G E O R G E

Tweleve: Games

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George:

I ATE lunch with Jamila and we both complained about how the hospital food was disgusting.

I gave her money my mom said I could use if I wanted an extra snack and bought her and I a sandwich from the food court, despite her refusal to accept the money and the sandwich, but I told her if she came back with nothing I'd drag her back down and pay for something myself.

Which I'm glad I didn't have to do that.

I was surprised when Doctor. Fossil had come into my room in the morning and told me I was going to go on bed rest for my time here. We sat in back in my room eating and when he walked by spotting us together and me eating he smiled and waved slightly. I didn't want to tell Jamila yet, the past few days we've gone out and wandered around the halls together. Doctor. Fossil said it's not safe to keep clamping my tube to walk around. He said I could die if something went wrong while it's clamped. He was pretty pissed that the nurse clamped it in the first place, muttering how you should never clamp a chest tube. I didn't want to die, obviously, so I agreed to stay bound to my bed.

I felt bad that I couldn't go and do stuff with her, anymore. I don't think she'll be mad, though, she'll understand right? It's just, she has no one else to hang out with and neither did I.

I just told her that it was hard for me to get out of bed today, not that I couldn't actually get out of bed. I felt bad for lying but I didn't want to have to tell her. Why was this so hard? Why was it so hard to face disappointment in someone who I'd just met?

I watched her as she ate. I thought about the past few days, how we came to be friends and how I've learned so much about her. How she can't drink coffee in the summer but can drink tea all year round. How she can balance a book on her head for ten minutes straight. How she's five foot three and a half and let's me tease her and call her shortie. How she's witty and a total nerd sometimes. How she says I'm abnormally tall and calls me a giant. How she hates wearing skirts. How her brother and my brother are the same age and born two days apart. How her little sister is eight years younger than her.

How she's completely and utterly gorgeous without even trying.

She shifted in her seat and set down her sandwich facing me. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

"Are you okay enough to walk around?"

I bit my lip ring and tried to think of something to say. I gulped giving up on keeping it from her. I shook my head and the frown forming on her face made me want to rip the tube out and go with her. But I knew I couldn't so I sighed and ran my hand through my hair.

"I'm on bed rest, Mila."

It was silent for a moment and she froze, visibly stiffening and avoiding eye contact. I starred at her hopelessly as I thought I'd made her upset but she smiled slightly, biting her lip and then turning to me. I felt something, something odd when I looked at her and she looked at me. She was looking at me in a different way that I couldn't describe. I couldn't place the feeling and so I just pushed it away.

"I like that." She said softly, looking down at the ground again. I was confused, she liked that I was on bed rest? I swallowed audibly and coughed awkwardly. "It's a nice nickname." She continued and made me even more confused.