Sleeping With Giants

I didn't even want to open my eyes. My head thundered inside my skull and I could feel a pain in the crook of my arm. I smelled the sterile and stale air all to familiar to me. I decided to access the damage before someone could tell me other wise. I slowly opened my eyes. Standard issue television, hospital gown, a sheet over my legs. It was too hot to keep it on and I was too weary to move.

"She's awake," I heard my mother say from my right side. "Go tell a nurse, Ryan."

Ryan was here? Oh, no. NO NO NO NO! Was Brendon? Oh, God what have I gotten them into? They shouldn't be here, they might be exposed to the panic, the lies. They shouldn't go through that. What will there think of me when it's all said and done. No, no.

"Honey, why are you crying? Kay, do you feel any pain...Kay?" My worried-for-show mother bent over the side of my bed to examine my tears. I didn't even realize I was crying. I didn't feel tears streaming down my cheeks and falling to my chest. I lifted my head to survey the room though it was pretty blurred out. I looked to the table to my left and saw my glasses sitting their waiting for my nose to rest on. I lifted my arm and slowly put them on. Hospital had one speed outside the ER: turtle, and that was a good day. I choked back a sob when everything was clear. Brendon was sitting in a chair looking out the window. His eyes were red and puffy, but he was trying to conceal the fact by looking down at the concrete jungle. I felt worse than before, sick to my stomach, that I made him worry.

My father sat stone faced "next" to my mother. And by next I mean as far as possible without looking divorced. Ryan hadn't returned yet from finding a nurse, but that was okay. He would feel guilty about the whole thing and I hadn't enough energy to tell him it wasn't his fault. It was mine. But he was too caring, too protective to think I could be responsible for my own health problems. They never knew about the other trips to the emergency room, though this was the first in about two years.

The last time, they cut my medication doses in half and we fired my third therapist, Dr. 'Dope her up'. She liked to prescribe me unnecessary amounts of pills to calm my dreams and "negative thoughts." The pills either made me so low, I was basically comatose, or close to major hysteria. The build up of these pills had taken a toll on my body and landed me for a prolonged two weeks in intensive care. I got to know the nurses and we played games when my parents weren't there, which was a lot. On Doctor's orders, we fired her, sued her for mal-practice, and got her license revoked. Yeah, he was a bitchin' Doctor. Needless to say I still hate hospitals. Sick people weird me out and in intensive care, the left side is like death row. We told the school I had my tonsils removed.

This time I wasn't sure why I was here, but I knew it wasn't as severe as the last time. I'd been feeling pretty okay physically, I guess. I think they were just overreacting.

I found the strength I needed to kick the blankets off my feel and cool myself down. I was sweating from more than just nerves. My mother looked at me expectedly, to put on a show to give her a valid reason to be sitting in a hospital chair instead of a cushy lawyers office signing divorce papers. I'm glad I'm in this place, because she makes me sick.

"Kay, my my, it's been quite some time since we've seen each other young lady," cheesed my favorite goofy doctor, Dr. Martin Levingston. He was a tall, skinny, handsome individual. The youngest doctor in the hospital.

I noticed Ryan by the door, quiet and waiting.

My mother noticed too, "Boys, I think you should wait outside."