Unexpected

Home Again

The next week or so was interesting to say the least. My grandparents stayed with me at the hospital, reading books and magazines, watching the news with me as I watched the world respond to the damage the alien invasion had caused, and trying to help me keep boredom at bay as I healed. I Skyped with old, long-standing friends from Michigan and several of my college friends came to visit with me for a couple hours. They were ecstatic to see me alive and well, and I them, especially my college friends who had stayed in the city whom I'd worried about since they could've been hurt during the battle. As the week wore on I had quite a collection of cards and flowers decorating my hospital room. They overloaded me with questions about my kidnapping, how I'd been rescued or had escaped, what had really gone down during the Battle of Manhattan that the news wasn't telling them. I could only tell them so much. How could they understand the fear of being kidnapped? Of really anything I had gone through? I decided that I wouldn't mention Loki at all, or say anything about my part in the invasion. It was hard to go around their questions, especially when they could see the physical damage I had gone through, but in the end my friends and family grudgingly accepted that it was my business. Neither Natasha Romanoff nor Clint Barton returned to see me, however.

Although it felt like I had almost constant company, there was one person whom I had assumed would come visit me straight away who didn't end up coming until my sixth day at the hospital. Renee. As each day had passed that my roommate neither called nor visited, I grew steadily more resigned to a thought I had been harboring since I had learned that it had taken her so long to even realize that I had gone missing. When she finally came by, however, it was the final straw that made my decision final.

At first she came in my room all a flutter claiming she had been so worried for me and that she had been calling my grandparents and my phones on an hourly basis since she'd heard the message my grandparent's had left on her phone, which we knew was a lie as she hadn't even responded to the numerous texts we'd sent her. Then, she claimed that she had been so busy at her new job that she hadn't had time to visit me, which I knew was also a lie as she had told me numerous times that she was to start her new job on the fifteenth of the next month which was still a few days away. She became standoffish when she caught sight of the extent of my side wound which had finally gotten rid of its infection, and after a few questions about how I was doing she plunged right into telling me about everything that had happened to her since that fateful day I had gone on my walk. Besides being insensitive to all I had gone through and self-centered, her stories proved that she hadn't been thinking about me much at all except that the fact that I hadn't picked her up that night had led her to meeting her brand new boyfriend and how he'd taken her to a restaurant after the calls to my grandparents, friends, and the police had been of no avail and had made her so 'distressed'.

Once Renee had gone I turned to my grandparents and told them forthrightly that I was going to move out of my apartment with her. This was just like her and even though I had always known that she tended to be self-centered and although I knew she was irresponsible and everything, I had always assumed that she actually cared about me. I guess that had been my mistake. My grandparents agreed with me, they had wanted me to go back to Michigan with them anyways while my ankle and side healed. They thought it would be best for me to get out of New York, away from everything that had happened here. I had to agree with them. In those few minutes I had by myself when my grandparents, my friends, and the nurses were all gone for some reason, my mind swirled at the extent of the chaotic mess of confusion my previously normal life had become.

I had been healing well up to this point. My side wound was no longer infected and the fear that I'd re-open the wound faded with each day, and I was now allowed to get up and move with the help of crutches, which took some time and many mind-numbingly slow walks up and down my room and the hallways to master. My first move was from the bed to the shower and in the process I had taken my first look at myself in a mirror since leaving the underground headquarters, and let me say, I was not a pretty sight, but by then I knew I looked better than I had upon first waking up here. Any stitches I had on my body had been removed, most of my bruises, burns, and scrapes had faded away or were much improved, and my energy and appetite was back up to normal. Also, after all this time, still no strange problems possibly caused by contact with alien weapons or whatnot had occurred.