Between the Notes and Numbers [ON HOLD]

Chapter 5

I lay on my bed, my head still throbbing from the pain and the tightness of my bandages around my head. I stared at the door where Alyssa had left and clung to the hope that she would come back. She would have to. I knew her. She would feel guilty and stay. I knew she would.

I stared at the door for a good ten minutes until my eyes started watering and my throat dried, before I had to look away and reach for the glass of water next to my bed.

I chugged it down in four gulps.

Before returning to my silent vigil again.

I brought my legs towards my chest and remembered that one had been trapped in a cast for the last forty minutes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Instead, I had to resort to propping myself rigidly against the pillows against my back. I leaned my head on the steel frame of the headboard, and the ice-cold bar swept a rush of frost throughout my body. I winced and waited for a few seconds before settling back into the scratchy covers of the bed.

I pulled the flimsy sheet over my head, attempting to muffle the loud noises that had just started to build outside my room. I pushed it against my eardrums, hoping to block out the dramatically crescendoing noise. I squeezed my eyes shut. As if that would do anything.

I burrowed deeper into the gravelly "quilt" and clenched my hands together until my nails formed a little crescent-shaped dent on my palm. A loud, screeching sound suddenly erupted out of nowhere, and I involuntarily flinched. I pressed my hands up to my ears and then remembered that most of my head had been bandaged too.

I waited for the sound to go away. Whenever I thought it disappeared, it came back louder. And even more nerve-wracking.

Worried voices started to ascend, and my messed-up mind started to think that I had recognised them before.

Just proved how messed up it could get.

I pushed the sheet off my body and shakily sat up on the side of the bed as soon as the screeching noise descended. I glanced at the clock.

Twenty minutes had passed since I last looked at it. I blankly stared at it for several more minutes, my brain barely receiving the numbers ticking by on the circular piece of plastic.

My parents still hadn't arrived.

Of course they hadn't.

A small knock on the door jolted me from my useless brooding over nothing.

I ignored it.

It came again, still small, but somehow sharper.

I opened my dry mouth and licked my lips before calling out in a husky voice, "Come in."

The door slowly creaked open, and my eyes jumped out of their sockets once I realised who it was. Alyssa. My arms immediately flew open, waiting for the pleasant hug that she used to give me. But she didn't come forward.

I blinked a few times, trying to clear my vision, and realised who it was.

Astoria. And behind her, Mrs Chen. And Mr Chen.

I dropped my arms to my side and shrank back onto the hard mattress and closed my eyes.

Light, dainty footsteps, heavily reminding me of Alyssa, approached me, and a slight tap on my shoulder forced me to relive my past. Be polite. Be respectful. Be obedient. My mother had always said. Otherwise...She had never finished the sentence.

It wasn't like she needed to finish it anyway.

She just had that much power over me.

I silently hissed through my clenched teeth and snapped my eyes open. Astoria's kind eyes bore into mine as if she were blaming me, and an unpleasant tide of guilt flooded through me. Mrs Chen's anxious gaze roved over me, her brow furrowed, and I burrowed into the bed uncomfortably. I hadn't had this much attention since I...Since I was born, really.

Mr Chen was the complete opposite of his wife. He stood stoically, yet somehow almost awkwardly by the door, and just gave me a nod, and his eyes didn't flicker across my body, assessing my injuries like the other two women in his family were doing. And for once, I was grateful. Bro code still sticks throughout your whole life, I guess.

A warm flush of heat tingled from the palm of my hand, and I glanced at it. Mrs Chen was massaging it, making circular motions on every part that she could touch.

I closed my eyes in relief as I let her warmth flow throughout my body. She was one of the few people I could genuinely trust. Other than Mikaela and Alyssa, of course.

My mind flashed with a sudden realisation. I was an idiot not to have thought of it before.

"Why are you all here? You aren't here just to...See me, are you?"

Astoria slightly tilted her head up. But still avoided my gaze.

"No."

I paused.

"Then why?"

A knowing look was passed around the family, and Astoria peeked at her mother. They both opened their mouths and grimaced, as if expecting something-or someone-to lash out at them. Instead, it was Mr Chen who spoke.

"Alyssa got into a fight. We don't know with whom. She won't tell us."

My blood immediately ran cold. Alyssa wasn't the type to just "get into a fight".

Mrs Chen must've seen the distress on my face, because she quickly garbled out, "It's alright, she's fine. Mikaela's with her now. And speaking of which, Mikaela might visit you pretty soon. She might even be right outside the door!" She chuckled nervously.

I attempted to swing my legs off the bed, but a sharp jolt of pain, exactly like an electrical current, coursed through my injured leg, and I groaned. Mrs Chen rushed forward to steady me, and suddenly, I was immensely grateful for her support.

Because I was deprived of it.

Astoria wheeled something in my direction, and as it got closer, I realised it was a wheelchair. I suppose the nurse wasn't completely useless after all.

I heaved myself into the nylon seat and swung my injured leg onto the footplate, adjusting it to find a comfortable position. I rested my arms on the armrest and started to spin the wheels, just as I had seen so many people do before.

It was even harder than I thought.

I struggled for a few seconds while everyone else stiffly stood at the edge of the room, before sighing through my gritted teeth. Mrs Chen came forward and gestured to the wheelchair. It took me a second to realise that she was offering to help me.

I couldn't show my discomfort. But this was Mrs Chen—Alyssa's mother.

I slightly nodded once.

She immediately bustled forward and gripped onto the back handle and pushed me forward, finally out of the stuffy, cramped room.