New Girl - The Creatures

Chapter 33

"Sam, I want you to take a deep breath and count down from 10 in your head..."

I woke up to the quiet hum of my heart monitor and a soft snore from James. I was back in my hospital room, thick bandages still wrapped around my skull. Too scared to move, I opened my mouth to try and wake up James.

"J-j-ay-ahh-ay-ay-J," I stuttered, feeling like my tongue was too big for my mouth. I could already feel the tears coming on. "Jay-juh-jay-j-jam-jah," I tried again just as a nurse came in. She brushed past James, which woke him up. She started to look at my monitor and I guess take record of my vitals, and James struggled to become fully conscious as Dr. Altman came into the room.

"Good morning, Sam. Can you nod yes or no if you can hear me?" she inquired as she checked my eyes with that stupid light again. I nodded tentatively as James jerked up, alert and staring at me intensely. "Good. We went in and stopped the bleed that had started in the frontal lobe of your brain. It was affecting your ability to speak, but still allowed you to understand what was being said. I want to see what your speaking ability is now. Can you try to tell me what state we're in right now?" she asked me patiently.

Some part of me was trying to process what she said, but I pushed it aside and cleared my throat. "C-caw-cawl-cuh-colo-ra-rah-rad-colorad-d-deh-do," I managed, balling up my fists in anger. "Alright, can you tell me your first and last name?" she asked. "Suh-sa-sam M-murf-mu-Murph-phy," I was so frustrated with myself. I couldn't even say my own fucking name properly?

James' eyebrows were furrowed together as Dr. Altman straightened up. "Okay Sam, it's clear that there's going to be some speech therapy involved. But your incisions look great, Dr. Sevette did a very clean and thorough job. You're going to be staying in the hospital for a few more days and we'll get you started with a therapist later this evening. But this is tremendous progress, especially since your surgery was only just a few days ago," she finished. I felt my eyes widen when she said days. I looked over at the digital wall clock that showed the date, temperature, and the time and saw that it had been 4 days since I fell.

"However, we believe that the bleed began because your body had become anemic from being so malnourished. Sam, you could have very easily died from how underweight you are. I've seen cases of girls and boys both around your age that broke a leg or an arm and subsequently bled out because their body had no nutritional intake at all. If you want to fully recover and to live a good, long life, you have to take care of yourself and eat any time you feel hungry and drink water consistently. The amount of caffeine that was in your bloodstream was crazy and it suppresses the appetite. We're going to be monitoring you to make sure you are properly eating every single day." She sounded like a stern parent, but something about the conviction in her voice told me she really was disappointed that I wasn't taking better care of myself. My eyes teared up again, and I nodded as I wiped them.

"In the meantime, you can use this dry erase board so that you aren't limited to yes or no responses. If you need anything at all, just press this button and a nurse will come in right away," she smiled at me as she handed me a small whiteboard and a black expo marker.

I stared down at my hands as the nurse told James that breakfast was available in the cafeteria and that the guys would be able to visit me tomorrow if they wanted to. As soon as she left, James crouched beside my bed.

"Hey, you. How are you feeling?" he asked softly. I could tell he had been crying. I wrote my reply on the board.

"Like total shit. Plus I sound like a dork :("

He smiled sympathetically. "Want me to get you all of the bacon and chocolate chip pancakes you can handle?" I felt a part of my brain tell me, "Already? You don't need it. Just get some coffee." And though I had given in to that part of my brain for months, I pushed it away. I looked at James and nodded, a smile spreading across my face. He smiled back warmly, and gingerly kissed my nose. "Don't go falling in love with some hot male nurse while I'm gone," he smirked as he headed out. I stuck my tongue out at him and settled back into the bed. I was so fucking tired, but I was hungrier than I was sleepy. I grabbed the remote that was beside my bed and turned on the small, wall-mounted television in the room to some older episodes of The Office.

I was about 10 minutes into the pool party episode as James came back in. "Straight from the glorious kitchens of Saint Joseph hospital in beautiful Denver, I bring you scrambled eggs, deliciously greasy bacon, and a FAT stack of chocolate chip pancakes. And some strawberry milk cause I know it's your favorite," he beamed at me, whipping out the tray attached to my bed and placing the spread in front of me. It smelled so good, and he even got me a bendy straw for my milk. Bless him.

"Thank you, Jeeves. You may go back to your butler duties >:) "

James gasped. "Fucking rude! I'm gonna steal your milk," he cackled pretending to snatch the precious pink glass. I picked it up before he could and held it protectively. He laughed and pulled up the bedside chair he had slept in earlier, and opened a duffle bag I hadn't seen before. I could see his laptop and a couple different changes of clothes, his toothbrush, and some snacks before he zipped it up. As he cracked open an energy drink and prepared to eat his own breakfast, I felt a pang of horrible guilt in my stomach at the thought of James setting up camp here to watch over me.

"You know you didn't have to sleep here, I can't imagine that thing is comfy." I wiggled the whiteboard around so he would see that I wrote to him. His mouth full of bagel, he eloquently pushed it all to his cheek like some kind of chipmunk and talked, his breath smelling like cinnamon raisin. "I know, but who else would watch this thing while you were zonked out?"

"Yeah but you need a real bed :( When you ran home to get your stuff you should have just slept there! Get some real sleep n stuff"

"I didn't go home to get it, I had Jordan come and I ran outside to grab it from him," he muffled through more bagel. I didn't write back but instead looked at him pleadingly. He didn't need to stay here every night when he could just be going home and sleeping in his own bed. "Don't look at me like that! What if you had woken up when I was gone? Who would have gotten you your precious strawberry milk?" he protested. I wasn't going to just accept it, but I was too tired to argue with him about it.

"Have the others asked about me?"

He glanced up and then sighed. "More like exploded my phone with texts and calls. You will definitely have an entourage tomorrow when they come in to see you. Sly actually calls me a couple times a day crying and asking about you. Aleks is typically on with him too but he just sounds stressed. Jordan is optimistic that you will have become a super mutant with an incredible brain capacity, and Dan punches him every time he says that. Max has been worried too but knows to just give you some space," he rattled off everyone's concerns and reactions. Except for one.

"What about Seamus?"

He didn't look up for a few moments after seeing what I wrote. "I think it's better if he just talks to you in person. He's not too happy with me at the moment and his concern about you is mixed with him thinking I'm an asshole."

"??? Why would he think that" Part of me dreaded to hear what the answer could possibly be. I don't want them to hate each other because of me.

James sighed again, sounding more tired than ever. "Don't worry about that right now. You just need to focus on getting better and then tomorrow, everyone will come and shower you in gifts and kiss you on your boo-boo," he grinned, quickly covering up his obvious frustrations with Seamus. I decided to just leave it alone because I didn't want to make things worse. I know it wasn't my fault that they both felt a certain way about me, but I couldn't help but feel gross for being in the middle of two guys that would be getting along perfectly fine if I wasn't in the situation.

I started to think about different timelines and realities where I wasn't involved in their lives; what if Seamus and James were in love in one? Or there was a different girl in the picture, maybe one with tattoos and piercings and the quintessential "I like Hot Topic a little too much" vibe? What if she was making Aleks and Sly upset with each other? What if they were in love instead? My head started to hurt as I thought of the various, fictitious ways in which the guys and the lives they live could be altered with just a few relationship swaps. You could easily have entire forums dedicated to it.

I snapped back into reality when James started to cackle about something on The Office, even though he had seen the episode before. I couldn't help but smile as he finished off his bagel, looking exhausted and worn to hell but happy none the less.