You Made Me Fall, But That's Okay

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Sleepy Time

‘When can I go home?’ I whined at James, who was changing the bandages around my previously stabbed thigh. He rolled his eyes, and continued wrapping the cloth gently around my leg. Ryan sighed, watching James extra-carefully. He was extremely pissed off because James was touching my leg, and I found it amusing to see how much it irritated him – it was sort of like a territorial thing. Sinead was out having lunch with my mam, and I was astonished that my mam was bothered enough to stick around. I thought that she was going to go back to Boston as soon as she knew that I was okay – but she actually didn’t.

‘Laura, as far as I know, you’ll be staying in this bed until your leg is better. The doctors don’t want you outside until we’re sure that you’re one hundred percent okay. You’d understand if you saw the amount of blood you lost. Anyway, why do you want to go home? You’re gonna get more than a week off school and you get to spend some quality time with your best friend.’

I frowned in confusion. ‘Dan hasn’t visited me yet …’ The words hurt me, but it really was true. Daniel was the only one that hadn’t dropped by to see if I was okay. I thought that as soon as visiting time started he’d be right beside my bed, worried sick if I was okay and demanding something that he could do to help, but he wasn’t. I thought we were back to normal, but obviously we weren’t … I wondered if Rebecca had anything to do with it.

James laughed. ‘I was talking about me, duh. And I thought that you’re smart? Only joking – people who chase after stalkers in black hoodies are complete geniuses, especially when they land themselves into hospital. Anyway, who’s Dan?’

‘My best friend,’ I muttered, my shoulders sagging.

‘Some best friend.’

‘I know …’

‘Your other friends are nice, though. Kevin and Chris are cool dudes. They should hang around with all of us some time,’ James smiled, fixing my bandages in place with some tape. ‘Oh, and guess what I heard? Drake’s dating your friend Katie. They went to the movies last night.’

‘Did it all go well?’ I asked curiously, giving him my wrist so he could fix my IV cables. I grimaced in pain. IV cables were bitches.

‘How would I know? I wasn’t with them,’ he chuckled, writing down something on the clipboard. ‘Right, I’d better get going now. All of the docs aren’t very happy about me spending so much time with my favourite patient. You know, they just get jealous because I’m so awesome.’

As soon as James left, Ryan was back sitting beside me on my bed. I wasn’t as sore as the day before, so I snuggled myself closer into Ryan, smelling the gorgeous scent of his cologne. I missed his arms around me and was looking forward to going home again so I could spend some proper alone time with him. With Sinead and my mam around, it meant that we couldn’t act as lovey-dovey as we usually did, and the romantic part of me missed it desperately.

Ryan hadn’t left at all since I found the message in the bathroom and only went on a toilet break if Sinead was there to mind me. After I told them about the message left on the mirror, Ryan made sure at least one of his friends guarded the entrance of the hospital. It sounded funny, but it was actually a bit reassuring. If they spotted anyone suspicious, they’d ring Ryan, who would then stand outside in the corridor to make sure nobody unwanted would come anywhere near me. It was like I had my own little network of bodyguards.

Yesterday when it was visiting hour, I had quite a hectic time. The room was full to the brim with people, and it was all because of James, who persuaded the security to let everyone up. First came all of my many friends from school, and even some other kids that I didn’t really talk to that often … Then all of Ryan’s friends came over, including Kyle’s little sister Natalie. What shocked me even more was that nearly all of them came with gifts. The amount of flowers in the room was causing Sinead to sneeze every few minutes, and all of the chocolates I had was enough to keep me going until I waited for Ryan to go out and get me some dinner. No matter how much the hospital tried, I refused to eat any of the food – especially after James told me about the chefs.