I think I faint at her words. I was in a coma? How long? Why? I stir from a lightheadedness, and hear sighs coming from my left side of my bed.
"Well, I think you just shocked her, nothing to worry about." I hear a deep male's voice cut into the air in the room. I stare into the usual darkness and wait for conversation to explain things to me. "Now, Ember, I'm going to check your vitals, just to make sure you're doing alright." He continues and I hear loud footsteps slapping into linoleum flooring as he walks quickly to my right side and wraps cold plastic to my arm.
"Doctor?" I ask. I have to know.
"Yes?" He asks me in reply and I shiver at the cold metal of a stethoscope on my arm right under the pressure pump on my arm.
"Was I really in a coma?" I ask him softly. It feels strange asking those words.
"You were." He replies, and it sounds like he was going to continue but only goes on to tell me that my vitals sound great for just coming out of a coma. I sigh sadly and resort to actually asking what I really wanted to know since Madilyn told me I had just woken from one.
"How long?" I ask and I hear his footsteps linger at the door. He sighs.
"A month." He says and leaves. I go numb. What? A month? No. I have to find my mother, and I just wasted a month; a whole month! I try to sit up but am pushed back, and I make an exaggerated glare at my best friend.
"You're going nowhere. Not until they release you." Madilyn says and I can hear the hurt in her voice. I sigh, annoyed.
Then after a few minutes of pure silence except our steady breathing, small shy footsteps come into the room with bigger sounding ones escorting them. I smile. I know those sounds slapping at the white bleached floor. I hear him running and a small figure is suddenly in my lap, giving me a tightly wound hug, but j don't care because I give one back to Avery. I'm so glad to have him here again with me. I had missed his hugs and his just being there by my side. I smile happily.
"I'm glad you're awake missy. All of us we're getting very worried." I hear Jack's strong voice say. I frown, sad that I had done this to them.
"Sorry." I say sadly. I wish I hadn't gone into a coma, I bet they were extremely worried that I would never wake up. Then; I think of Avery. What did he think? How did he feel? They all probably thought I would never wake up, now I realize that Avery is still clutching at my gown like I will disappear if he lets go and I feel bad. I grip his hands tightly. "Avery, oh Avery. Its alright now, it's alright." I say to him softly and I feel him shake violently and nestle his head to my chest. I make sure to hug him tightly, and not let go.
"It's all going to be okay." I tell him again. I feel as he snuggles closer and I smile.
"I'm so glad you're awake." Jack says, and it reminds me that my father is still missing. Not dead, I think. He's not dead, just missing.
"Is my..." I trail off sadly. I think they know what I'm about to say because Jack sighs.
"Still missing." Madilyn's voice cuts into the silence I've made. I smile sadly, but only because she doesn't say that he's gone, but knows that I still believe he's only missing. Disappeared somewhere, somewhere I can't find him, and it's not fair.
"When can I leave this place?" I ask softly. My voice feels different, and yet the air around me feels as if it's the same as home. There's a giggle, then silence.
"We can ask the doctor, but I think it could be soon. But don't take my word on it, I'm no doctor." Jack answers.
"Alright, I'll be sure." I reply my voice ringed with laughter. I hear a strangled noise from below me and realize with a start its Avery. I wonder for a minute if he's choking or hurt, but he's shaking with laughter, that it shocks me with pitched silence. I listen with all my might because it's music to my ears. I want to memorize that sound, to hear it again once it dies.
The others join in laughing with him but I am perplexed by the sound he makes and the sincerity of his true happiness. I smile, and then footsteps cease at the doorway and all is silent again. "Doctor, when can she be taken home?" Jack asks him. Two footsteps connect to his as he paces slowly towards my bed.
"I'd say today. I'll just have a few nurses check up on her a few more times, just to truly make sure she is in the right mind and time to leave here." He answers and from his voice I gather that he is a gruff older man with tender loving expressions and cares deeply about all his patients. I smile lightly, silently thanking him.
I feel all eyes catered towards me and I suddenly feel uncomfortable. Avery gently reassures me, his soft childlike hands in mine, and I smile grateful I have him as a best friend.
"Is blindness from the bus happening, or did it occur some other time?" I hear the doctor ask. I know that my friend's don't know it's been my whole life that I've been like this, so I realize I have to provide that information myself. I clear my throat softly then, "I've been blind ever since I was born. My father says it was just not a few seconds after I was born." I answer steadily. I hear a few gasps from around the room, but the doctor is silent, until only scribbling is heard in the room.
"Alright, two nurses will be in shortly then they will report back to me. Then I will be able to tell you when to expect a release." He says calmly. I smile grateful.
"Thank you." I respond happily. I realize with a moment's reality of being stuck here that I really only want to be in my own bed, that I just want to be home with my friends, and with my father. I sigh sadly, thinking of him.
Two sets of stranger's steps vibrate into the quiet room, and I wait silently as they measure this and that, and check my vitals again, until scribbling is again, the only thing heard alongside breathing. My nervous breathing. I don't know why I'm nervous. Maybe inside I worry that I might never get to return home.
As soon as they leave, their scrubs making sloshing sounds as they walk them leave and I realize I've been holding my breath, and my fingers shake from nervousness. Avery had moved to sit next to me, our hips connecting while the nurses attended to me, but now he clings to me again, making me realize just how much I probably hurt him when I told him he couldn't come with us, and worried him when I was deep in comatose. I kiss the top of his head, my nose meeting his dark curly hair, cool to the touch. I have to smile, because I had really missed him.
We wait, and I notice that the TV is on in the hospital room but on just barely that if you were to focus on it, you'd hear it.
The doctor returns and I find myself relieved when he says that I am allowed to leave. I smile once more before leaving the bed. I'm going home.
YOU ARE READING
Ariel's Daughter
Fantasy"I don't like it, but it's true." It's my dad's voice. Sad and full of guilt. I frown. He must feel horrible, but I realized yesterday, that I can't blame him for this turnout. It was my mother that kept me in the dark all this time. Dad was only th...
