Friendship Scars

Chapter 3: Painfully awake

"Ow, F***," I whispered quietly to myself as I slowly woke from the daze of anaesthesia.

"You're awake!" River said excitedly, jumping from her chair and running over to hug me.

I was in a yellow room separated in two with a large light blue curtain. There were four brown chairs in which River was sitting. I, on the other hand was lying in a hospital bed, the rims were a shiny metal, probably aluminum, and the sheets were solid white, not very exciting, a panel of buttons on the side of the bed controlled the movement of the bed and called nurses.

"How are you feeling?" River asked.

"Like death, my shoulder feels like I was just stabbed and I have a killer headache," I said, a little sarcastically, rubbing my forehead.

"I'm just glad you're alive, the nurse said if you would have bled anymore you would have died," River walked back over to the chairs and sat down.

It was then I noticed that it wasn't just River and I. Leo was sitting in the chair next to River with his blood covered sweatshirt in the chair on the other side of him.

"Leo, what are you doing here, and what happened to your sweatshirt?" I asked, highly confused

"I... uh..." he stuttered.

"He saved you," River interrupted, "As soon as you hit the floor he took his sweatshirt off and stopped you from bleeding, and carried you out to the paramedics,"she added.

"Really?" I said surprised that he would even care. I didn't even think he knew I existed.

"You almost died saving your friend, I couldn't just let you bleed to death," Leo said as he looked down at the floor, I could tell he was blushing, his pale cheeks became a bright shade of red.

"What about Swany-boy?"I asked, I was ninety percent sure he couldn't outrun the police, although he was pretty fast. Every time I heard his name it hurt me, I was supposed to help him and make him better, but I couldn't his anger finally won.

"He tried to run but he wasn't fast enough, the cops caught up pretty quickly," River said, "Yeah, he won't ever be coming back," she added sarcastically.

"Oh," I exclaimed, imagining poor Swany-boy in the back of a police car, restrained with handcuffs, an image I didn't ever want to see.

"You're gonna be the talk of the school when you get back, you're a hero,"River said as a smile spread across her face.

I looked down at my shoulder only to see a large bandage wrapped around it with a little blood soaking through.

"Holy s***!"I exclaimed, "That's gonna leave a mark," I added looking up at River.

"Yeah, the bullet almost went all the way through, the nurse said it was going to leave a scar. Wouldn't it be funny if I got a tattoo of your scar, it would be like friendship bracelet but with scars, " she said.

"Friendship scars,"I said smiling.

At that point a nurse had walked in the room and started taking my blood pressure.

"How are you feeling?"The nurse asked as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm.

"Like I've just been shot,"I said sarcastically, the nurse smiled.

"You're a real hero you know, you saved your friend and didn't care what happened to you, you are a brave, brave girl," The nurse said as she scribbled something on her clipboard. I smiled.

"The doctor said the bullet separated a few muscles so no heavy lifting for a few months, don't get the bandage wet and change it once a week," she said as she handed River a roll of bandage.

"Ok," I said pretending to take in all of that information.

With that remark the nurse left.

"Hey, umm...I don't suppose you would want to go see a movie with me, do you?" Leo asked, this being the first time he had spoken in a while.

"So like a date then?" I said with a smile slowly spreading across my face.

"Yeah, I guess, if that's ok with you," he said nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

"Sure, I would love to," I said blushing.

His cheeks reddened even more than before. I was really looking forward to this date. I have liked Leo for so long, I didn't even think he knew I existed. Then one day out of the blue everything changed.