The Fighter

Chapter 28: Good

"YOU WHAT?" 

"Oh my God, mom seriously you need to stop yelling."

It seemed like my concussion just made everything even harder to deal with, as if that were even possible. I swear the color of my mom's sweater was making me sick. Though to be honest, purple and green always made me sick, especially when accompanied by a stupid phrase about wine on it. Today's winerism: "They Whine, I Wine." 

Bleck. It should have said. 'I Whine and I Wine'

"My daughta gets taken to the hospital and no one tells me!" She was dramatically saying, leaning on the kitchen counter for support, her blonde tresses strewn across her penciled lip with the exaggerated toss of her head. She could be a fifties actress just by the way she projects to the back of the room for no apparent reason.

"Sorry Mrs. Taylor," Laura said, fixing her hair nervously. "We didn't think we'd be there too long." I felt bad that Laura was having to fend off my angry mother, but I just really couldn't deal with it.

My mother shook her head disapprovingly.

"No one tells you!" Garbonzo chimed in. "No one tells the guy whose car she was washing? Huh?" Garbonzo was reacting in a way I had never seen before. He was pacing back and forth, eyeing me with such suspicion, it was almost as tangible as the smell of his old-lady cologne. 

"And look at her head!" My mother patted her forehead, like she was checking herself for a fever. "Is it going to scar?"

I rolled my eyes, which hurt to do. "Way to make me feel terrible, mom." 

And you know what else I was realizing was making me queasy? We're going to have the clog discussion now, the day has finally come. My mother was wearing her brown clogs and they kept making this suctioning noise when she took a step, or shifted her weight. Every time the sound happened, I got a pang of nausea. 

"Good." She said. "Don't ever do that again." Squelch 

"Yeah!" Emphasized Garbonzo. He removed the jacket of his velour sweatsuit, revealing his tank top and the voracious plume of curly hair that threatened to eat the neckline. (I've redacted the stains at his pits for your own imaginative safety as a reader)

"Okay, great that's that solved then." I muttered, making my way out of the kitchen. "I don't feel good, I'm laying down." 

Laura began explaining to my mom...and Garbonzo what the doctor had said about taking a week off from school, no looking at cellphones, reading,  blah blah blah. What I enjoyed about my injury was that he mentioned irritability as a symptom, so I could just point to my concussion whenever I felt I was in a mood. 

Oh no, mother, I'm not annoyed that you made steamed carrots for the third night in a row. It's just my concussion. Xavier, you want to call me Edna for the seventieth time, pshh, that's just my concussion making me want to fold you into an accordion. 

I threw my jacket to the ground and stuck the chair under my doorknob so no one loud and annoying would come in. I glanced at the mirror and suddenly had the urge to remove the gauze that covered up everything wrong with my head. 

Slowly I unwrapped it and took in the gash that trailed down from my right temple to my eyebrow. Yeah...it was definitely going to scar. I quickly tried my best to cover it the way that it was, not quite doing it so that it would stay but I was already tired of keeping my eyes open. I crawled into bed, with my hospital bracelet still on my arm and fell asleep.

***

Please remember me  fondly

I heard from someone you're still pretty