Saying hi to @zainabkb :)
Which reminds me, I'm going to start dedicating my finished chapters to my favorite readers. I meant to do that after I finish this book... but I probably won't be able to do that anymore after I finish this. I'd be internet free for 5 months and all to accommodate my studies.
Why am I saying this? well... just so you guys aren't too surprised when you see it on your notifications:) This is a reminder so I don't forget to do it too.
Chapter 27 Part 1
Waking
The first time I woke up inside the hospital, I felt nothing but confusion.
Who was I? Where was I? Why was I here? Why did this strange man have to constantly stay with me?
The frustration I felt... The inexplicable fear of the unknown. The never-ending apprehension over anything and everything. The feeling of that void inside my head.
I thought it was going to be the worst thing to happen to me.
But today I woke up to the white ceiling of yet another hospital room. Someone somewhere must be schadenfreude at proving me wrong.
Because waking up like this... waking up knowing who I was, where I was and why I was here was epileptically worse than that first time.
I would rather wake up, a thousand times over, not knowing anything rather than waking up like this.
There was nothing that compared to this.
Nothing. The void I had felt inside my mind was a prick on the finger against the void inside my heart. This was a killing blow... if only that same blow was directed at me instead.
"You're awake," a relieved voice breathed out beside my bed. "Thank God."
For what? I wanted to close my eyes again.
This time I knew who it was who was sitting beside me. This time, I remembered enough to wish it wasn't him. Anyone but him.
Not daring to look at him, I raised my right hand in front of my face. And here was the proof of my latest ordeal. A drip was attached to my vein.
I stared at it hollowly. There was a numbing feeling in my chest, my body feeling sluggish. But my mind felt clear—and that was the cruel part.
"Red," Zach called again and this time with a touch to my arm. I flinched at his warmth.
An echoing silence would've followed that if it was just the two of us inside the room.
"She's probably still feeling the effects of the medication."
I turned my head at that voice. Mara was leaning against the windowsill. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her hands in the pocket of her lab coat.
Meeting my eyes, she raised an eyebrow coolly. "Hello, Scarlett."
She didn't say anything else. This prompted Zach to grab my attention by taking hold of my hand. And against my better judgment, I turned my head to him. Just like I thought, he was searching my eyes with a pained expression in those blue eyes.
Who knew even clear skies could look so stormy?
"Red," Zach tried again, "Are you okay?"
Are you okay?
I stared at him blankly. How? How could this person ask such a thing?
That void within my chest grew...
I heard Mara snort from her position in the corner.
"Do you actually realize how stupid that question is? That's not the type of thing you ask someone lying in a hospital bed." Mara glared at Zach before turning to me, "Do you remember how you got here?"
Do I remember she asks? it felt like I was so cold on the inside that all my feelings had turned into ice.
"I don't think that's the type of thing you should be asking her either."
The new voice had me turning to the door. And there stood Marcus with Lily just a step behind him. Marcus had spoken. He looked stoically from Mara to Zachary without acknowledging me.
Lily peeked from behind him and smiled at me softly. "How are you feeling? We came here as soon as we found out." Lily stepped away from her husband and approached the bed. She was holding a large basket of flowers in her arms and she set it beside me, "I hope you like flowers."
They were an elaborate arrangement of beautiful flowers—baby pink carnations...
Beautiful baby pink carnations.
Beautiful baby pink.
Beautiful baby.
Baby.
Crack. I think I realize now why my inside had turned into one gigantic glacier... because they were holding back those ugly feelings. And as the tiniest fissure grazed the surface of the ice, the smallest emotion escaped its confines.
Enough to feel like something was squeezing my lungs, tempting the void in my chest to grow and finally, finally swallow me whole. I knew I was teetering at the edge of my sanity.
"G-get it... get those a-away from me," I scrambled away from those flowers in panic. No one moved. I turned to Zach, "I said get those things away from me!" but my frantic hands had already pushed them off the bed and they fell to the floor in a mess of petals and leaves.
And as quickly as my hysterics had started, it died upon realization of what I was doing.
My eyes found Lily. She stood there, shock written all over her pale face.
But the feeling wasn't solely hers, "I... I didn't..."
"S-sorry, Scarlett!" she rambled, blinking a few times. "I didn't know—"
I was pulled by the shoulder and swung around. My face burying into someone's chest.
"Marcus!" Zachary called, the rumble in his chest vibrating against my cheek. "Throw those away now!"
There was the sound of shuffling. I heard Marcus curse, "What the hell is going on? I thought—"
"Get the doctor," Zachary cut in. "Now. He said he's going to give her a full check up once she wakes up."
The doctor? Grass to a dead horse.
With those thoughts came the feelings of anger. But shouldn't anger feel like a burning inside the throat? But could anger be such a cold feeling? It was like icing every coherent reasoning that I had.
I wasn't going to see that doctor.
I tried pushing away from Zachary but his arms were like steel bands around me. He wouldn't budge. It was like he wasn't even realizing I was pitifully struggling against him.
"No!" I pushed against him with all my might without much success. "No! Don't call him! I don't want to see him!"
Zachary loosened his hold, but only enough so he could stoop enough for us to see eye to eye. His arms still held me in place.A complete contrast to his face that was the picture of perfect calm.
How could he be so calm at a time like this?
"Red," his voice fit the picture he was showing. How? How could he be calm at all? Calm was betrayal to every sorrow frozen inside of me.
Reason was dripping in every word. "You have to let the doctor check on you. Especially after what just happened to the baby."
The baby.
After what happened to the baby...
The last straw for me.
The small fissure in the ice... that crack on the dam. The cork to my bottle of feelings... it finally gave way.
And the sudden tsunami of emotion meant to completely drown me.
"Stop it," I choked out. Emotion was contracting the muscles in my windpipe to cut off my air supply. I stared at Zachary with horror, with pain that mirrored everything that laid chaos in my soul.
"How could you talk about it like this means nothing to you? How? Just how, Zach?!" I didn't realize I was shouting until I stopped.
I was losing it. I just knew I was losing it and rapidly.
"Red..." Zachary searched my eyes and that calm mask started to crack too. But he was obviously at a loss for words.
It was as if the room was suspended in time with the screaming silence between us.
But it was Mara who decided to speak.
"Marcus, you're wrong." she said flatly. "Apparently, I was asking the right question."
That did not make sense. I turned to Mara blankly to find her almond eyes already on me. She pushed off the wall to take a few steps in my direction.
"I asked you if you remember how you got here," she started, "because when you were carted in by ambulance, there were moments during treatment that you were conscious. I was hoping you were lucid those times but that doesn't seem to be the case."
Her words sounded like garbled nonsense to my ears and I continued to stare blankly at her. There was a tap on my cheek and my attention was jolted back to the person standing too close to me. Zach leaned in, cupping my cheeks to monopolize my complete attention.
"Is that it, Red?" the calm in that was face was now being replaced with the dawning of understanding. "You were really in and out of it yesterday..." and from understanding, again it morphed to another face... now of infinite tiredness I'd never seen on his face.
"...enough that you scared me back there. You both did?"
Scared him? Both?
"You did better than everyone expected," Mara inserted. And when I glanced at her this time, she smiling. My eyes stayed on that smile for a while...
"W-what are you talking about?" I turned to Zachary for answers.
But Zach wasn't listening to the question in my spoken words. I don't know how, but it seemed he was able to dig the real question from the back of my frenzied thoughts.
"Didn't I tell you before..?" Zach lifted the corners of his mouth as if with great effort but the tiredness stayed.
"Babies are resilient... It's the mother I have to worry about."
Cruelty isn't my specialty... At least not in this story.