Signed & Sealed

{T w o}

        

       "Noah," the whisper escaped my lips as I drew in a breath that felt like a revitalization. My body felt cold and stiff, sore with pain more profound than my tissues and bone. As my eyes fluttered open, dark circles danced in view blocking the white lights that beamed down upon my face. Without clear sight, I couldn't make out the minor details, only shapes, and figures that resembled white walls and steel monitors. I realized my leg braced in a cast that is raised by a sling of some sort. My eyesight is clearing with each blink until I could detect that I was indeed in a hospital room.

     A vigorous beeping of my heart rate displayed in a green line on the black back screen of the monitor to my left. An IV drip bag attached to my right arm that hung on a pole beside the bed. Wiggling my fingers to rid them of the twitching of numbness that sparked in and out, I could only hope that Noah was okay. Despite how I woke or got here, my thoughts upon waking went to my baby brother. "She's awake now, nurse!" The familiar sound of my older brother Benjamin sounded at the door across the room until suddenly he was taking a seat at the edge of the bed where I lie motionless still. "How are you feeling, Elaine?" Benjamin asked while grazing my hand with his warm touch.

   It felt weird seeing him here, wherever here was, to begin with, and I looked up at his facial expression. Relief flooded his face as he eyed me warily, and I started to pull away so that I could sit up until he stopped me with a hand to my chest. "Whoa whoa, you shouldn't move around yet," he suggested.

"Where's Noah?" I asked with a raspy voice and a dry, sore throat.

          "He is fine, in the children's ward. What about you? Are you alright?"

"What do you think?" I grunted and ignored his request of me not to move around. While sitting up with much protest from my body, pain ricocheted through my chest, ribs, and spine. My head began to throb with a hum that left my ears ringing, and my vision fading.

     Shaking his head and heaving a sigh, Benjamin stood up to allow the nurse who came into the room access to me. "I'm your charge nurse for the evening; my name is on your board next to your doctor. How are you feeling at the moment?" Nurse Anderson, as the board reveals, asked while checking the bag of fluids, and making sure my IV line was straight. She cut off the heart monitors beeping and pulled at the chart which sat in a hanging folder at the foot of the bed.

"I'm fine, when can I get up and move around?" I sighed and watched her facial expression change before setting the charts back into the folder.

     "Well, you suffered quite a few injuries: a broken leg, punctured lung, head trauma, and some major bruising. I don't suggest getting up for a few more days while your leg is healing. We will start you on some intense therapy soon, but in the meantime, I'll get you some pain medication to help ease you a bit more."

"That sounds like a lot, what about Noah?" I asked, but the nurse disregarded me and took a leave which left Benjamin to fill me in.

        "He is fine, a little bruising, but nothing major. What happened?" A little bruising? Noah died, I held him in my arms as I pleaded to, God. Had God spared my brother's life? The details were a bit fuzzy, but I remembered a man. Though I have no name for him, and I can't recall what he looked like but had that man called the ambulance? Did he save us? Was he an angel? The thoughts rampaged my hazy mind until it became sore with a disarray of confusions.

"I want to see him," I claimed as I tried once again to rise from this bed where I lay. Stopping me again, Benjamin held a hand to my chest to ease me back against the soft cushion below my back. "What happened?" He repeated his previous question and sighed heavier this go around.

          "We were on the way to come see you, as you asked. The storm picked up heavy and blew us aside, with the rain and slick tires we ended up sliding off the road. I assume we tumbled down a hill and by the time I became conscious enough to check on Noah, he was dead." I told Benjamin with a quick statement where I admitted the truth of what happened. Though with Noah in the children's ward alive, I wonder what truth my report held. Had he died, or had I been out of my mind? No- he died. I remember it so vividly now, memories flooding my memory of the blood dripping from his brow, the limp of his body in my arms.

     No matter how hard I tried to suppress the upcoming tears, they pooled in my eyes regardless. "Well Noah isn't dead now, in fact, he was the one crying about how you were near dead," Benjamin stated matter-of-factly. That didn't make any sense what-so-ever. What happened? Am I crazy?

    The door of my room swung open, and the familiar nurse, Anderson I believe her name is, brought a handful of items along. "Here to give you some pain meds sweetie," she smiled as if comforting me in the slightest but that did little for me. I didn't care about how much pain my body felt, and it is torture, knowing Noah is somewhere in this building and that I can't get to him. Quickly injecting the medicine into the IV line before I could protest, the nurse glanced at Benjamin with a seductive gaze that I knew all too well. She was flirting! With my brother. Right in front of me!

     "I gave you some morphine and a sedative to help you sleep tonight. Visiting hours are over for the evening, won't you come back in the morning?" She looked at Benjamin as she said the last part of her sentence. I grunted with displeasure, but my body began to instantly flow with heat and a buzzing sensation through my veins. The morphine took little to no time invading my bloodstream, and I must say that it works wonders because the pain and pressure I felt moments ago vanished with a dull veil. When Benjamin took that as his cue to leave, the nurse dashed away, and he sighed with a frown. "I'll be back in the morning, try to get some rest. Oh, and for the love of God, could you please just rest for a bit. Noah is in the hands of doctors just as you are; he is safe."

        Bending down to press a kiss firmly against my forehead, I nodded silently and ignored the persistent tug my eyelids felt while refusing to give in to the medicine so quickly. It felt like time was passing slowly, everything moved at the pace of a snail while my eyelids began to close. Catching the quick exit of my brother, then the few times nurses came in and out of the room up until my eyes finally gave in to the darkness that lulled my senses once more.