Room 47 // Laurmani

Chapter 14

Darkness. That's all you can see but you can see shades of brown and red too. You wonder what's happening. There's voices talking around you but they sound distant and muffled. You try twitching a muscle in your face but you feel too tired to even do that, you're actually really comfortable even though you don't know what's happening. Maybe you should just go back to sleep.

The voices are getting louder and clearer though. You kind of wish they'd be quiet. One's a man and one's a woman. They sound familiar.

"I don't know what's wrong, has she said anything to you? She seemed delirious or somethin' to me" says a deep voice.

You feel your brow crease in confusion, is that Keith?

"You know I can't talk about that Keith" comes a soft voice.

Lauren?

Why is Lauren here? Why are you here? Where are you?

"Please Lauren," comes Keith's voice and he sounds like he's pleading. "She comes home drunk, says we shouldn't get married then panics and faints-"

"She wasn't drunk" Lauren interjects.

"What?" Keith asks confused. "How would you know that?"

Oh shit. Everything suddenly comes flooding back to you and your senses begin reawakening. You precipitously remember being at the bar with Lauren, her being drunk, taking her home, being determined to tell Keith about everything once you got home. Things didn't quite work out that way. You remember the horrible sensation of panic before you blacked out; it was like you were drowning. You never want to feel that way again.

"Grrmph" Keith makes a grumbled noise like he's annoyed, "Sorry, my work keeps calling me, I think I may need to still go in today, they won't care if Normani's in hospital, as long as it ain't life or death they'll want me there. Excuse me, I need to call them" says Keith sounding annoyed and you hear movement and the drawing of curtains and the sound of his footsteps disappear after a few seconds.

You inhale a little and it smells like a hospital. God. You can't deal with any of this; you should just pretend you're sleeping till you actually fall back asleep.

"I know you're awake" comes Lauren's voice knowingly.

You stomach jolts back into action.

She's actually here.

You slowly open your eyes, the brightness of the lights above you beaming down and glaring into your vision. You blink a few times and take in your surrounding, your lying on a hospital bed, there's a blue curtain pulled around the bed so the rest of the room is out of sight. You can hear other people, visitors perhaps, talking and other people walking but you're alone with Lauren behind the privacy of the curtain.

You blink again and your vision becomes less blurry. You roll your head to the side and Lauren is there wearing a small empathetic smile on her face. She's donning light blue jeans and a white shirt, her wavy hair falling gracefully down her shoulders and her eyes are sparkling even if creased with the slight signs of tiredness and you lose your breath a little, she looks kind of angelic.

"Hi" you say feebly.

"Hi there" she smiles back looking reassured.

"How did you know?" you ask and feel a tired smile twitch the edge of your lips.

"I've been watching you sleep for hours and your breathing changed about 3 minutes ago," she says with a smile.

"Wait...hours?" you frown and sit up confused. "How long...I mean...what time is it?" you ask feeling groggy.