Say My Name

Chapter Eighteen

Ever woken up in a hospital room with the overhead lights beaming on you and the sound of the heart rate monitor ringing in your ears? And you're in so much pain, but your eyes are simply too heavy and weak to open, so you crash for a little while longer, and you feel like you're in that continuous agonizing cycle for days.

Betty could relate.

She eventually woke up after several hours of sleep, the anesthesia finally wearing off.

After the room began to unblur itself, she first noticed her mom sitting in a chair next to her bed. She had her head leaned back, and her eyes were focused on the ceiling. Betty assumed her mom was thinking of a million questions to ask her. The kind of questions she knew she didn't have any reasonable answers for.

So many chaotic thoughts ran through her head about the entire situation; she figured it was best just to go back to sleep and never wake up again. Once her mom's eyes met hers, the blonde immediately tried to close them again, but it was too late. Her mom had already seen them.

Alice got up from her chair. "Betty?" She rested by her daughter's hospital bed and brought her cold hand up to her cheek. "Are you awake?"

Betty slowly opened her eyes again, afraid to see her mom's reaction.

"Oh, Betty, my baby," she sighed with relief and hugged her tightly. "Thank goodness you're all right."

She was a bit surprised by her mom's lack of anger in her voice. Even more surprised that she was calling her Betty and not Elizabeth. By the grateful tone and the long embrace, Alice seemed genuinely happy to see her daughter. She hadn't hugged her that hard since Betty was in the third grade, and she found her walking the streets alone in the middle of the night.

She was a little dramatic as a child. She'd run away from home almost every time she and her mom got into an argument. Betty liked the desperation in her mom's voice whenever she'd beg for her to come home. She liked the sadness and despair in her mom's eyes whenever she was worried about her.

She liked that her mom cared.

But once Betty got a little older, Alice started to show she cared in different ways. Instead of crying or hugging her, she'd yell and yell until Betty's fingers were so far deep into her palms, her nails would get stuck under the skin.

She grew out of her attention-seeking phase eventually. It became quite evident to her that no matter what she did, her mom wouldn't give her that same sympathetic look again.

Well, until now.

"I'm sorry, mom," Betty whispered softly against her mom's ear. Alice pulled back, looking at her daughter empathetically as if Betty had just told her some type of depressing secret about herself.

"It's okay, sweetheart." She lovingly brushed her fingers through her blonde locks. "Veronica told me what happened. I'm just so glad she found you in time."

Found me in time? Betty shot her mom a bemused look. Uh-oh, what did Veronica tell her?

Betty followed her mom's eyes to the other side of the room. Sitting in a chair on the left side of her bed, Veronica was gazing at her with raised eyebrows and a nervous smile.

Alice cleared her throat and turned to walk away. "I'm gonna go get a nurse and let you two talk for a moment," she said, then proceeded to head out of the room. Once the door was shut behind her, Veronica grabbed the chair and scooted it closer to her bed.

"Talk quickly," Betty demanded, eager to get the information out of her before her mom came back with the nurse.

"Okay --" she swallowed, then sat down, positioning herself in the chair and rested her hands next to Betty's arm. Noticing that her body and eyes reeked of distress and uneasiness, Betty knew the next words that would come out of her friend's mouth wouldn't be comforting to her ears.