Perhaps (Book 1) | ✔

ACT III - Scene 7

A Hospital Room

    "Gloria? Can you hear me?"

    Who was saying my name?

    "Gloria?"

    Their voice was soft. It sent a warmth through me, and I wanted to smile.

    Please say my name again.

    "Open your eyes."

    My eyes fluttered open with the voice's request, and I found myself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Dimmed fluorescent lights shined down on me, and the sound of steady beeping entered my ears. Where was I?

    My eyes wandered towards the left—towards the steady beeping sound—where I saw a monitor with flashing lines and numbers on it. A clear bag of saline hung from it, and I followed the thin tube to my left hand. Was I...in a hospital bed? How had I ended up here? Hadn't I been in my dressing room just a few minutes ago?

    "Gloria?"

    The voice I had been dreaming about said my name again, and I turned my head to the right—

    —and saw Professor Lee.

    "You're awake," he said simply as I struggled to bring his face into focus. I watched as he smiled and leaned back in the chair he had pulled up to my bedside.

    "Where am I...?" I asked. My words came out slurred: it felt a little difficult to speak, as if there was this thick haze between my lips and my brain. "What happened...?" My head began to pound, and I reached up to touch it. There was a bandage on my temple, and the moment my fingers touched it, a pain shot through my skull. I winced and let out a groan of pain. What the hell had happened?

    "You're in the hospital," Professor Lee said. I looked back over towards him, my temple still throbbing. He leaned forward again. "I found you unconscious in your dressing room. I...It looked like you had fainted. And I think you hit your head on something as you fell, because your temple was bleeding. I called an ambulance to come get you and bring you here, because you wouldn't respond to me and I couldn't get you to wake up..."

    I was in the hospital...and I had fainted?! Meaning that he had somehow managed to find me in another unfavorable position?! And he had called an ambulance to come and pick me up?! He must have known that I was about to say something about what he had done, because he spoke again: "You hit your head. I couldn't not call an ambulance." I closed my mouth and turned my head away from him.

    "You...there was really no need to do that..." I finally mumbled. I couldn't believe this: it wasn't enough that he had found me with Riley, and then in the rain. He just had to have found me after I passed out as well.

    "Gloria." His voice was stern again. He sounded just like he had on the night he had found me on the auditorium steps. "You hit your head. You know how serious of an injury that can be. I wasn't going to just leave you laying there, or wait for you to wake up and hope you'd be fine. I had to call an ambulance. You needed to be taken to the hospital and examined."

    "I would have been fine..." I protested. "I am fine..."

    He surprised me when he suddenly scoffed and let out a dry laugh. I'd never heard such a sound come from him before, and I couldn't stop myself from looking at him. He was shaking his head in utter disbelief at me.

    "I wouldn't call you 'fine'," he said. "The doctors that examined you said that you had fainted from dehydration and exhaustion. They were also concerned that you haven't been eating properly, and that your body had simply given out on you. You didn't hit your head hard enough to warrant more than a couple stitches, but still." I watched as his brown eyes connected with mine, and I felt as if they could see into my very soul. "You know how important it is to stay hydrated and nourished while performing. You know it's important to take care of yourself, but you haven't been. Why?"