Begin Again

Chapter 10

I woke up feeling more refreshed than I have in days. I executed my daily wake up routine; looking from my dad to the moitors, and then listening to the steady beeps. I slumped back in my chair allowing myself to relax knowing that my dad made it through another night without further complications. I only worried about my dad for a few seconds before Storm crosssed my mind. It's funny isn't it, one minute all your thoughts are consumed by your Dad's well being and the next minute a guy walks into your life who makes you feel like everything will turn out okay. I look over to my phone, half hoping for there to be a message, but my heart stops breifly when I find my notifications empty before I try to convince myself I was being silly for even thinking that he would be texting me this early in the morning. Like I have so many times before, I try to reason with myself why I am being so foolish and falling for all of his little games, games he may not even know he is playing. He may just be trying to be nice to me since I am at a low point in my life. However, my mind keeps going back to that one night, that night at the park. If he was playing games, how would he have the audacity to tell me those things. As much as I am doubting him, I cannot ignore what I feel. Maybe I just don't have enough experience with boys so I am just reading too far into this. But no matter how I try to convince myself, I know that I am already in too far deep to get out of this one with my heart in one piece.

                                                                                   ~•~

Food, food is all I can think about. I have not eaten a sufficient meal in a few days when normally I eat about six meals a day. I stare at the cafeteria food, nothing. I cannot stand to eat another nasty concauction that was probably thrown together from yesterdays leftovers. Well, I guess that means I have to venture beyond these depressed white walls. I grab my wallet and brave the outside world. 

     Green and blue dots swim before my eyes as they adjust to the morning sun that they have been deprived of for too long. I walk down the street and the smell of pancakes leads me into a cafe a couple blocks away from the hospital. The room is filled with teenagers who are enjoying every aspect of their summer, which reminds me that the world is still going on outside of the hospital. The hostess who brings me to my seat trys to act like she is not judging me for coming in here all alone. The only person who has bothered to keep me company the past couple of days besides people wearing hospital gowns and scrubs is Storm, and while he is busy with soccer camp I am left to keep myself company. Has it really already been three days? Three days of the unexpected. You always hear about things like this happening. People go into comas all the time, you just never expect it to happen to someone you love.

     My thoughts are interrupted when the waitress brings me my food. I hardly breath as I gulp down two pancakes, eggs, and hashbrowns. My athlete apetite always gets the best of me. When  I am finished I head back to the hospital getting cramps from just walking because of how fast I ate. I want to stay out and enjoy the fresh scent of summer, but the anxiety of not being with my dad leads me back into the prison walls of the hospital. The nurses now recognize me and so they do not even question me as I head to my Dad's room without their permission. Although he is no better than when I left, his vitals are still stable and he has not started to decline yet. I cannot help but think that I am no better off than my Dad. Sure, I am not hooked up to life support and I do not need to be fed through tubes, but I am in the exact same perdicament as him, I am neither getting better or getting worse. I am not throwing my life away, yet I am not making anything of it either. I am just as irrelevant now as I would be if i were in the same situation as my dad. Why was it him and not me? He does not deserve this, he has already been through too much. 

     What exactly are you supposed to do in a hospital? I think I have watched every crappy TV show this hospital's crappy cable  has to offer, I have already finished my summer reading, and I have read all the latest issues of every magazine they sell in this hospitlal. Even though it has only been a few days, I have had so much time on my hands considering the fact that I am up until late at night because it is not the easiest thing in the world to sleep on a hard plastic chair next to my unresponsive father. It is late in the afternoon when one of the nurses walks into my Dad's room. She looks at the moniters chacking for anything out of the ordinary and I assume she will leave like she does every few hours when she finds no change, but she begins to talk to me instead.

"Hello, I know we have seen a lot of eachother recently, but I have not formally introduced myself. I am Nurse Becca." she says as she sticks out her hand waiting for me to grasp it . She is young, mid twenties probably. She has light brown hair and a kind smile. 

I return her shake and I finish the introduction, "Nice to meet you, my name is Jen."

"Nice to meet you Jen,"  I can tell that she wants to tell me something but she can't find the right words to say it. After an awkward puse she continues, "So Jen, I wanted to mention to you that there are weekly meetings every wednesday for youth going through some of the same things you are. I know that this process can be long and strenuous, especially for someone who does not have much family." 

I look at her in the eyes and I know that that "someone" she is reffering to is me. I do not reply verbally and she walks out of the room when the only sign of acknowlegement I give her is the nod of my head. I do not need support, I am handling this just fine on my own. Isn't it funny that they are telling me I'm the one who needs help when really my Dad is the one who cannot even breathe on his own. I try to shake the conversation out of my mind becuase the thing I like to feel the very least is weak. I hate when people talk down to me like I am incapable of handling my own life. If that nurse really knew me, then she would know that this is just another bump in the road that I have to endure and I am able to endure it on my own. I do not need a support group. It sickens me to think that she wants me to sit in a circle with a bunch of strangers telling me in unison that, "we are here for you Jen". I will not go through that humiliation again.