“Get up,” he harshly mumbles towards me in a low, husky voice. I hold one side of my face and lift my head up to look at him. His eyes are black and smoldering, fire seemingly alight behind them. I attempt to rub my hand against my face to sooth the stinging pain, only to discover my cheek is raw and red and chafed. I use the other hand to wipe away blood coursing out of my nose. I attempt to push myself up off the ground, but fall back against the foot of the bed on the floor as my legs are too weak to hold me up. My back presses painfully up against the bed, and the sensation causes a stiff groan to escape my lips. He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Get up,” he says again, louder.


“I can’t,” I state simply. I stare blankly in front of me; his knees are level with my eyes. I hear a low growl escape from his throat and before I know it, one of those knees is headed straight for my face. Everything goes a weird mix of white and silver stars, then to black dots, and then completely dark.


***********************************************



I wake up again and before I even see anything, the stench of antiseptic burns my nostrils harshly. My eyelids finally flutter open. As I look around at my surroundings, I’m finally painfully aware of where I am… a hospital room. All my other senses start coming back to me: I faintly taste iron and rust in my mouth, I hear the faintest beeping coming from my left, and I feel the tight pinching feeling of needles invading the top of my hand.


I look up to see the door opening. My best friends, Ana and Louis are there. Ana has a sad, solemn look planted on her face. Louis keeps looking from me to the wall above my head and back. He scratches the back of his neck nervously. He doesn’t know what to think. They sit down in two chairs in front of me and on my left side. I offer up a small smile and attempt to raise my hand to wave at them. However, the pinching feeling gets way too strong so I put my hand back down. I try to laugh a little bit to alleviate some tension, but that proves to be more exertion than I can take. I start coughing these racking coughs, shaking my whole body every time. Louis stands up so fast his chair gets pushed two feet back and he hurries over to me. Both his hands cradle my hand and he sort of just stares down at his lap for a minute forlornly. My heart breaks a little: Louis is my very best friend and he’s usually so strong. To see him breaking, slowly, like this makes me crazy. Makes me wish I could stop being the person I am and be someone else. Makes me wish I could stop this, stop… him from getting to me. Makes me wish I could just run away and never look back.


I finally find my voice. “Lou…” I mumble quietly, trying to keep the tears from falling over the brim of my eyes. He looks up and quickly shakes his head, not wanting to me to break in front of him… maybe for fear he’d break down, too. I close my mouth and look down at my lap. I’m covered with a flimsy blue-and-white spotted hospital gown, tucked underneath a white quilt. My breathing is a little shallow. Ana picks up on this and asks me,


“Are you…okay?”