Beat Of My Heart

Verse Fifteen

Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  The sound of my heart rate echoed through the walls of the tiny hospital room as I struggled and failed yet again to open my eyes.  I was awake, that much I was aware of.  But the rest, not so much. 

I remembered the fall down the stairs, I had been around Dylan and his friends but I couldn't quite remember exactly what had happened.  It was disconcerting to think that he might have been the one to put me in this position, but no, I couldn't think like that. 

Dylan may have been a terrible person, but he would never willingly throw someone down three flights of stairs to their probable sudden death...would he?

The sound of scuffling voices broke me out of my thoughts about Dylan and I realized that I recognized the warring voices, their tones mirroring each other in their angst. 

"How could her own mother not know her medical history?" I heard my father yelling. 

"Its complicated!  You know that, you've always known that!  It isn't easy to track that man down, especially after eighteen years of never having contact with him!  He's probably dead for all we know!"

That was my mother's voice.  She sounded angry, but terrified and melancholic at the same time.  I wondered what had gotten her so down...

"If you don't fix this soon, Holly's going to start asking questions you and I don't want to answer, but I'll be the bad guy and tell her if I have to.  It's gone on long enough."

"If she wakes up."  I heard a sob tear through her body. 

SLAP!

It echoed across the room like my rapidly rising heart beat.  

"Don't you dare say that ever again!  She is going to wake up and you and I both know it!  I may not share her blood but I raised that little girl from the second she came out of your belly and I'll be damned if I sit back and watch you destroy our relationship together over petty drama between us!"

I didn't understand what was going on.  My father was saying that he wasn't related to me by blood?  But...we had the same hair color!

Of course, that was trivial, lots of people had the same hair color, it was just something that my mom had said my whole life, 'Oh, you've got your dad's hair and my eyes.'

My brain didn't want to comprehend the crazy notion that my dad really wasn't my dad. 

I refused to believe it.  This conversation never really happened, it was just something that I had dreamed up, it didn't happen, it couldn't happen...

***

Muffled voices, bright lights and a feeling of sudden, rushed movement was all I could perceive.

I knew I wasn't dead. If I was dead there wouldn't be a throbbing, piercing pain shooting through my skull.

I tried to move but my body wouldn't cooperate, there was just so much pain.

I felt something wet and sticky sliding down my cheeks, and the distinct smell of copper let me know that it was blood. Whether it was mine or someone else's was yet to be determined.

I felt a warm touch caressing my cheek and a small sob came from my left side and I instinctively recoiled from the sound, some deep part of me terrified of anything I couldn't see.

The lights were becoming more and more in focus and before I knew it, I was staring at a teary eyed woman who barely resembled my mother.

Her usually perfectly done hair was a rat's nest on the top of her head and her eyes were bloodshot. I immediately felt bad for jerking away from her soothing touch but I couldn't help it. It was like my brain had been re hardwired, fear being the main language it understood.

I tried to speak but nothing came out besides a garbled, choking sound and my mother reacted immediately, rushing forward and shushing me all the while embracing my body with her arms.

I looked down and saw tubes connected to my body, a needle stuck in my wrist stuck there with tape and there was a clear bag of fluid dripping into my veins.

I knew it must have either been saline fluid to keep me hydrated or some medicine to help with the pain, although it could have been something that had kept me asleep, like an induced coma.

I didn't know how long I'd been out, and I couldn't distinguish the time outside seeing as though the blinds were closed and a curtain drawn on the window.

There were multiple 'Get Well Soon' balloons peppered around the room, drooping flowers perched on the side table with a card propped against it.

It looked so cheery and happy against the bleak, dank atmosphere of the hospital.

Except for the flowers. They were alive, but they were dying. Kind of how I felt. They were trying their hardest to remain positive and uplifting, trying to cheer up their owners, but the atmosphere and little sunlight sucked the life and happiness right from them.

I was dead flowers.

A knock sounded and I realized my mom had pressed the button to call the nurse in her unbridled happiness of seeing me awake, making me wonder just how long I'd been out...

"Hello Miss Vickers. I'm Marissa and I've been your nurse here. I'm sure you have a lot of questions but I'm here to assure you that you are going to be absolutely fine. You suffered a fall down the stairs at school and some of your classmates found you and called 911. You're very lucky, your arms protected your head the majority of the way down but you still have a mild concussion and a few broken bones but no internal damage that we could see."

She was pretty, mid forties from what I could tell. Long, brown hair with little tufts of grey peeking out at the roots, crows feet dotting the area around her wistful blue eyes. She looked knowledgeable, happy, serene.

"H-how long?" I managed to choke out.

She looked away from my eyes, like she didn't want to answer that question.

"A week today. We made sure to monitor you very closely to make sure the swelling on you brain didn't return; the first few days were crucial. It was really a miracle that the EMT's were able to reach you in time. You're really lucky your friends called when they did. I'll call your doctor and have him run some tests so we can see what we can do about getting you out of here soon."

She swiftly left my mother and I alone after dropping that bombshell on us. I could barely comprehend it. A week. A whole week.

Two weeks since Sebastian had called or texted me. It stung.

"Oh honey you have no idea how good it is to see your beautiful eyes again!  Your father and I have been beside ourselves and-"

"Is it true is she really awake?"

The words died in my father's throat after he cut my mom off mid sentence when he saw me sitting up with my eyes wide open. He answered his own question.

Brown eyes lined with purple bags stared back at me in concern mixed with an aching happiness.  It was like he was happy to see me, but he was about to tell me someone in the family died. 

"Holly, baby we're so glad you're awake!  How do you feel?"

His words were tinged with a sadness and gentleness I hadn't heard from him in a long time.  I guess that's what happens when your daughter falls down the stairs and lands herself in a coma. 

Daughter...

Daughter?  That word resonated deep within my soul and I couldn't understand why. 

What I didn't know was that I would find out very soon, and that information would likely be the death of me, and my relationship with my dad. 

***

Author's Note:

Keep reading for a double update!!!

-Kristen :)