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The phone was ringing, a loud blaring noise that made the girl’s head throb in pain. Irritated, but now fully awake, she sat up and reached for the plastic hunk of junk on the small table near her bed, placing it to her ear.

“Hello?” she grumbled groggily into the receiver, annoyed with the wires that had managed to tangle themselves into one massive knot. How any unmoving phone wire could do this was beyond her, she hardly ever touched this crappy phone anyways.

“Hello, is this Lisa?” A voice chirped from the other end.

“Yes.”

“Would you like breakfast this morning?”

“No,” Lisa stated, voice exhausted as she gazed over at the clock. The hands hung over numbers that told her it was 6:30 in the morning. Noticing this, she tightened her grip on the phone, and resisted the urge to throw it across the room, or unplug it. What was the point of a hospital if you couldn’t get any rest anyways?

“The joke around here is that you never go to a hospital to get rest,” one of her night nurses, Laura, had joked. “Since we’re always coming in to wake you up.”

“Alright, have a nice day. Bye-bye.”

Without answering, Lisa leaned back over and hung up the phone, letting her body fall limply back against the worn material of her hospital bed. It wasn’t even early enough for light to be shining through her closed blinds that shaded her view of the outside world. Rolling her eyes, Lisa flopped over, pulling the plain, scratchy white blankets over her slim, pale body, trying to get comfortable again so she could sleep. But sleep was impossible now that she was awake.

In spite of the throbbing migraine, Lisa sat up in the bed, looking around her room before scoffing lightly. This room belonged to a child, but because she wasn’t 18 yet, she was trapped on the pediatrics floor. She wouldn’t mind it so much if she wasn’t so alone feeling or had more visitors. Back at home, she had a new baby brother, so the crying and screaming didn’t bug her so much. It was the feeling of being alone…absolutely alone. Sure, there were nurses for her to talk to, but they would never stay long.

Her family never came, either. Most, actually, lived on the East coast. Her mother and father had to stay home with her baby brother, Harry. Either that or they never had time to visit because they were working to pay off hospital bills for Lisa’s extended stay…

So, it was pretty lonely.

Begrudgingly, Lisa kicked away the blankets, cradling her head for a moment, as if to nurse away the pounding sensation in her skull – which felt as if it were splitting into two. Swallowing, she turned, letting her legs dangle off the side of the bed before letting them touch the cold linoleum flooring. Carefully, she stood and looked around, noting with pleasure that housekeeping had cleaned her towels and left them folded on her small sink in the corner. With pleasure, Lisa gathered them up, pausing to stare at herself in the long, purely clean mirror.

She looked like a ghost. Her skin was pale, and her red hair was long and stringy, standing out against her skin, with the exception of her bleached bangs, which had been pinned out of her face. Her nearly clear green eyes somehow looked dulled, now lined with tired bags instead of makeup. Sighing, she turned away and headed towards the door that was right next to the bathroom door. Unlike the bathroom, however, this room was shared with the person who was in the room next to hers.

At this hour, it was likely that kid was still sleeping anyways.

Just in case, though, she poked her head in slowly, eyes looking around after she flipped on the small light switch. The room was tiny; it was barely the size of the shower itself. The door on the other side, which lead into the other person’s room, was locked from this side. Smiling to herself, Lisa squeezed into the room, placing the towels on the floor just outside the little shower.

After 15 minutes, Lisa had finished her early morning shower, and wrapped a towel around her body, and her hair, unlocking the other side of the door before exiting the shower room and entering her room. She quickly grabbed some simple clothes for the day: black sweatpants and a plain Metallica t-shirt, and naturally, underwear and a bra. With one more sigh, she stepped into the bathroom to change, hanging the towels on the tiny little drying rack on the wall. Once she was changed, she stood in front of the mirror above the sink just outside the bathroom and raked a brush through her hair. It was a complete rat’s nest, and it was tangled and messy, but she didn’t care. It would do.

By the time Lisa sat back in bed, it was only 7:15 AM. Sighing heavily, she turned her attention to the window, which was now unblocked by both the curtains and blinds, allowing her to see the world outside – a world she hadn’t been in for nearly several months. As she stared, she become enveloped in the rising sun, the reds and oranges bleeding across the pale blue sky, not a single cloud to be seen above.

“Lisa, sweetheart,” one of her day nurses, Janet, cooed. Janet was Lisa’s favorite day nurse, and she was there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Janet was an older woman of about 50, who treated Lisa as if she were her daughter. She was also the only nurse who tried to pay extra attention to her, and keep her company, knowing her family rarely visited, and that Lisa herself had issues with friends.

“Hey, Janet,” Lisa replied, tearing her eyes from the window. “Good morning.”

“You took a shower, I see,” she smiled cheerily at the girl. “I just need to take your vitals and such. And around 9 or so today, people from lab should be coming up to take more blood for testing to monitor your white cell count.” Lisa just nodded her head, sighing as she watched something that had become normal to her life: Janet would clip something on her finger to get her pulse, while she would wrap the strap around her arm for blood pressure, and then stick a thermometer into her mouth under her tongue.

Once finished, Janet piled everything back onto the small little cart and glanced down at Lisa as she scribbled the readings down.

“How’re you feeling today anyways, sweetie?”

Lisa shrugged half-heartedly. “Just the same as always it seems.”

“Well, at least it’s not worse, right?” Janet smiled crookedly at her. “Alright, kiddo, I’ll check on ya later, okay?”

The girl just nodded her head slowly, and fixed her gaze back onto the outside world behind the glass of her window.

Would there come a day when she would be on the other side of that glass…?