Music Girl

The hospital smell has always disgusted me. It smelled like old people, sanitation, and death.

The death was defiantly the worst part.

This was the first smell I awoke to on my second trip to St. Gray’s emergency room. The first sound was a heartbeat monitor, then a breathing tube. But the heart beats I heard weren’t in sync, and as I panicked, one of them got faster. Confused, I turned my head to the side and my eyes went down to my hand. There was a small clip on my finger monitoring my heart rate. Then I looked up to the bed next to me.

Cynthia was there. Her eyes were shut, her hair ratty, her heart rate stable. There was a breathing tube going up into her nose.

“Cynthia,” I whispered softly. Without warning, the door opened and in stepped the doctor. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and lean.

“Ah, good, you’re awake Miss Thyroid,” he said, checking over the machine my finger was rigged to. “We weren’t expecting you to be awake, considering you had a lot of pain-killers.”

“Why?”

“Why? We had to do intensive surgery on your right ankle. Nearly all the bones were crushed and a few had broken out of the skin.”

“And Cynthia?” I asked, nodding my head over to hear.

“She’s in a coma. We don’t know when she’ll wake up. Most come patients come out of it in about a week, but it can range from days to years,” he said as he checked through Cynthia’s machines.

I started at the ceiling and sighed. This was not how I planned my rescue mission to go. “Oh, and your boyfriend is fine, he just spent the night in Detox,” the doctor added as he checked his portable screen. “He actually wants to see you, I’ll send him in.” He swished out the door before I could protest.

Moments later, Aravic walked in. He sat on a chair beside my bed. I made a point of staring at the ceiling. He finally broke the silence by asking, “How’s Cynthia?”

“In a coma,” I replied stiffly. Aravic sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. I looked over at him. He still looked like hell, all grungy and with circles under his eyes.

“Look, I –”

“Don’t. Even,” I growled. He stayed silent and I closed my eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay.

-

“Samantha, in here. Now.”

Aravic frowned as Sam traversed down the hallway on her crutches. She had been released at 8 at night, and Mr. Thyroid had refused to come get her. So Aravic called a cab and they were finally home. They could go up to Sam’s room, and try to figure everything out.

But not quite yet.

Sam turned sharply right into the living room from where her father’s voice called. Aravic sensed he wasn’t welcome within the room, so he settled for waiting just outside the doorway and watched from there.

She sat down facing her father in his armchair. He stood and bared his teeth down on her. “What the hell were you doing last night?” he growled. Sam said nothing, her jaw clamped closed with the muscle twitching, like she always did when she was suppressing her anger. Mr. Thyroid swung his hand back and slapped her across the face. Her head snapped to the left, but she didn’t wince. Aravic’s hand curled into a fist.

“Where were you last night?” he asked with more force and anger than before.

“I got a call from Cynthia, an –”

SMACK

Another hit.

He got in her face, leering. “Now you listen to me young lady. I don’t give a damn what happened to you or any of your little friends. Your place is here, home keeping, not off out in the city playing brave-girl detective. Do you understand me?” When she didn’t respond, he hit her again.

“Yes father,” she replied through gritted teeth.

“Good. You’re not to leave the house until I see your attitude had improved. Now, get out of my sight.”

Sam swung herself back up onto her crutches and was hobbling to the elevator so fast Aravic didn’t know what was going on for a moment. By the time he followed her, she was already in the elevator.

“Dammit Sam,” he groaned as he pounded his fist on the closed doors. He had to wait for the elevator to come back down before he could go up. As Aravic wound his way through the bookshelves, he noticed for the first time that most of them were empty and dusty. He knocked on Sam’s door. “Sam?” he yelled, pounding his fist yet again.

“Go away!” Sam screamed back, her voice cracking halfway through. Aravic pulled his fist away, knowing it was no use. He set his back against the door and slid down it to the floor.

“Dammit,” he muttered. “It’s all my damn fault.”