Animal

.:14:.

a/n: quick rant

when your iTunes music expires and you lose ALL of the music you downloaded because you haven't renewed it yet. lost over 200 songs. the last time it happened it was a major hassle to get it all back because the downloading of 200 songs really makes your phone be like "error: to much fucking music"
k so enough of my rants. on with the story.

-:-

My eyes shot open when I felt a sharp sting in the side of my face. I yelped out and held my cheek, my eyes quickly darting around. They landed on a fuzzy figure not two feet above me, which soon formed a fuming Jada when my vision cleared.

"What the fuck?" I rasped out as best I could. I inwardly cringed at the sound of my own voice when the words were spoken, realizing very quickly that it was due to the fact that my throat was dry and sore as hell. "What the heck happened to me?"

Jada blinked her furious eyes at me, the frustrated flame slowly dimming to a concerned flicker. She hesitantly lowered herself on the edge of the bed next to me and reached a hand out, her warm fingers interlocking with mine, which were resting on my blanket-covered lap. "You .. don't look like you're dying."

My eyebrows drew together and I gave her a look I was sure she saw as one that was weird or funny looking. "I .. no. I'm not..?" I trailed off, ending the response in a question as I stared at my new friend.

"It's just.." She reached up and drew her free hand through her brown hair, her expression holding both a sense of relief and even a bit of a disgruntled appearance. "Your heart .." she whispered, her lips trembling, ".. it stopped beating."

As the words tumbled out of Jada's lips, I was pretty sure it stopped beating again. My lips parted in shock, unsure of how to reply to the other girl who had just told me that I had been apparently dead. I locked my lips together tightly and grazed my teeth over the bottom lip sharply, encouraging and welcoming the stinging it brought as a result. I drank in the silence, grinding my teeth over my lip until it was numb and probably starting to bleed.

A sudden thought flashed through my mind and I moved my fingers from Jada's own and instead gripped her wrist. She tugged it as a surprised response and glanced down at me worriedly.

"You didn't call anyone did you?" I demanded, swallowing gulps of air and blowing large amounts through my nose. Preventing a panic attack was going to be very hard from this point on, I just knew it. "Please don't lie. Did you?"

Jada tugged her wrist from my grip. I let it happen and dropped my hand to my side, feeling terrible for scaring her and possibly hurting her for gripping her wrist that tightly. But she didn't look to be scared of me, she simply rubbed her wrist and after a few seconds reached out to place her palm over mine. "No," she told me in a soft voice, "I did not call anyone. Your heart only stopped for a minute, and I was about to call for an ambulance, but then your heart started again and I wanted to wait to see if you would wake up before doing anything else."

Relief filled up in my tummy and my throat, and I allowed myself to slump back against the pillows. "Thank you," I managed out breathlessly. "I-I'm sorry for grabbing you like that."

Jada shrugged her shoulders and looked away from me for a second, either because she didn't want to look at me in the eyes or because she was taking a moment to collect her thoughts. I went with the latter, because she moved her head again and cocked it while meeting my eyes. "It's alright. I'm more concerned about you right now .. What exactly was that?"

"That's what I want to know," I said, shrugging my shoulders and reaching up to rub the side of my temple. It throbbed when I added light pressure to it, so I immediately pulled my fingers back.