Lady of the Rose

A Hospital Visit

   Brynna was quiet on the ride to the hospital, letting Michael fill the silence she left. Apparently, he was in most of her classes, and had been watching her with interest for the entire school year. She couldn't fathom how she hadn't had some knowledge of him previously. She was also rather unnerved by this newly-discovered stalker.

   "...don't you think?"

   Brynna startled as she realized she'd been asked a question that she hadn't her. "Um, sorry...I sort of zoned-out there...could you repeat that?" she asked, glancing towards Michael with some mild embarrassment.

   "Don't worry about it, Brynna. The question wasn't important," Michael replied in an overly chipper tone as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. "Well, let's get this over with, huh?"

   "Yeah..." the girl mumbled as she unfastened her seat belt and stepped out of the car, hoping that Michael would stay in his vehicle or, even better, drive off and let her go about by herself. She was not so lucky, however.

   "Your friend's so sweet for staying with you," some little old lady sitting in the waiting room with Brynna whispered in her ear, smiling. "You'd best treat him nicely, young lady."

   "Um, yeah...I'll be sure to do that," Brynna murmured as she nodded, feeling more than a little awkward. Why did it seem that the little old ladies were always the ones to make the most awkward of comments?

   "Miss Redrius?" a nurse with a clipboard asked, looking around the waiting room expectantly.

  Brynna quickly stood and followed the nurse, eager to get away from the awkward conversation the old lady beside her seemed to want to continue, and from Michael who was driving her insane with his endless talking.

   The nurse led her to an examination room, somewhere Michael thankfully couldn't follow, then told her to relax and that a doctor would be there as soon as possible.

   It felt as if hours had passed by the time that a doctor knocked on the door to the room Brynna was in. She looked up quickly, feeling both relieved that things would progress more quickly and anxious that things might be worse than she'd thought earlier.

   "Miss Redrius?" the doctor asked as he entered the room, clipboard in hand. "I'm Dr. Mitchel Hampe. It says here that you were attacked during school today, and the teachers believe the injuries you sustained to have knocked you unconscious for a period of time. Is that correct?"

   The girl blinked in surprise as the doctor introduced himself. "...Hampe? Are you related to Michael Hampe?" she asked, barely restraining a groan as she thought of the boy waiting for her return in the lobby area of the ER.

   "Michael is my younger brother," the doctor replied slowly as he met Brynna's gaze. "Do you know him well? I assume you go to the same high school, at least."

   Brynna shifted awkwardly, as she didn't want to say anything bad against the boy to his older brother's face. "He was the one who found me passed out and brought me here," she replied.

   The doctor let out a wry chuckle. "Then you should already be well-aware of his exuberance. I'm sorry if he's made you uncomfortable in any way. Even the people who have known him for the longest time are still unnerved by his total and complete blunt honesty. I do hope he didn't make some comment that made him sound like a stalker. That's something he seems to have trouble with a lot."

   Even though Michael's hyperactive nature still gave Brynna some mild unease, she couldn't help but smile as she grew relaxed by his older brother's presence. "Thank you for that explanation. It was really awkward to hear everything he was saying about me."

   "I'd imagine so. Michael has a gift of knowing a person very well, even if he's only come across them once or twice in his life. If you allow him to get to know you better, it would probably be a mixed blessing."

   Brynna's smile grew slightly as she gave a small nod. "I'm sure you're right."

   "What did the doc say? Are you completely fine?" Michael asked with a broad smile as Brynna returned back out to the waiting room.

   The girl gave a small nod. "Yeah; your brother was extremely helpful. He said that I probably just went into some sort of shock and collapsed from that. But I should be completely fine now."

   Michael grinned like a fool and gently led Brynna back to his car. "I guess it's time that I take you home, then. Your parents probably don't want you to be late coming back from a schoolday."

   As soon as the boy mentioned her parents, the girl froze up. She didn't want to think about her mother and the man that her mother wanted her to accept as her step-father. Brynna just wanted things to go back to the normal she'd known when her father had been alive.

   "Is something wrong?" Michael asked with a mild frown.

   "No, I'm fine," the girl replied quickly, wanting to get the conversation off of her as soon as possible.

      As Michael turned into Brynna's neighborhood, the girl was overwhelmed with a sense of abrupt change and nervousness. Four boys that had spoken with her in half as many day, every one of them someone she'd never talked to before.

   This struck something deep within her, something she had felt only briefly before when she'd watched her new neighbors walk back to their house after sharing the dinner Brynna's mother had invited them over for.

   Something big was going on, something she felt she was much more connected to than a mere observer. Brynna felt increasingly nervous as Michael pulled up to her house, even though she knew her mother would still be at work, and Dolus was out of town for the next several weeks.

   "Michael...you might think I'm crazy, but something feels really odd about my place. Would you come at least to the door with me?" the girl mumbled, both hoping and fearing that he heard her quiet request.

   The boy gave Brynna a gentle smile as he nodded and got out of his car with her. "Yeah, I don't mind." As he closed his door behind him, Brynna noticed something fall to the ground.

   She crouched down and picked it up with confusion. "Um, you dropped this..." she whispered softly as she examined the item. It was a small gray stone, easily small enough for the girl to close her hand around it. On one side of it was an engraving that seemed to be different every time Brynna looked at it. "Wow, that's neat."

   Michael grabbed the stone out of Brynna's hand violently and then took a firm hold of her upper arm. Before she knew it, the girl was being pulled inside my house by someone who shouldn't have been able to get inside without a key.

   The door being completely unlocked startled her and confirmed the uneasiness she'd felt in the driveway. However, nothing could've prepared her for what awaited her once they entered the living room and the front door closed ominously behind them.