Rift

Chapter 4

I woke up in the hospital with an IV in my arm; Mom slept with her face on the edge of the bed, holding my hand, but Dad was not in the room, so I assumed he must have gone for coffee. I tried to sit up, and while the pain had reduced to an uncomfortable thrumming, I didn't want to risk moving and have it come back again.

"Mom?" I asked quietly; her eyes opened, and it took her a few moments to fully wake up.

"Sawyer! Oh honey, I'm so glad you're awake," She jumped up and gave me a hug but recoiled quickly for fear of hurting me; I gave her a reassuring smile to let her know that I had not.

"What happened?" I asked.

"We were watching 'Pride and Prejudice' and you just got up and started complaining about your head, and before we knew it you had crumpled to the ground and started to scream," Mom said; Dad walked back into the room as she finished speaking and practically tossed to coffees he had been carrying at Mom so that he could give me a hug.

"Hey there, kiddo," Dad said as he hugged me.

"Dad, if you hug me any harder I'm going to explode," I laughed.

"I was just worried about you is all," Dad said.

"You've been out for almost 3 days, Sawyer," Mom said. I stared at her in shock; how the hell had I been out for so long? My head started to hurt again, but I pushed the button to what I guessed was morphine and the pain soon subsided.

"Luca, Artie, and Sophie have all been here to see you and visit; it was hard to make Luca leave. He didn't want to move from your side, kept insisting he wanted to be here when you woke up but he needed to go home and sleep," Dad said. I smiled when he talked about Luca; he really was the best.

"The Doctor said that it was just a bad headache, but because you did not wake up, even with assistance, he had us stay here with you. I can't..." Mom began to cry, and Dad got up to give her a hug; tears poured from her eyes as swiftly as I felt I could run in my dreams. After a few minutes of crying and whispering about how glad they were I was alive, they came to sit on either side of my on the bed and just stayed there until they fell asleep. I, however, did not.

The hospital was quiet at night; I mean, I could hear the buzzing of machines in other rooms that were helping to keep people alive, but my room was silent. My parents did not even snore, and I was trying my hardest not to make any noise so as not to wake them. I didn't want to go to sleep, didn't want to hear the man called Thaddeus' voice inside my head again or see his face; I didn't want to see the horrible pictures he'd put in my head. Maybe I was going crazy, but sleeping certainly wouldn't help at this point.

I pushed the blankets back as much as I could without waking them up and scooched out from between them, carefully climbing over Mom and lifting the I.V. tube over her as I went. Hopefully there were no nurses lurking about, cause I needed to get out of that bed, especially if I'd been here for practically 3 days. I decided that I was going to call Luca, so I needed a phone; there were no nurses in sight when I poked my head out of the door of my room. The I.V. cart dragged behind me as I walked to the nurses' station and, doubling checking to make sure I wouldn't be caught, picked up the phone and dialed Luca's number.

"Hello?" Luca's mom, Maria, answered.

"Hey Mrs. Montesano, it's Sawyer," I said.

"Hey honey, I assume you want to talk to Luca?"

"That'd be great, though I'd love to chat with you too."

"I'll go get him, sweetheart. Hope you're feeling better," Mrs. Montesano laughed from the other end of the phone before she got up to leave.

"You have no idea how happy I am that you're awake," Luca yawned; it was just then that I realized that it was past midnight.

"Sorry to wake you up," I said.

"Nawh, it's fine. I was just thinking about you anyway."

"Oh really now?"

"You're always on my mind, Sawyer."

"You're too sweet."

"So what's up? I just finished playing the new God of War game."

"Oh, you know, causing trouble, creating chaos. I came here to get cookies and stir shit up and they're all out of cookies."

"You're HIGHlarious when you're hopped up on morphine."

"I know right? At least my head doesn't hurt anymore."

"I'm glad to hear that. Look, Sawyer, we were worried sick. Was it the dream?"

"What?"

"Was it the dream you've been having."

"Yes and no; it was worse."

"You really need to start seeing Dr. McKinnon, Sawyer. This can't happen again, enough is enough."

"I think you're right. I'll make the appointment tomorrow after I get home, I mean, if they let me out of here tomorrow."

"I'll see you then alright? I gotta go sleep, we have a test tomorrow in AP Physics."

"Love you, g'night," I said, hanging up the phone and quickly making my way back to the hospital room I was in. Mom and Dad were still asleep when I got back, though they'd moved a bit closer since I'd gone, so I decided to spend the rest of the night curled up in the chair Mom had been using earlier, my face resting against the side of the bed like hers had been.

A few hours later when they decided to wake up, I was already dressed, discharged, and ready to go. I hated hospitals with a passion; they just always smelt off to me, like an almost stale quality to the air or the smell of sickness and death. Of course, they catered to the sick, but it was just an odd scent to have; I had always assumed they'd smell like hand sanitizer and cleaning liquid but nope, it was just plain weird and kind of gross.

Luca was waiting on the doorstep when we got home with Artie, Sophie, and a couple bouquets of flowers; the second I got out of the car,  I was swarmed by people trying to hug me. 

"Good to see you up and walking around," Sophie said, giving me another hug after they'd all broken away from me.

"Dude, it wasn't that long, and it's not like I'm sick or anything, I just...I hit my head and whatnot," I said, though she'd know it was because of my dreams.

"Did you have any cool sort of out of body experience or something? Give us something interesting!" Artie joked, and I kind of giggled. He was so strange that sometimes, even when he was not trying to be funny, he ended up making people laugh just by being himself.

"Nope, it was pretty boring," I laughed. Luca wrapped his arms around my waist and gently kissed my cheek; I couldn't tell if I'd been ignoring him a bit, but I was glad he'd taken the reigns so to speak. "I haven't forgotten you, don't worry."

"I'm just glad you're ok," Luca smiled at me, and for a second, I forgot the man from the dreams, but the illusion shattered quickly and I came back to reality within a moment. We made our way inside the house and eventually ordered Chinese food, and settled into my medium sized bedroom to play some video games. We just sat and laughed, Sophie and I kicked the guys' asses at C.o.D. , and for once since the dreams started I felt completely normal.