17 Nights {c.h.}

+ten+

slight trigger warning for anxiety

The Tenth Day

Of course, feeling better wasn’t exactly something I could control.

I woke up with a gasp, clutching the covers tighter around myself. I hadn’t realized how my hands shook until I tried, and failed, to grasp my duvet. It was… terrible. I had never been that scared in my entire life. It felt like all my anxiety from the past month or so crashed down with the force a tsunami would be jealous of.

I sat up, gasping for breath as Cynthia suddenly appeared in the doorway, springing into action and wrapping her arms around me in an attempt to calm me down.

“That’s it,” she declared, “we’re going to the hospital.” I began to protest until I realized there was no use; sitting in my bed would not help at all.

Time seemed to fast forward between how long it took for Cynthia to make a few calls and usher me into her car. My nausea and dizziness seemed to go up a notch once the car began to move but I knew not to complain. There wasn’t much either of us could do, considering we were on our way to one of the only places that could figure out what was wrong with me. So, instead of complaining like I normally would, I curled into a ball and rested my head on the cool window, hoping traffic wouldn’t be too bad.

Of course, since we live in California, it rarely ever happens. That day was not an exception either, I mean how cliché would it have been if it was? It would almost seem like I was a character in a book or something. I just curled myself into a tighter ball, clutching my blanket.

I jerked up when a shocking sensation raced up my arms, surprising me. Unfortunately, that set off my dizziness and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop it before it got worse. Cynthia seemed to realize this as she offered to pull over until it passed, which I waved off knowing it wouldn’t help.

She bit her lip before following my request and turning her attention back to the road. She was obviously uncomfortable but didn’t say anything else, so I was very thankful for that. I don’t know if I would have been able to take any sympathy at that point.

The rest of the car ride passed by in a blur, something I was extremely thankful for given my condition at the time. I still had slight electric shock feeling race up and down my arm but nothing quite as bad as the first. I had no clue we had actually arrived at the hospital until Cynthia opened my door for me, patiently waiting for me to unbuckle my seat before helping me out of the car. We slowly made our way to the hospital before I almost fell to the side; my balance seemed to have disappeared.

I still don’t remember how long we were in the waiting room for before I was finally seen. It didn’t seem to take a long time but I consistently zoned out, so I have no clue how long we waited. Once we were finally led to a room the doctor began questioning Cynthia since I was hit by a wave of nausea and unable to answer when the questions were directed to me.

She explained my symptoms while I wrestled with my anxiety, trying to keep it under control if only for a short amount of time. Both Cynthia and the doctor had grown silent, and were looking as though I had the answer to all of this. I supposed I had after the doctor repeated his question.

“When was the last time you took your medication?” I cocked my head to the side, trying to remember. I hadn’t taken it that morning because of my symptoms, and I couldn’t remember whether or not I had taken it the day before or the day before that and so on. I shrugged, murmuring something along the lines of “I can’t remember.”

After a bit more of conversing with Cynthia the doctor had determined I had been experiencing a type of withdrawal from the medicine being abruptly stopped, which we assumed was from the stress of exams. At least, that’s what I understood from what Cynthia told me.

While my medication was being retrieved from the pharmacy, the doctor said the symptoms should disappear within a few days once the medicine is in my system again, Cynthia told me the doctor wanted to keep me overnight just in case anything would happen.  Within an hour I was laying in a hospital bed after taking my medicine. I was given a slight sedative, at least I think that’s what the doctor said, to help me sleep better since I had barely slept in the past 24 hours thanks to insomnia being one of the side effects of abruptly stopping the medicine.

Before the sedative did its job Cynthia called Aubrey on the phone to let her know about everything that had happened that day. She was sitting on the empty cot in the room, luckily the doctors offered for her to sleep there tonight since it wouldn’t be used otherwise. I have to admit, even I was surprised by the kindness the staff showed in that hospital.

My eyes were beginning to droop until Cynthia sat at the end of my bed, holding the phone out to me.

“Aubrey wants to talk to you.” She explained while I raised the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Bella? Oh, thank Good you’re okay, you have no idea how worried I was.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Right now I’m too tired to feel anything, if I’m being completely honest with you.” I admitted before realizing I hadn’t heard anything about Calum in the past couple of days. “How is Cal? Has anything happened?”

“Nothing really, but the doctors have said his brain activity seems to be picking up. They hope he’s going to wake up soon. One of them said he thinks Cal will make a full recovery once he wakes up.”

“That’s good… that’s really good,” I smiled, yawning between my words. Cynthia gently grabbed the phone out of my hand as I began to slip into the void of sleep. The last thing I heard was Cynthia saying something along the lines of the doctors gave her something to help her sleep… but I was out before she finished her sentence.

Before I completely passed out a single thought ran through my mind: why the hell does this have to happen to a college student?

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yo guys, i finally updated. honestly, it's kind of hard to update when you're constantly sad so please stop commenting about updates. i'll update when i can and if that's not good enough for you then you don't have to read this story.

on another note, there are a few people i want to thank. all of you who commented your support about the reasons i haven't been updating and who personally messaged me. the dedication of this chapter goes to the person who made me smile when it felt like all i could do was cry. thanks you. it means a lot and you know who ou are, so thank you.

i love you guys a lot, and thanks for sticking with me

-em xx