YOUNG VOLCANOES

Twenty seven

Once again I woke.

On the same hospital bed that I'd been on earlier. Everything in the room looked neat and untouched but I noticed the serum bag was different. I remembered how the nurses came into my room as I'd been sobbing for Alex and how they'd changed it for a stronger serum, one with probably a tranquilizing substance.

I didn't understand why. Why where they going through all this trouble for?

I pressed the "assistance" button, next to my bed. The waiting seemed endless but finally a nurse walked in...

"Well, good morning!" The old aged nurse greets me with a smile. "Where's Alex?" I ask as soon as I make eye contact with her. She sighs in understandmeant.

The last image I had of him was; that he got dragged away by two cops.

"That young man was taken away to jail, honey" she says in the kind of tone you would speak of someone who just passed away.

"No, that's absurd, he's lying! He isn't a drug dealer!" I insist on cleaning his name to her.

She sits next to me on the bed, examining me as if I was a broken toy, maybe I am. "Darling, he confessed... he might be lying but when someone confesses to a crime like that... it isn't taken lightly. That kid wouldn't really lie about something like that, it's an awful amount of trouble for nothing" she says slowly. Trying to get me to understand that no one in their right minds would do something as such.

"No, you don't know him. He's a dick and a liar but not a drug dealer, I would've noticed" I state.

"Sounds like you knew him well..." she says.

"I do"

"Not well enough to know to stay away from him it seems..." her annoying and wise grandma voice replies. I breathe in and out, deeply.

I felt guilty for the fact that he was sent to jail, still... how was this my fault? But I shake the thought. I didn't get why I was still in the hospital.

"Why am I here?" I ask her. She sighs and puts a food tray that I hadn't noticed before near my bed. "Alcohol poisoning..." she answers fast and clumsily. I observe her expression. "There's something more, isn't there?" I ask.

"I'll leave your Dad up to explain that" she answers in pain and proceeds to exit the room.

After a while, my father finally comes in. His face strong and set on a neutral expression but the worry in his eyes visible.

"Dad" I cry out. Instantly his fatherly instincts made him frown in sadness at my cry.

"Dad, I'm so sorry. I want to move out, I want to go back with Kate. I'm not emotionally stable and I'm not going to be, especially not if Alex's going to jail because he took the blame for something that he didn't do..." I trail off the subject and then...I see how he's looking at me. Like if he was dealing with a lost cause.

"Sam... how long have you been romantically involved with Alex?" He asks and I frown.

That question was off, but what bothered me is that I didn't know a proper answer. Between all the kisses, laughs and fights we've had...

When indeed.

"Last night..." I answer.

"It couldn't have been last night, Sam. You two have been interacting for longer" my Dad says, clearly stating that he wasn't up for more lies.