Oh, Eleanor

Chapter 30 : The mercy dress

Finally they could go inside to see her condition. Ron was the first to step into the room for obvious reasons. Eleanor was covered in the hospital sheets. Sleeping peacefully among the buzzing of all those medical equipments Ron had no knowledge of. There was a bandage wrapped around her head. The one he had secured over her shoulder had been replaced by a fresh one by the nurse. How many more wounds was she to get, he thought.
How many more days will he go without knowing what was up with the Rachel thing. He thought.
For the first time he thought that he couldn't even trust this girl anymore. One moment, she is this vulnerable girl with physical injuries and a tormented presence about her. The next moment, she is this out of the world girl dancing with his best friend and kissing him and being drunk at a halloween party. Were those two even the same people. Eleanor never talked to him about the party. Maybe that wasn't Eleanor. Maybe that was just a girl really named Rachel and who just happened to be Eleanor's doppelganger. Lots of smoke bombs around his head with the spelling that read 'maybe'. And yet, no answer.
He looked at the little steam clouds forming inside the oxygen mask secured around her nose. He could think about all those maybe's later. Right now all he thought about was when will she open her eyes and look at him. When will she say, "Ron, I am fine."

***

They were at the hospital canteen. Trying to get food into their bellies before it gets habitual of being without food for long. Billy was with the doctors getting the hang of the prescription.
Martha looked at her plate and back at Ron. She must surely be thinking something. They both hadn't really had much to talk about since they set foot in the hospital.
"You wanna say something?" He asked.
Always a conversation starter. Even if she had nothing to talk about, she might bring up something just because Ron asked for it. That was his mother.
"Actually I do."
He nodded. Prodding her.
"You know her."
He got still. The fork in his hand felt cold at once.
"Whom?" He still asked.
"You know what I am saying. That girl, Rachel. You know her. What has been going on, Ron?"
"Why are you saying that?"
She didn't say anything at first. She broke a piece of the cheese from her salad and ate it.
She wasn't angry. She wasn't worried. There was numbness in her aura right now. Like she was dreading something.
"She is wearing my dress."
The ground swayed beneath his chair.
"What!"
Even though he knew exactly what. That dress he asked Eleanor to wear when she came to his house the first time. The dress he found from his mother's wardrobe so that he could replace that torn apart dress.
That dress. Gave him in.