. I didn't have to stop anywhere as I knew her room, and so I just ran upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. This time when I ran down the corridor, there was no one outside. I stopped outside Alex's room and checked the number three times to make sure that it was the right room, though I knew that it was with all of me. And then I opened the door.
There was Alex. She was sat up a little in bed and her breaths were raspy, unsurprisingly with her broken ribs. She had one eye open, and the other was swollen shut. Her family, her caring good family, were around her. She seemed as if she had only just woken up.
"Hazel!" Alex said, looking up as soon as I walked in the room. I walked over, and carefully put my arm around her. She hugged me with her good arm, without moving her collarbone too much.
"I love you so so much. I thought I'd lost you." I said, my voice thick as I started crying. Alex started crying as well.
"I love you too, so much." She said, crying too. We laughed at each other a little and I wiped her eyes for her, trying to be gentle, though she winced slightly. I pressed my lips to hers and she kissed me back. She tasted like home, and I'd started to think that I would never feel at home again. My home was back, and I never wanted to be without it again. Then I stood next to her with her family. Strangely I didn't feel too self conscious kissing her in front of her family. They didn't care, and that was the most amazing thing in the world.