Recovery

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I laid in the plush cot of a hospital bed

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I laid in the plush cot of a hospital bed. The clicking and beeping sounds of a monitor were in my left ear as a cooling sensation dripped into my right arm. I hadn't eaten since I got here, and I would have given anything for a glass of water. It wasn't that I was thirsty or hungry. I knew very well what the difference between a parched mouth and having the life ripped out was like.

I just wanted something. Something to let me know I was still all here.

A masked was over my eyes. I had tried to remove it many times. Just long enough so I could see the hospital room around me. But every time I did, someone shooed my hand away.

"Your recovery progress is not suitable for sensory stimulation," a voice would always say in one way or another.

It was after what I thought was weeks before they let me remove my mask. A thin film now covered my eyes and the room was a brighter, blurrier mess. It would take two nights before my eyes adjusted. It took three more nights before they gave me the news.

"We have an exciting announcement for you this morning, Miss Shadow," a nurse said by my hospital bed.

Miss Shadow, I laughed to myself at the way it sounded. I had started to realize why they didn't give us names at the center. So many ways to call just one person, how could anyone keep it straight.

I bit into a sweet orange slice and watched the nurses sway eagerly on the tips of their toes.

"Yeah," I said, the tangy juice landing on the collar of my hospital gown, "What's going on?"

"We've received notice your family is visiting."

"Good," I said and picked up a glass of warm milk on the plastic tray over my lap., "I've been wondering what those dorks have been up to without me."

One of the nurses faces frowned as she looked back at the other.

"Miss Shadow," the first nurse said, "The family I speak of is not the family you have traveled here with."

The glass of milk loosened in my grip.

"Then what do you mean," I said.

"Your real family, Miss Shadow," the nurse said, "Your father and sister."

I didn't realize what I had done. Not until I heard the fragile glass crash against the wall at the back of the room and watched the milk stream down onto the tiled floor.

"Don't you ever call them my real family," I said and leaned up from my bed, "You hear me?"

The nurse cowered behind a cabinet as the other left through a narrow crack in the door.

"Do you know what they did to me?" I continued to shout.

A group of doctors dressed in long blue coats rushed into the cramped room. They swooped above me like a murder of pale blue crows.

"What kind of a family sells their kids?" I shouted to the doctors as they took me down by both wrists.

"Her recovery will need more time," a man's voice said as a clear mask was pulled over my head, and the room became blurry again.

I had set back my own recovery, and if that meant I didn't ever have to see my father or sister again, either way, it was more than worth it to me.

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