A Halal Love Story #Wattys2019 - BEING EDITED

Chapter 6

I wake up to a bright light above my head. I have a bad headache which is weird for me cause I don't usually have headaches. The room I'm in is white, and dull. I feel scared because I have no idea where I am right now. Something starts beating fast and I realize that it is a heart monitor to my left.

Wait, how did I come here. It looks like a hospital. My throat is dry and I look at my left to see my dad sleeping on the chair. His hand is on my left hand and I rub his gently with my thumb. He wakes up and when he sees me, tears fall from his face.

"Bint (child) how do you feel?" He says.

"My head hurts really bad right now and my throat's really dry." I tell him.

"Just wait here, I'm going to go get you a glass of water, and the doctor." He says and I nod.

"Hi. My name is Doctor Melanie, Layla. So you had a concussion which might've resulted in temporary amnesia (forgetting of things). We think that everything that happened will probably come back to you in a while. We are going to keep you here for the rest of the week to make sure that no brain damage was done as you were passed out for a while."

"What day is it?" I ask her.

"It's Wednesday right now. You will leave Sunday morning if there are no complications present. There will be a nurse that will come later today to check up on you."

"My head hurts." I tell her honestly.

"Well that is normal for patients who had suffered a concussion. I will get you some morphine, so the pain dulls. You also should rest a lot so your brain can heal from the fall. Do you have any memory of what happened before the fall?"

"Well all I remember is that-um-um...I don't have any information before I fell." I say worryingly.

"It will probably come back within a week. Don't stress yourself about remembering what happened because these things take time to be processed in the brain. I'm going to go and get you some morphine now Layla." She says.

"Ok." I reply and she leaves.

"Dad where's mom?" I ask him worryingly.

"She's coming right now from the cafeteria." He says.

"How long was I out dad?"

"Around 4 hours my Habibti (my love). An ambulance came because you wouldn't wake up. Habibti you wouldn't believe how worried everyone was."

As soon as he says that, my mom walks in holding 2 cups in her hand. Knowing her, it probably was tea and not coffee. She handed the cups to my dad and went over to my side.

"Ya habibti how are you feeling." She asks with panic clearly embedded in her eyes.

"I have a headache but that's it."

"I wish you make a full recovery In Sha Allah. After you leave the hospital, you are going to have to take some days off of school and rest because we want your brain to completely heal."

"But Mama school-" I try to say but she interrupts me.

"Your teachers know of what happened and are going to extend everything for you. Plus Hamza is going to bring your homework home for you. You shouldn't stress much because right now all your dad and I expect from you is for you to heal. Plus so what if you are behind a bit; you still have another 4 months before exams." She says and the doctor walks in ready to put the morphine in me.

"Layla your mother is right. School isn't your first priority right now. Right now the most important part is fully recovering. So I'm going to run an intravenous line through your arm so the morphine can enter your system but I'll take some blood samples before that. We are going to give you another dose and have a check up around 12 pm but until then you should rest." She says and injects me with the needle and does what she said.

It honestly doesn't hurt as she sticks the needle in my arm because compared to the pain I am in right now with my headache and all, this seems like nothing to me.

"I'll come back in a couple of hours Layla. The morphine should kick in around half an hour or so." She says.

"Bye." I say.

"Bye." She smiles and leaves.

"Layla we got a letter in response to your questions." My dad asks.

"Show it to me Papa!" I say excitedly. He laughs and hands it to me from a side table.This is how the letter went...