gangs

Eight

Ashton.

An hour into talking to her, and I couldn't make her crack.

She didn't cry, the most she did was gain a few tears in her eyes, which she would immediately blink away.

She didn't go into detail about her family

She didn't even act sad, she just acted distant

She acted as if she was just constantly thinking

I hated that she didn't show us any emotion, I wanted her to tell me that she was struggling and that she needed a hug, but yet I was sitting here, begging her to tell me the littlest detail.

I soon noticed that she was getting tired, but she never told me so.

I watched her touch under her eyes lightly, making her eyebrows move together as if she was in pain.

"Come on, lets get you a low dose of pain medicine and into a bed" I mumbled, catching her attention

She followed me through several rooms, into our nurses station, where I got her a lower grade of pain relief to knock the pain out along with assisting her to sleep, because I know it's going to be hard for her to sleep.

I then walked her to our attending's on call room, showing her my bed.

"What is this room?" She asked me slowly.

"Its an attending's on call room, so when we work overnight, we have a place to come sleep on our downtime, you're in my bed and I'm in Luke's." I told her.

"What happens if Luke needs a place to sleep?" She asked slowly.

"Luke isn't on call, he's probably actually on the way home." I told her, watching her slowly nod.

"My moms okay?" She asked me.

"She's sleeping." I told her.

"The police are outside of her room though, right?" She asked me, making me stand to see if there was any officer in sight that I could ask.

I opened the door, immediately being greeted with an officer.

He was standing guard.

"Hi, do you know if there's an officer outside of her moms room-" "yes. There's multiple throughout the hospital." He confirmed, making me nod, thanking him.

"There's an officer at your moms room too." I told her, watching her nod slowly.

We sat up talking to each other for a few minutes before I watched the medicine kick into her system, her face becoming visibly tired.

"Lay down" I told her, letting myself laugh towards her, watching her immediately fall back into the bed- as if she was just waiting on me to give her permission.

"Wake me up if you need anything at all, okay?" I told her slowly.

"Okay" I heard her tired voice say.

There was a few minutes of quietness and then I heard her tired voice again

"Ashton?" She spoke slowly

"Yes?" I spoke to her immediately.

"I know that you don't have to stay here tonight, I know that you're doing this for me" she spoke slowly, making me immediately wonder how she knew that.

"And I just want to say thank you. I'm really bad at expressing my feelings and showing gratefulness, but this really means a lot to me right now" she spoke quietly.

"Are you okay, Andrea?" I asked her slowly.

"I'm fine." She convinced herself.

"Do you need a hug?" I asked her.

I heard her hesitate.

She wanted a hug.

"I don't like hugs"