Sweet Jane

{Two}

© Amber Kalkes 2014

 Song-----}

{Two}

Being in a hospital is like something from my worst kind of nightmares. Cheerful nurses, pills, tubes, needles, observations, and of course the visitors. All the people you never wanted to see in the light of day come crawling out the woodwork just see how you’re doing.

I mean seriously? Who the hell invited Jenny Winters? She was a total bitch to me in high school yet there she was with a 'get well' card and a teddy bear. Then again that’s small town life. If you’re not being looked down on your being pitied for some reason or another. At my bad moments I wished that stupid wolf-thing had eaten me. If it was even real, that is.

All of this was a ritual I was happy to be shedding hopefully soon. Until then I could fake a smile and go through the motions of being a good little patient. Of course that was until my ever-dreaded step-monster, Lillian came busting through the curtain with my dad shuffling in at her side.

Her expression had been settled in bitch face but she was thankfully quite when she had come to see me in the hospital and I was still in critical care. But as soon as I was cleared of dying she appeared to be on the warpath. Her perfectly curled red hair is in its usual arrangement and her eyes are twin flames of gray as she glares at me. But I know I was in for it the moment I saw the vein in her neck popping like a blaring light of warning.

“You should be cowering!” she blasts as she reaches the edge of my hospital bed. “How could you do this to your family! Do you even know the insanity I've been dealing with? You know you've always been a selfish brat!”

I shake my head and bite my lip so I don’t laugh out loud. I've always loved to watch the woman sweat. If anything I want to make her crazy with my hate for her. Lillian came into the picture when I was twelve and quickly made my life hell. Dad and I had even been close at one point but she didn’t like that. She didn’t like me from the first moment she saw me and told me so. Dad, the idiot, was in love with her though and whipped like a can of cream.

It didn’t take long for me to become a hardened person. When someone is constantly telling you your less then everyone else, you have no choice but to toughen up or crumble. I chose to become a woman of steel. Lillian and her mouth tended to have that effect on me.

“This isn’t funny Jane.” My father sighs from the monster's side. 


“Sure it is.” I smirk before dropping it for a rare contrite moment. “But I am sorry about the truck, Dad.”


Lillian’s eyes go wide as her mouth opens then snaps shut. “The truck?” she repeats through clamped teeth. “The truck? Oh yes, well our insurance is going up the roof! This is exactly the kind of behavior I’ve been talking about, Tom. You give her truck and what does she do? Crashes it!”

I narrow my eyes. “It’s not like I did it on purpose, Lillian.”

She scoffs flipping her hair off her shoulder, “Well it certainly wouldn’t surprise me, Jane. You were always an attention seeker.”

“Attention seeker?” I repeat in a low voice. I’m about to jump out of this bed and beat the shit out of this woman any minute if she doesn’t shut her pie hole.

“Jane, calm down.” Dad pleads, “You’re going to make a scene.”

“Oh here you go, coming to swoop in to her defense.” I snap at him.

“That’s not the point, Jane.” Dad sighs.

“The point, “Lillian chimes in with a haughty look on her face, “is that its been insane for the last week with all of this selfishness.”