North Star

Chapter Nine: Caralye

An annoyingly persistent beeping broke through the haze in my head. I felt like a marshmallow—all soft and spongy. I couldn't remember the reason for my marshmallow-like state; the last time I felt like this was when I went cross country skiing one of my foster families and my ski caught on a tree and I went off the side of the mountain and shattered my forearms.

It was dark, and it took me a minute to realize that it was because my eyes were closed. I tried to open them, but it was too bright. My tongue felt like there was grass growing on it, and the rest of my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls and lined with sandpaper. I didn't know where I was. I wondered if Spencer was here.

Spencer.

His name bubbled to my cracked and bleeding lips. Memories of what happened cracked through the surface of my soft foamy bubble and the pain hit me like a ton of bricks.

No! No no oh god no!

I had to get out of there—wherever there was. I tried to sit up, but I couldn't seem to get my body to work. I opened my eyes again, but could only get one of them to open. I thrashed around, trying to get my body to work like it was supposed to. The beeping got louder and more frantic, I could hear people bustling and talking really fast, and there was someone screaming. There were hands holding me down. My whole body hurt, and I felt like I was spinning. My throat felt funny, and I realized that the person screaming was me.

There was a prick in the crook of my arm that stood out amongst the rest of the pain, and then the world faded out again.

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

My world was a dark place. Time passed in odd segments of consciousness that I hated and drug-induced sleep that I welcomed. I don't know how long I spent lying in the room with the tubes and the beeping, but one morning—or at least I think it was morning—I woke up somewhere different.

The tubes and the beeping were gone, as were the ever-present doctors and nurses. I was alone, lying in a bed with pink sheets. This time, when I tried to sit up, I found that I could, although my ribs screamed in protest at the movement. After a few tries, I managed to pull myself into a slightly slumped sitting position, only to get hit with a wave of dizziness that forced me back down. After about half an hour of sitting up and laying back down—which, might I add, my ribs did not appreciate—I ended up sitting, a little crookedly, with my legs hanging over the side of the bed. My right foot was bandaged, but it didn't look too bad and only really hurt when I moved it. Once the final wave of sitting-up-induced dizziness began to subside, I slipped off the side of the bed, gingerly testing my weight on my bandaged foot.

Having found that it could bear a little weight, I hobbled around the room. The walls were light blue, with three doors—one opposite my bed, one next to it, and one adjacent. Upon further investigation, the door next to my bed led to an adjoining room that was a mirror image of my own, occupied by an older lady asleep in the bed, balloons and elaborate arrangements of brightly colored flowers dotted her room, making me feel lonely and reminding me that I had no one. The door opposite my bed led to a bathroom. I wanted to shower, but didn't know if it was okay to do so on account of all the gauze, plaster, and bandages was wrapped in. 

I locked the door to the bathroom and, slipping out of the hospital gown, stood in front of the mirror—which was surprisingly large for a hospital—to assess the state of myself. I didn't know if it was a good idea, but I felt like needed know. My eyes traveled up the reflection of my body. Other than a few bruises and my bandaged foot, my legs seem okay. My gaze slid upwards and found my stomach peppered with little brown bruises like the ones on my legs, and my ribs to be a nasty shade of purple, explaining the pain when I felt when breathed. There was a big gauze bandage just below my left ribs, with three smaller ones forming the points of a triangle below it. I twisted around as much as I could and saw that my back was in a similar shape, with the addition of some purple blotches the size of my hand. I wasn't wearing a bra, and didn't expect to be able to for a while.