Realm of Renee

Chapter 6

20th May 2019

RENEE

When I woke up the next day, I found myself in a different ward. I was no longer in the ICU.

Mom was next to me, laughing at something on her phone. She appeared to be engrossed in it, so much that she didn't even realise that I was awake.

"M-Mom?" I croaked, my throat parched.

"Renee!" Mom looked up from her phone, surprised. "How are you feeling sweetie?" She ran her hand over my forehead, taking care not to touch the bandages.

Very soon, the nurses entered, and busied themselves with examining my vitals, and also my leg. Mom watched everything, her face lined with anxiety at my sorry state.

I was alive. But I was still injured, and now that the painkillers were wearing off, the pain was rapidly making an appearance, hitting me like a sledgehammer into trauma.

Once the nurses were finally done with their job of dressing my wound, mom tried to feed me breakfast. It's been years since she had done that, bringing in a strange sense of comfort after all that had just happened.

"The police arrested that guy, Renee. The one who crashed his car into you." Mom looked as though she wanted to distract me from my wounds. "He was heavily drunk when he was driving."

I thought about the accident, how it should've been Truffles instead of me. I was kind of glad now because Truffles was still alive and I was too.

"Mom, how's Truffles?" I asked slowly, after swallowing the mouthful of bland porridge.

"She's okay. She went to your room and whined a lot yesterday, but today she's fine. Happy even." Mom replied, a small smile on her face.

Truffles somehow knew that I was alive again. I grinned happily, even though the bandages on my cheek hurt.

"Where's Clover?" I asked.

"She has school now, but she didn't want to leave you. She was the one who found you after the accident and alerted us." Mom explained. "You should call her up later, Renee, she was so worried."

That's when Mike arrived, effectively brightening up the atmosphere.
"Renee!" He cheered, "You're awake!"

Mom and I laughed, before I winced, feeling the shooting pains in my neck.

"Yeah, take all the rest you need," He advised, as he rearranged the pillows for my back. "No worries, we're taking care of everything."

"OK." I tried to smile, showing him that I was happy with his return.

Suddenly Mike sat next to me, looking worried.
"Renee, I swear I didn't want to leave you without an explanation, but I thought dad might give you a hard time if you knew why I was leaving."

I blinked at him.

"I don't think he's happy with my return, obviously he doesn't trust me anymore..."

"Why would he Mike?" Mom said, her voice filled with suppressed anger. "You just ran away from all of us, without any worry."

Mike looked furious, but he just shut his eyes and breathed heavily. When he finally opened his eyes, he spoke in a grave voice. "Do you know why I really left?"

"No," I replied.

Mike nodded, and I noticed how he has lost a lot of his dorkiness over the past year. Whatever he went through, he had changed a lot.
Grown-up, if I may add.

"You guys already know the whole part about me writing a rejection letter to the college and dad catching me red-handed."

"Yeah," I nodded.