Learning to Fly

Chapter 3

I woke up in a hospital bed, surrounded by a crap ton of flowers.

Alek and Erin were sitting in the room next to my bed, Alek holding my hand and Erin just looking plain freaked out. I saw Jack outside the room, talking to a nurse or something.

"You're awake." Alek said, relieved.

"No dip, dummie." I said, thumping him on the forehead.

He didn't let go of my hand.

"How are you feeling?" Erin asked, still clearly worried.

"Shitty as ever, but better then I did after I jumped out of a 3rd story window." I looked at Alek as I said this.

"You would've died if you didn't."

"How bad was that earthquake?" I asked.

"8.1. It was pretty bad." Erin responded.

"For real?" I asked. That was super bad. Like, insane.

"Yeah. Like I said, you would've died if we hadn't jumped. The apartment.... the whole building caved." Alek said, looking down at his feet.

"What?" I practically yelled.

"All of it, everything is gone."

"Bu-but..."

I was going into shock. I couldn't think, could barely breathe. This has got to be the crappiest week ever. And tomorrow was my birthday, but I didn't want to bring it up to them. This sure as heck was NOT a good time.

"Although, we did manage to save one thing..." Erin pulled out a Forever 21 bag from under her chair. I smiled weakly.

The dress.

"You saved it?" I asked, even more shocked then I had been a minute ago.

"I had to. I had spend $75 on it, anyway! And it was so special to you..." Alek trailed off.

"How?"

"How what?"

"How did you save it?"

"When we jumped, I tossed it down with us."

"Thank you." I said quietly.

"Any day." He responded quietly.

"Can I have some water or something? I'm dying here." I said. My throat really was dry, like freaking sand.

"Sure! I'll be right back." Erin said as she got up and left, closing the door behind her.

"I can't thank you enough." I said to Alek.

"No need. Happy birthday."

"My birthday's tomorrow..."

"No, actually it's today."

"How long was I out?" I said panicked.

"Since the earthquake, which was yesterday."

"What time is it?"

"Like...2."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

We sat in the silence for a few minutes, just soaking everything up.

"Are....are you ok?" I asked. After all, he had taken the fall much worse then I had.

"I'm fine. You went into shock, you woke up in the ambulance rambling about it, and then your eyes were so blank. It was like you had no emotion, no nothing. Your heart.... your heart stopped. You lost your pulse, you were dead. Dead. They had to shock you back, they shocked you almost ten times. You came back, but didn't wake up. They thought you might be in a coma. Erin.... she cried so hard. I did too. The thought of you not coming back.... it freaked me out pretty damn bad. They told us about 2 hours ago that you'd wake up, they just didn't know when exactly."