Now You See Me [Jasper Hale story]

VI. Dangerous Pollen

Pollen is essentially 'plant sperm'. Therefore, this makes Hay Fever an STD. And since no one voluntarily intakes pollen, I have concluded, we are all being raped by plants.

I was about to return to our provisory home, after the school had finished. My Golf had been standing quietly in the carpark behind the school, under some tree, the branches of which provided pleasant shadows to it. The first second I came near to the piece of flora, however, a loud sneeze defeated me, closely followed by loads of others. In the end, I wasn't able to see anything through the veil of tears; my eyes burned, while my nose wouldn't stop running. Luckily, there was a random handkerchief in the pocket of my jacket, which was pulled out by me and used feverishly enough to end up as wet as a fish. I would rather not speak about my futile attempts to find the keys of my poor, little Golf in the bag of mine, not to mention searching for the right key among the others. That was literally mission impossible...

It was my fault though. This mess I happened to appear in was the matter of my rashness. Did I mention I was allergic to the pollen of certain flowers? No? Well, here you have it. On my defence, I have to say there weren't any trees on the list of plants I had been allergic to. At least, not until then.

I gasped for air, feeling a strong pressure inside my chest. It was as if my lungs had bloated, and were currently trying to force their way out of my chest. It took next few seconds for my head to start spinning uncontrollably; afterwards, nothing but darkness appeared in front of my eyes. I'm afraid I can't tell you more about what happened that afternoon, because the next thing I remember was Hayden's worried face over my body and the awful smell of some disinfectant.

"Oh, thank god you're awake, Honey, I was so worried!" My aunt jumped onto her feet, squeezing my hand in hers. I wanted to lift up my head, to look around a bit, but a tubule inside my nose stopped me. Please, just don't tell me, that the lack of my interest in the trees I had been parking my car under, brought me into a hospital... please, please, please!

"W-where am I?" I whispered huskily. "What happened?"

"You're in the hospital, Sweetheart. You suffered from a severe allergic reaction to the pollen of elm. We were told elm was the tree your car had been standing under," she said, pressing her fingers to the sides of my neck, then shining a light into my eyes and ordering me to open my mouth. I guess it was a medical inspection.

"How long have I been... out?"

"For two and half hours since Alice Cullen brought you to the hospital," Hayden was probably going to say something more, yet, I interrupted her.

"Alice Cullen? Wait, what exactly did she do?" The question of mine was more curious than anything else.

"She found you, lying next to your car. If it wasn't for her, I don't know if you'd manage to get to the hospital in time," Hayden answered sadly. It was apparent that she was trying to supress the tears really hard. In the end, nevertheless, she managed to lift the corners of her lips up little bit, in somewhat supportive smile. "You can ask her yourself, if you want. She's been here for all the time, waiting for you to wake up."

I shifted uncofortably, my hands subconsciously firing up, to my hair. I tried to sleek the bunch of mess on my head slightly, before Hayden would let one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in. "Erm... really? How do I look?"

Hayden smirked at me, crossing her arms over her chest. " Sweetie, how do you think a person, who woke up only a few minutes ago, after nearly three hours of deep sleep, could look?"