Asylum For Aisling

Chapter 31

It had been a couple of weeks since I had been brought to the hospital. Doc and Harry hardly ever left my room, but when they did, it was to go get food from any nearby restaurants. The first night, they packed all their clothing from the hotel and basically moved into my hospital room. Sister Elizabeth stayed at the hotel. She wasn't leaving town until we were, so she stuck around. She never came to the hospital though, but on the rare occasion that Doc was on the phone in my room, he was talking to her in a hushed tone.

Not much happened though.

Everything was kind of slow.

I could feel something shifting underneath me, causing me to groan at the movement. It was too early to be dealing with this.

Without opening my eyes, I grabbed the pillow that was just to my left and smashed it on the writhing thing beneath me. I heard a shriek of protest, but ignored it and cuddled further into the mattress.

There was some more shuffling and then I heard, "Aisling, I cannot breathe! Come one, scoot over. You've even taken all the blankets!"

Shoving a finger all over his lips, I mumbled, "Shh. Go back to sleep and be thankful for what you have."

He scoffed at that and picked up my frail body, placing it beside him. Turns out, I was lying completely on top of him before. That explains why it was quite uncomfortable and hard. The boy must have abs of steel.

"You need to get up and take your pills anyway." I could hear Doc farther away, and when my eyelids fluttered open, he was in his chair in the corner, gazing out the window with a lost expression.

"No." I grumbled, turning my head to shove it in the pillow.

Harry tried to tug it away from me, but a deep, rumbling growl stopped him. My fingers clutched the blankets that I had cocooned in and pulled them up over my head. I could hear a faint sigh and then there was a harsh yank on the blankets. Our struggle didn't last very long with my lack of energy, so when he pulled the blankets back off of my head, I gave him the dirtiest look I could conjure up.

I stuck my tongue out childishly and whined, "It's not fair. I only have one working arm, asshole."

"Even with both of your arms, you couldn't beat me in tug of war." He retaliated.

I scoffed, "Please. When I get out of here, it will be a battle to the death. Maybe not so literal, but I take challenges like that quite seriously."

"Come on you two, play nice. I don't want to put either of you in time out." Doc chimed in, eyes alight with amusement.

I fake pouted, eyes going wide. "But Doc, I have never played nice, so why start now?"

"Because I said so." Was all he said.

I rolled my eyes at that. The only sounds in the room were the pulsing of my heart monitor, the flipping of pages as Doc breezed through some health magazine, and Harry hummed

some unintelligible tune. This went on for a while, but I didn't mind because it was a comfortable quiet among us.

I played with the hospital bracelet on my wrist, spinning it around as it held my attention. That was until the door squeaked open and my doctor walked through. His glasses were on the tip of his nose and if even possible, he looked like he had aged since I had seen him last night. The bags under his eyes had grown and gotten darker.

"Hello again, Ms. O'Connor. I'm just here to do some routine checkups to make sure that your condition is stable, and then I will be on my way." His voice confirmed my suspicions: He was exhausted.