The Lifeguard Hates You (Completed)

June Chapter 28

I don't remember much when I wake up. But I can tell you this, I am in the most amount of pain I've ever been in and I have two torn rotator cuffs and I force myself to swim butterfly on a regular basis.

My head is in agony, literal agony. I can hear this horrible beeping and judging by this fact that I'm shrouded in some ridiculously itchy fabric I'm going to guess that I'm in the hospital.

Though it hurts I force myself to open my eyes and when I catch sight of the yellowing ceiling and the horrible blinking bright white lights I confirm that I'm once again in South Muskoka Memorial Hospital.

Granted, mostly when I'm here it's because Rory's gone and gotten herself injured or Shawn cut himself playing with one of his many knives. I haven't been here very often for myself, other than flu shots or x-rays on my chest that one time we were pretty sure I had some form of tuberculosis which turned out to be a really bad case of pneumonia.

Opening my eyes hurts so I lay back and use my hands to feel for anything, to get a sort of bearing of my surroundings, or more aptly anyone there with me. It didn't really help me much. All I could figure out was that I was in a generic hospital bed, no railings to keep me from rolling out, probably swaddled in that ugly green blanket and then my fingers brush against something soft.

Immediately I stop moving. I try to establish whether or not I had imagined the softness that had brushed against my fingers the only way I think of how. I slowly twitch my fingers around the blanket until I feel it again. It's a person, to my right, with the softest skin I've ever felt. Someone is asleep beside me, they're leaning against my bed, their head resting on their folded arms by my hips.

I have visions of Lacey sitting beside me, crying and wishing for me to wake up so she could tell me that she's loved me all along. It's because of this I force myself to open my eyes, wanting to be able to see the look of happiness on her face when she realizes that I'm alive and well after all.

But as soon as my eyes are open and they fall on that mop of bright red hair my heart plummets to my stomach and the disappointment sets in. It's just Rory. I want to roll my eyes and close them again but that hurts too much as well so now they're open and they're going to stay open. Now I'm in pain and drowning in disappointment, great way to wake up after having an accident.

I use this time to force myself to look around. Moving my head hurts too, but I'm in a room all by myself. It's one of the nicer private rooms. I have a TV and a window. I feel like Rory might have earned up enough stays at the hospital to upgrade a room and instead of using it on her next stay—as it's inevitable that she'll be in here at least three more times this summer, we've all accepted this—she's obviously used it on me.

Well I didn't ask for her charity and I didn't ask her to be here either so she's not getting a thank you from me.

The door opens and Shawn walks in, he's holding one of those small Styrofoam cups, the ones you get like a quarter cup of coffee in. He's blowing on it so I know he's spent the three bucks in the cafeteria to purchase their sludge recently. He doesn't look like he's been up all night so I guess I haven't been here that long. Maybe Lacey is still on her way to me, if that's the case I need to get Rory out of here immediately so I can pretend it's worse than it is when she gets her to get the sympathy from her.