One Day at a Time

I woke up the next day with a pounding headache and the taste of blood in my mouth. My body felt so sore, but I managed to sit up on the floor of my living room. As I looked around, everything seemed to be very blurry. My home phone began to rang, but I didn’t rush to answer it. The answer machine picked up.

“Alexa, answer the damn phone. I’ve been calling you all day and you haven’t answered once or returned my calls. Where the hell are you? Call me!” Beep.

It was Jenn. I stood up slowly, holding onto the couch and carefully walked into the kitchen to rinse my mouth in the sink. The water ran red down the drain. Being the slob that I often was, I didn’t bother to grab anything to wipe my mouth with, except for my shirt. My next thought was to grab something to drink and something for my extreme headache. As I searched the fridge for something to wash the taste of blood from my mouth, I heard my front door unlock. I froze completely and raised my head to see over the door of the fridge.

“Alexa?” Once again, it was Jenn. “Alexa, are you even home? I’ve been calling you for hours,” she shut the door behind her and walked straight into my bedroom.

I closed the door of the fridge lightly and sat down in a corner of the kitchen, where I couldn’t be seen from my bedroom. She walked back out into the living room.

“Alexa, come on. You’ve gotta be home. You’re phone is in your room,” she said and then walked into the kitchen, where she found me huddled in the corner. “Alexa!”

She knelt down next to me and laid her hand lightly on my head. I winced from the massive pain centered just on my head.

“Oh my god, Alexa. What happened to you?”

“Oh, don’t talk so loud. My head is pounding like crazy,” I whispered. She helped me up from the floor and brought me over to the couch to sit down.

“Girl, we need to get you to the hospital or something,” she said as she ran her hand over my head and pulled back quickly. “Whoa! Huge bump on the side of your head. Come on, we gotta get you to the hospital now.”

She slung my arm carefully around her neck and helped me back up to me feet.

“Wait, I need my phone,” I said as we began walking towards to door. Jenn stopped to turn her head to me.

“Are you honestly more worried about your phone than you are about getting yourself to the emergency room?” I gave her my best impression of a puppy dog face and she shook her head.

“Fine,” she answered and sat me back down onto the couch. A minute later, she ran back from my room with my phone and shook it in the air. “Happy?”

“Uh, yes, thank you,” I smiled as best I could without feeling any pain in my mouth.

The trip to the hospital felt like it only took seconds; and it was probably because I was knocked out for the twenty minutes it took to get there. Jenn didn’t bother to try and drag me in herself and got someone to bring out a wheelchair to bring me inside. I was rolled into the emergency room and lifted up onto a bed. Jenn stood next to me the whole time, holding my hand. I looked over to her and scrunched my eyebrows.

“Um, you can let go. I think I’ll be okay,” I said as she watched the one nurse begin to clean the blood that had dried up over a gash in my arm. I still wasn’t sure where it cam from.

“Oh,” Jenn quickly let go. “Sorry.”

A doctor walked over to take a look at what the nurse was doing.

“Hey, I’m Dr. Monroe. What’s going on today?” The doctor asked. He excused the nurse and took her place in the rolling stool she was sitting in. “Looks like you were beat up pretty badly. What happened?”

I wasn’t sure if I should be completely honest and tell him that my jerk-of-a-boyfriend did this to me. My nerves got the best of me and I lied.

“I’m not really sure,” I said nervously. “I was fine one second and the next thing I remember was hearing my phone ring this morning. It was so weird.”

He began to look at the bump on my head and moved my hair gently when he noticed I winced when he touched it.

“Sorry,” He said and continued to move my hair to get a better look. “This is a really bad bump you’ve got here. It could possibly be a concussion, so we’re gonna keep you here for maybe another hour or so just to make sure everything is okay. But, if you would excuse me please. I actually have another patient to see before surgery. I will have a nurse come back and stitch up this gash on your arm and take you to get your head checked out. I’ll be back to see you in about an hour.”

He stood up from the stool and disappeared between all the doctors and nurses running around. The nurse who was taking care of me returned to finish her job. After fifteen minutes of enduring so much pain from her stitching my arm, she brought me to get my head scanned. Scary experience. It didn’t take too long; and as soon as she was done, I went to wait in the waiting room as Jenn searched for the cafeteria to get me some food.

“Okay, so they didn’t have much that you could really eat since you’re mouth seems pretty sore. Your cheeks are all swollen. So I got you some chocolate pudding,” She handed me the cup of pudding and spoon. I looked at the cup of pudding and put it in the chair next to me. My all time favorite snack and I my mouth felt too sore to even open it enough to eat it.

“Not up for it?” Jenn asked and picked up the pudding cup to hold it for me. I shook my head and sighed.

We sat in silence for a while as we waited for my results of my head scan to return. My head was hurting like crazy and the rest of body wasn’t in such great shape either. I jumped lightly as I felt a hand fall lightly on my shoulder.

“Well, well, well,” The voice belonging to the hand said. “I can’t believe I’m running into you here, of all places.”

I turned my head to the side and watched as Joe sat down beside me.

“Joe, hey,” I said as normal as I could with my swollen mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” He responded. “And what happened to you? Did you get in a fight or something?” I laughed nervously and shook my head.

“Uh, yeah. Lost a fight to gravity and unconsciousness,” I said, trying to be funny. “But what are you here for?”

“Oh, well, remember my friend from the club the other night?” I nodded my head as he continued. “Well, he actually got in a fight after I had left. He’s here and I thought I’d come visit him before I had to leave.”

“Uh, hello?” Jenn pushed lightly on my shoulder.

“Oh! Sorry,” I turned to face Jenn and then back to Joe. “Joe, this is my best friend Jenn. Jenn, this is Joe.” Joe stuck out his hand to shake Jenn’s.

“Nice to meet you,” He smiled. Jenn seemed to blush like she always did around guys.