Til Death Do Us Part

Chapter 4

John

Another week in the hospital. I knew I only had to stay for a few more weeks, but didn’t make my predicament any less torturous. The hospital had practically nothing for a teenage boy to do. I could have survived a little if I had a TV and a few video games. In fact, having anything but a wall to stare at would be nice.  The doctors here weren’t bad, but I just wasn’t a happy patient. I was stuck in a place that I should not be in. This whole thing was not fair. 

One day I was lying in bed when my doctor heard me counting. I was at the number 865 when my nurse came by and asked what I was doing.

“I have no life anymore. All I live for is medicine, three meals, and sleep.  What am I supposed to do in my free time? I have nothing anymore except numbers. Numbers have become my friends since I have been deprived of human contact.”

I slumped my shoulders a little bit more and went down under my covers and resumed my counting. My nurse opened her mouth as if she was going to say something to try and cheer me up, but realized it was useless. Any type of optimism in a place like this is unreal. You can’t tell a patient that everything will be okay when they are stuck in a bed without the freedom to move and have even a little social contact. The other people that shared the room with me were older and spent so much time in the hospital that they have no heart to try and make me feel even a little better. I turned my eyes away from my nurse and she started to walk out.

“883, 884, 885, 886,88-“ I muttered before she had cut me off.

“There is a place that you can go to and meet people. There is a library just a few hallways over. There are a bunch of books that you can look at. Maybe it might make you feel better.” She said this and then turned on her heels and left the room.

“Books… Like that’s gonna help me”, I muttered under my breath after she was gone completely.

 As much as I liked reading, I didn’t think there was much for me. I figured I could at least check it out. It gave me an excuse to leave my bed and explore this place that I haven’t gotten to see much. I know there isn’t that much stuff that you can find in a hospital that interests you, but I had to find something. I decided I didn’t have anything to lose if I went down.  I got out of bed and went to a nurse that was behind the front desk outside of my room. I asked for instructions to the library and she told me it was just down the hall and to the right. I thanked her and was on my way.

When I entered it, there were a few things that I noticed right away. First, the place was a ghost town. From what I could see, there was no librarian. The place had no adults watching whatsoever. There was no one else in the room looking at books or reading or checking anything out. I was completely alone. Also, the books seemed to be all over the place. There were books in shelves, on the floor, on the black stool in the corner and just everywhere. The last thing I saw was a single book on a table next to a bookshelf on the right wall. I walked over and read the title: “Invisible”. The title seemed like it would be about a superhero or something so I thought I’d give it a shot. Needless to say, it wasn’t about a superhero. However, I found myself reading it. I read the book non-stop up until the moment when she walked in.

She was actually kind of cute. She had a small body frame, but it also matched her. Of course since she was in a hospital, her hair was all over her face and it stuck out strangely at certain places. She looked slightly underweight (which led me to believe she was anorexic). Her eyes seemed to have all different colors mixed into one, but looked bloodshot as if she hadn't slept in months. She looked like she could have had a beautiful smile once, but she lost it a long time ago. I looked at her entire body from head to toe then let my eyes land on her arms. She put her hands behind her back, but it was not before I saw the scars that were etched into her skin. They seemed old which led me to wonder how long had she been here.

Even though she was not considered fully beautiful by society standards, something drew me to her. What she looked like didn’t really matter. She stood in the middle of the room looking dazed and confused. I felt I was probably scaring her by staring so I turned back down to my book. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see she was still standing there. After a little while, she started to come my way. I began to feel a little nervous with her so close to me, yet I never was nervous around girls. She reached her hand for a book that I figured was behind my head, and without thinking, I grabbed her arm.

A billion thoughts of stupidity rushed into my head. This girl probably thought I was going to rape her or something. After all, she saw that I was in a mental hospital! I wanted to let go yet my brain wasn’t transmitting the message to the rest of my body. On their own, my fingers went up and down her arm feeling for the scars they knew were there. The strangest thing about everything was that the girl didn’t take her arm out of my grasp or anything. She simply let me feel it. My fingers touched every scar and I felt a story connected with each. I did not know this girl, but I could figure something out. I was falling for her. It wasn’t like a cheesy love at first sight or anything. It was just simply falling.

I let her arm go and she grabbed the book that was behind me. After she had a hold of it, she left the library without saying another word. I didn’t know who she was or what her real story was. Yet, I felt I needed to care for this girl. I needed to help her and I realized I wanted to be apart of her story. One way or another, I was going to find this girl again. I promised myself that it would not be the last time that I ever see her.