Secrets

Chapter 15

"Well, you should be all set to go, Rose!" Dr. Koline says, looking over the chart in her hand.

"Really?!" I nearly shout, excited to finally be released from the hospital.

It's only been five days since I was admitted, but it feels like the longest five days of my life!

I don't know how Ryan put up with his own five days, but then...maybe that played into his seriously premature release.

Speaking of my lovely brother, he showed up early this morning, and hasn't left since.

It's been like that every day.

See, after I "woke up" in the middle of the car ride to the hospital, Ryan explained to me what happened shortly before Noah blew a fuse and promised that I was going to be grounded, and have all my stuff taken away, and blah, blah, blah.

The rant lasted five minutes, and then Ryan in much more words than I care to remember, told our brother to either cool his jets, or he could walk to the hospital.

Thing is, Ryan's still too injured to drive, and I don't know how...and while I still wonder how kicking Noah out of his own car would have worked, it's probably for the best that I'll never know.

"So what's the final dialysis, Doc?" Ryan asks, scooting his small orange chair a bit closer to the side of my bed.

"Diagnosis?" Dr. Koline laughs. "She was extremely exhausted from lack of sleep, highly malnourished, and it seems that an excessive amount of stress, which Rose refuses to tell anyone what the cause was, became the final straw. Her body shut itself down and went into a sort of...rejuvenation mode."

"Rejuvenation mode?" I ask, turning to glance out the wide square window to my right at a pair of large blue birds that dance beyond the glass.

"When our bodies are exhausted to the point that they begin to shut down, our survival instincts turn their attention to the mind." The doctor explains. "However, if too much stress is being exerted on the mind, combined with an intense lack of sleep, there become less and less places for the body to pull reserves of energy from, and so eventually one just collapses!"

"So...I could have died?"

Turning my eyes slowly from the window, as I run them over the rainbow mural on the wall across from my bed, and then to the doctor who stands close the single, open door, I just notice a look pass between the tall, brown haired woman and my brother before she offers me a small smile.

"Your life wouldn't have been in danger for at least another week if not two, Rose." Dr. Koline replies. "Now, if you were dehydrated, then things would have been much worse than when you were admitted last Monday."

"But everything that just kept building up...if Lance hadn't pulled me aside, then it would have eventually killed me."

"Don't go there, Rose." Ryan warns softly, and I shake my head with a small smile.

"You can say what you want, Ryan, but he saved my life. I just don't get how you guys can hate the guy who saved my life!"

Another thing that was made very clear to me, once I'd been settled into a room to await the many tests and questions that came after I was admitted, was that I am never to see or speak to Lance again.

I'd fought that command for a few hours, then let it go...until the next day.

And the next.

And now today.

"That kid is bad news!" Ryan groans, crossing his arms over his orange covered chest as best he can around his thick white cast. "I don't care what he did for you this time. What about next?"