Cyanide | Loss

»eight«

"Oliver?" I asked opening my eyes, noticing how much my head hurt.

"He's at an ultrasound with your mom." A familiar male voice said. I kept staring at the ceiling, waiting for my vision to clear up.

"What about Chris?" I asked. "And Barry."

"Your friend's in school right now. And Barry's at work." The voice replied.

"What about you?" I questioned turning my head to find the source of the voice.

He laughed. "I'm Liam, and I've been sitting at your bedside for a week watching you breathe." He paused. "I'm your day nurse."

"What happened?" I asked, I was very confused, how could I have been here for a week?

"You'll probably want someone you know to be here for that." Liam said as I sat up. And that's when I got the overall feeling that something was wrong.

Until Oliver walked in the room. He ran to my bedside and smiled. "Welcome back Mel." He said. I smiled back. 

"Can you tell me what's going on now?" I asked Liam, he nodded.

"Six days ago you were struck by lightning." I nodded I most definitely remembered that. "You passed out a couple seconds later and then went into respiratory arrest and stopped breathing. The lightning hit a few inches above your ankle and busted up almost all of your left leg."

I looked down at my legs and made an attempt to move my left foot. Nothing. All it did was hurt.

"They couldn't fix it." Liam said. "You're an amputee." I was shocked beyond words. This moment had redefined my entire life. I no longer had a left leg.

"Um, okay." I replied, not knowing what else to say. "What else did I miss?" Liam seemed surprised by my accepting attitude.

"You were in a coma for a week, struck by lightning, lost your leg, went into respiratory arrest, almost had a heart attack, and have a ton of burns. Oh and there's a minimal effect on your vision from the light, other than that you're fine." Liam summarized. "You've actually made an incredible recovery, most people who were hit like you were died on the spot." He said.

"Guess I'm lucky." I offered a halfhearted smile.

"Oh, and there were traces of cyanide in your leg where you were hit." I looked to Oliver cyanide lightning killed my mom.

"Cyanide? The deadly chemical?" I clarified.

"Yeah, you don't remember eating a ton of almonds being around burning plastic or poison or anything that could make cyanide present?"

"Chris' neighbor smokes, but that's it." I said.

"You were with Chris when this happened?" Oliver asked suddenly darkening the mood. I nodded.

"Yeah, I was spending some time with my best friend while I was in town, is that a problem?" I replied. Oliver sighed and shook his head in response. "Good."

"What time is it?" I asked. I wanted to know if I could text Chris. There were certain classes that he could text in without getting in trouble

"eleven twenty seven." Liam replied.

"Great, he's at lunch, where's my phone?" I asked. Oliver handed me my phone from the bedside table. I made the mistake of opening my camera to check my appearance, I looked like crap.

I'm awake I texted Chris.

Finally, I'm coming over. He replied.

No, I'm family only, and I look like crap, and you have school. I replied.

Fine He refuted and left the message. I rolled my eyes, he could be annoying sometimes, but keeping Chris away from me for now was in his best interest. I put down my phone as Felicity burst into the room.

"Oh my god Melissa! You woke up!" She said. "How are you."

"I'm honestly not sure how I feel about all this." I replied.

"That's okay." Felicity replied. "I felt the same way once. Just know we're always here for you Mel, no matter the circumstances. Your physical therapist wanted to see you when you woke up. She'll be here in a few minutes. And I already canceled your meeting with the journalist from Time."

I nodded. "Thanks." I thought about saying mom after that, but the whole incident with cyanide lightning made me think of my birth mom, and that kept me from thinking of Felicity that way.

I took those few minutes between when Felicity arrived and when Virginia, my physical therapist, arrived to think about how much I had screwed up my life.

"Knock knock." The voice said from the door before opening it. "Hi Melissa." The woman said. Her hair color reminded me of Chris' light brown like smooth chocolate. "I'm Virginia, and I'm going to make sure you walk again."

"Good, because I just made captain of my lacrosse team. And I've already missed a game." I said.

"I hate to tell you but, the recovery time for an amputation like this is gonna take longer than you think." She said.

"How long?" I asked.

"A couple weeks until you'll be comfortable walking and running, to do an intense sport like lacrosse, I'd say three months at best until you can get back on the field."

My heart dropped, lacrosse was the one thing I could be proud of myself for, I had just made captain, and I was going to have to take a three month break from my pride- no thanks.

I sighed. "When can I start? I need back on lacrosse, and I can't miss too much school or they'll drop my scholarship."

Virginia looked to my foster parents who nodded. "Whenever you're ready." she said.

"Let's do this." I said.

"Mel, maybe you should take it slow for a while. You just woke up from a week long coma. You can't just jump back into life like everything's fine." Felicity suggested.

"Felicity, I know you're just looking out for me, but I don't have time to take it slow, I have to concentrate on putting my life back together." I replied. "I lost almost everything in the time it took for a bolt of electricity hotter than the surface of the sun to hit my leg, a microsecond, that's all it took, and I lost almost everything. And I'm going to get it all back." I said. It was true, lightning strikes in a microsecond, and that microsecond took so much from me, I was determined to get it all back.

» hey kids! what did you think of chapter seven? I had a really good time writing it. Sorry I'm late again. Also as I expected no one has commented on the last chapter so far but if you do guess the answer to the question about me correctly you win a dedication. what color do you think my eyes are? first correct answer gets a dedication! Last question is what's the last show you watched. I'm watching Parks and Recreation as I write this (: see you all next Friday!!