Keeping Her Safe

Family greetings

“Honey, calm down we won’t let anything happen to you, how many times do I have to tell you that? We love you and care about you,” Tara said putting her arms around me. “I’ll be in the back room if you need me,” she said turning the sound back on on the TV.

There wasn’t much to do, so I lay down to watch TV. I fell asleep half way through House when I woke up to Kennedy and Tara standing over me. I was lying in a small puddle of blood and looked down to see a big cut in my arm. “What happened?” I asked trying to sit up but Tara held me down.

“Stay down, we called for help since we didn’t know what to do, we have pressure on the cut now,” Tara said as I notice someone’s shirt being pressed onto my arm.

“I heard screaming from over at my place and rushed over, kind of broke the door, sorry,” Kennedy said looking sorry. “I’ll pay for the fixing, but when I got in Tara was to you first and she was on the phone with help,” she continued.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I said as my head started to hurt. I began to close my eyes to see if that would help but they wouldn’t let me.

“Stay awake, at least until help gets here,” Tara said freaking out, even though she was trying not to show it.

“How long ago did you call for help?” I asked wanting to close my eyes.

“About ten minutes ago,” Tara said.

“Which hospital did you call?” Kennedy asked, but before Tara could answer some EMTs rushed into the room.  A lady rushed in behind the guys and dropped to the floor beside me. I looked at her and had a confused look on my face as I looked at Kennedy. “This is your aunt,” Kennedy explained.

I turned to look at her with wide eyes and thought, “Oh crap.” “Can I close my eyes now, my head hurts,” was the first thing I said to my aunt who I just met for the first time. “I mean, hi. You work at the hospital?” I asked shocked.

“Yeah, what happened?” she asked worried. “I heard that the call came from my house so I thought that it was you or your friend here, I’m Jane by the way,” she said to Tara. She looked back down at me and said again, “What happened? I knew I shouldn’t have gone in, I could have been here to help this from happening.”

“I honestly don’t know,” I said looking up at my aunt who looked like her son with blond hair. Aunt Jane removed the t-shirt to see how deep the cut was and then put the pressure back on the cut.

 “This is going to hurt, but we need to do this to stop the bleeding,” Aunt Jane said as the EMTs started to pull equipment out of their bags.  “If either of you gets scared of needles you better leave,” Aunt warned my friends.

“NEEDLES!?” I yelled tying to sit up but hands held me down. “I would rather bleed to death then needles,” I yelled as I felt a sharp pointed object go through my skin. After ten minutes of it I couldn’t stand it anymore and started crying harder than I have ever cried.

“Nicole, they are done,” Aunt said holding my hand as she got a class of water from Tara. Tara was slightly as pale as me and Kennedy was in the bathroom getting sick.  “Tell Mr. Hank that I won’t be coming back in, my niece needs me right now,” she said to a young EMT that looked down at me and smiled.

“Yes ma’am, hope everything goes fine tonight,” he said as he and the other EMTs left.

“Now, Nicole, how do you feel?” Tara asked pointing the turned on camera at my face.  I closed my eyes not feeling like doing anything, since I was still crying from the pain. “I take that as still in pain, so now we know that we need to move the table.” Tara zoomed out of my face and turned to Kennedy as she came out of the bathroom.

“You are never working on me,” Tara said as she taped the aftermath of the event. “So, by the looks of it, this is how Nicole’s family says hello. Have someone fall off the couch and cut open their arm,” Tara joked.

“Tara, can you put that down and help me move Nicole to the couch,” Aunt asked looking over at her.

“Not the couch, take me to a bed,” I said afraid to get back on the couch at that moment. They carried me to one of the back rooms and right when I hit the pillow I was asleep.

I was lying in my bed at my old dorm room when Tara walked in with a bag. She started to pull out posters rolled up and laid them to the side as she pulled thing after thing, it was like the Mary Poppins’ magic bag. “Where is that all coming from?” I asked sitting up in bed.

“Honey, it’s your dream, I don’t know. By the way these are for you, some guy told me to give them to you,” she said handing me a stack of letters. “He said that you should read one at a time and only at times when you are scared or don’t know what to do,” she told me as she unrolled the posters.

The first poster was of a cat hanging from a tree branch with Hang In There on the bottom of the pictures. The next poster was of Misha saying I’ll always be there for you when you call for me. I fell in love with that poster and thought that when I woke up that I would hunt that poster down if it was real and if it wasn’t I was going to make it. The next poster she unrolled was a guy with a gun saying Watch your back, we’re coming for you! That one scared the crap out of me.

“What are you going to do with those?” I snapped at Tara as I wanted to wake up from this dream.

“Use them to remind you that every time you go to sleep you will either dream about one of these things or when you are awake that they will play some part in your life,” she said as she unrolled another one with a group of friends hugging another friend who was crying. “This one stands for the fact that a true friend is always there for you when you need them the most,” Tara explained as my eyes slowly began to close.

I sat up in bed and looked around. I was still in the back room and it was dark out now and I could hear someone snoring behind me.  Getting up to grab something to eat, I didn’t notice the stack of letters by my bed addressed to me.