Hopelessly Broken

23. Hospital

5.15.20

Devon's POV

Beep. Beep. Beep.

What is that sound and why does my whole body feel like shit? This sensation... Everything is just so dark and cold. When I try to open my mouth to console whoever was sobbing above me, my jaw was hinged shut. My chest was heavy as if someone had placed a bag of bricks on top of it; the squeezing of my lungs was making it kind of difficult to breath. All I could see was the infinite blackness of my eyelids, but when I tried to open them, nothing was working. The horrid scent of cleaning agents assaulted my nostrils with every single pained breath, yet the worst part was that I could feel nothing other than my compressed chest. As if I was floating on the clouds, I felt nothing below my back. It was like I was there, but I wasn't at the same time. I was slowly drifting between alive and dead.

"Are you sure that he's okay?" Jamie whispered somewhere above my head. The concern in her voice was too evident, and it made my head spin. What happened to me to make her so worried? I can't remember anything after sitting down for lunch.

"Yes ma'am," a voice I didn't recognize responded. "In fact, he should awaken momentarily."

As if on cue, I finally managed to forced my eyes open, but the dry air hitting them made me groan loudly while squeezing them closed once more. Jamie squealed rather loudly, and I managed to mumble a pained, "shut up."

At my words, I could hear Jack start laughing so hard that he snorted to my left. I tried to open my eyes once more, and this time they actually seemed to work. Jamie had leaned herself over my body, so the first thing I saw was her baby blue eyes. "Are you okay, baby?" she breathed while running a motherly hand over the left side of my face. It made me happy that she was caring about me as if I was her own child since I've never gotten to have this type of motherly figure.

"Everything hurts, and I have to wonder what happened?"

"You got into a pretty serious fight with Gabriel Alexander," Jack inserted. "He gave you a concussion and broke your ribs."

"I'm not going to let him get away with that."

"I think Daniel handled it for you."

"Daniel? Is he here?"

"He and Blake are outside. The nurses didn't want a whole lot of us in here in case something happened to you, and Blake and Dan wanted us to be here when you woke up since we're your family."

"What exactly did he do to Gabe?"

"I don't know exactly because Blake and I were kind of rushing after the paramedics, but the news was playing in the waiting room. Basically he's pretty messed up too."

"That's good."

"I'm going to go out to let them come in," Jamie announced.

I attempted to scoot back on the bed so that I could sit up, but Jack pushed me back down. "You should stay down because I don't want you to hurt yourself more than you already are on accident."

He then proceeded to ignore my complaining, push me down 5 more times, and threaten to hit the call button twice before the other boys could come in. "Blaakeeeeee, Jack won't let me sit upppp!" I complained loudly once again.

When Blake and Jack high-fived, I let out the most voluminous groan I could without cringing. As soon as they were distracted, I forced myself up into a sitting position so fast that neither even realized it was happening until it did. "Seriously," Jack deadpanned when he looked back at me.

"Yes seriously. I didn't want to be laying down any more!"

We all heard a tiny giggle from the door, and when we turned that direction, we realized that Daniel was laughing at my plight. "Sorry, it's just you remind me of someone I know."

As if on some kind of sick que, the door slammed open to an angry man shouting, "Daniel Xavier Quinn!"

"Ohhh shit," he whispered before turning to face the man that I assumed was his parent. "Heyyy father."

"It is 12:00 in the morning and I told you to be home by 10!" Dan's father had pitch black hair just like his son, but his eyes were an icy blue instead which I assumed became sharper since he was angry.

"I chose that friendship was more important!"

"You must be outta your mind, boy!" I couldn't help myself from giggling at his sudden switch. He had gone from a normal sounding voice to sounding exactly like our Lord and savior Stanley Hudson. "And what are you giggling about! I have no doubt that you are the reason for my son's disobedience."

"Sorry, it was just your voice reminded me of someone," I laughed.

"Teenagers are seriously weird," the older man whispered to himself before turning back to his son who had been trying to creep out of the hospital room. "And where do you thing you're going!?"

Dan froze as if he were a raccoon playing dead before slowly turning back to his father. "Home," he squeaked.

"Do you even know how concerned you made me and your papa? I was worried that someone had hurt you in the town! Even worse was that I managed to lose your scent a few paces away from the school–"

"I got in a car."

"Dear lord you got into a stranger's car? Did I teach you nothing?"

"Uh, actually sir it was my car," Blake inserted nervously, and when the man turned his attention onto him, Blake immediately shrank into his skin.

"And you are a stranger, am I wrong?"

"Dad for the love of papa please stop grilling my friends into a black char! I thought the whole point of this experience was for me to make friends."

"They're making you careless!"

"I took precautions!"

"What if you had done something like–"

"Ok ok we'll talk about that later!"

"You deliberately made your papa worry!"

"It wasn't deliberate, I just wanted to be here when he woke up!"

"Why? You've been friends for what, 12 hours? Maybe less?"

"You know what? I don't know why I had to be here, but for some strange reason I need to protect him!"

Wait... What? Daniel needs to protect me? Why? "Why do you need to keep a total stranger safe?"

"Like I said, I don't know!"

Dan's father then lost his patience and grabbed his child around the wrist before dragging him out of the room. "He was scary," Blake stammered.

"Tell me about it," Jack responded while rubbing his hands together.

"So... When are they going to let me out?" I grumbled.

"Devon!" both boys shouted in unison while I laughed evilly. Clearly the only fun I'm allowed to have is making my friends go crazy, so I intend to abuse that for as long as I can.