The Other Me

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter 17

“I hope that hag gets what is coming to her,” Rosaline scoffed between mouthfuls of chocolate. I rolled my eyes at her and pinched a chocolate from the large box she was holding. It was surprising how many boxes of confections and flowers had arrived during the last three days; all of them congratulating ‘Rachel’ on her immense bravery. That was the fake name I had given at the main hospital desk. I had told anyone who would listen that we were sisters and in a result, I was allowed to stay with her now.

Funnily enough, there were not as many chocolates addressed to me. But I didn’t care. I’d just eat Rosaline’s.

The first day after Rosaline was shot, was probably the worst day of my life. For hours I sat alone in the hospital, waiting for news, wishing for Rosaline to come bounding out of the theatre jumping up and down, as healthy as anything. Of course she didn’t. But she had a lucky escape.

The bullet only just missed her liver; one of her vital organs. She was very fortunate, though she lost a lot of blood. She spent the first two days just lying there, wincing in pain and sleeping a lot. But by the third day, the shine came back to her eyes and she was finally sitting up. She even managed to start keeping her food down, which was why now only half of the chocolates that were sent remained.

My parents came to visit me on the first day. I was admitted and treated for shock and deep bruising of my right shoulder; so of course they knew all about it. They had heard about what had happened on the news, so they instantly came to find me at the school. They were surprised to find that I had been part of the group which had saved the school from the school principal’s psychopathic wife. For once Mum and Dad seemed to be very proud of me. I had to admit, this cheered me up a little.

“Why didn’t you tell us love?” Mum had asked me desperately. “You could have been killed for goodness sake! We could have helped; we could have called the police…”

“Mum,” I had interrupted defiantly “If I told you, do you think you would have believed me?”

“Well… yes I would have… well eventually I might have,” Mum had shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. For some reason my cheeriness went a bit down after that.

But the biggest shock my parents received was when they were both told they had acquired another daughter. A nurse had approached me when I was resting a bed after being injected with painkillers for my shoulder and my parents had been sitting with me. She had told me excitedly that ‘my sister’ was responding well and the operation was a success.

“Sister?” my mother turned to the nurse and spluttered in her face. “She doesn’t have a sister! Isn’t that right Bill?”

The nurse was startled and left the room rather quickly after that. I explained to my parents that it was my friend who was shot and that I had said she was my sister so I was able to stay with her. Which was mostly true anyway. They had gasped dramatically in disbelief. A small part of me wondered if they were in awe because they felt sorry for this friend or because they couldn’t believe that I had any other friends apart from Nat. I hoped it was the former.

“Which friend is this?” Dad asked worriedly. “Is it someone we know?”

I assured them that it wasn’t, but I still couldn’t rest their minds.

“Rosy, it could’ve been you who was shot,” Mum reminded me, feebly for the ninth time.

 I didn’t want to tell her how freaking close it had actually come to that.

I privately explained the reaction of my parents to that same nurse later on. I told her that my ‘sister’ had done something awful, so now they had completely disowned her. The nurse kept blaring out disapproving glares at them after that and talking to them in a clipped manner. Mum couldn’t understand why this was happening and she grumbled about the attitude of young people in this country, as soon as the nurse had stepped out the room.