24. Get Out Alive
GET OUT ALIVE
Some name-calling and occasional shoves are inevitable here, but that aside, the week has been quiet.
That all changes, because, apparently, the Untouchables can’t properly welcome the weekend without giving me one last parting shot come Friday morning.
Despite having an advanced class that keeps me away from the general populous for my first period, there’s no escaping them during P.E.
next hour, which I just so happen to share with Trent and Sienna.
Coach Fisher is weirdly into calisthenics, and “retro running” is one of his favorites.
What is that? you might ask. It’s just the fancy label for running backward, and in a gym full of bumbling, uncoordinated students, one can see the possible hazards involved in doing so.
Guys and girls take turns running the length of the gymnasium, and Sienna seems increasingly eager to be near me when we line up on the court line.
I’m not an idiot. She has that evil twinkle in her eyes and a shit-eating grin to match.
As the whistle blows for us to run, I manage to maneuver between a couple of people to put some distance between me and her.
We get about two-thirds of the way down the court when Allegra Platt suddenly rams into me from the opposing side.
I stumble for a moment, managing to catch my footing in time, but Sienna’s hideous cackle erupts into my eardrums the instant she and Allegra hook their feet right behind each of my ankles.
I don’t even have time to process what’s happening, let alone react with a countermeasure, before my momentum sends me hurtling backward.
A cry lodges in my throat as my skull hammers down onto the wooden planks of the gym floor, sending a gray haze to blanket my vision. The impact is so hard that the sound echoes up into the rafters overhead. The room quiets for a beat, but laughter erupts soon after.
Anytime someone gets hurt at school, it’s always made into a spectacle.
When Kelsey Hibbins rolled her ankle doing hurdles on the track last week, half the class huddled around her in concern, forcing Coach Fisher to push his way through the throng to even catch sight of the poor girl.
A very na?ve part of me half-expected for half a second that I’d get similar treatment, but I can’t hear anyone approaching me.
That is…until Coach Fisher blows his whistle. Snickers begin as a stampede of racing sneakers comes barreling up to me. Footsteps pound right by my head, but they don’t stop. Everybody’s running back to the other side of the gym.
“Hold up!” Coach Fisher’s whistle blasts sharply, and he demands everyone stop, but it’s too late. As I lay gripping my head, the toe of someone’s shoe suddenly kicks my fingers, the impact rocketing through my hand and into my already-beaten skull.
I can’t restrain the whimper that escapes my lips as I hear Sienna’s laughter fade with the footsteps.
“What the hell are you guys doing?” Coach Fisher roars, his voice sounding an awful lot closer. “I blew the whistle for you guys to stay where you were!”
“Sorry,” Sienna pouts in the distance. “We all thought you meant for us to run back.”
“And you all saw Sharpe lying there,” he barks back. “If any of you were decent, you would’ve helped her.”
“If Birdie was decent, she’d get her useless ass off the floor,” Trent laughs. “She’s already a waste of space as it is. The least she could do is not hold the rest of us up.”
The blackness clouding my vision slowly starts to lift, but everything still appears blurry as I look up at Coach hovering over me. It isn’t until I feel the wetness streaking down my cheeks that I realize I’m crying.
“Ali? Can you hear me?”
Coach waves his hand in front of me, and I barely manage to mutter, “Yes.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three.”
He nods in relief. “What happened?”
With how many girls obstructing his field of vision during the exercise, it’s no wonder why Sienna did it. Coach was on the other side of the gym, and I’m small—an easy target for bullshit like this—and it was an open opportunity to strike.
“I…I tripped.” That’s all.
I want to tattle on Sienna more than anything (well, other than to kick Jase in his jewels), but I know I can’t.
Sienna already makes high school nothing short of Hell for me.
If I got her in trouble, I can’t even begin to imagine what she’d do in retaliation.
Plus, no one would back my side of the story anyway.
Sienna would walk scot-free, and I’d be labeled a snitch on top of everything else.
Coach looks at me, disbelieving, but seems more eager to make sure I’m okay. “Don’t move. We’re gonna get the nurse.”
“No, I’m okay,” I insist, hearing Trent’s commentary only growing louder…along with the rest of the peanut gallery.
Against Fisher’s wishes, I wipe my eyes clean and climb up to my feet as quickly as possible.
I both want and need to show Sienna and the rest of the assholes here that they can’t keep me down.
Specks of light infiltrate my vision as I amble over to the bleachers, sitting on the first available row.
The pain raking through my head only gets worse with every passing second, and the overwhelming dizziness that slams into me has my hands bracing my upper half on the bleachers.
It’s the only thing I can do to prevent tipping over.
“Birdie have a crash landing?” Sienna snickers from one of the upper rows.
Coach continues with the plan for the day and divides the class up into four different teams to play basketball. The first two go play on the court as the rest of us remain on the bleachers. He passes me a stern glare that silently communicates my staying put.
No argument from me.
When I’m sure everyone’s attention is on the game, I slowly slink away to the corner of the gym, grateful for the large trash bin nestled against the bleachers.
Tears pour off my cheeks, but it’s not from embarrassment anymore.
Stumbling over to the bin, my breakfast comes hurling back up as I brace myself against the rim of the trash.
Everything in my vision starts to go dark, and I must waver, because the wheels on the bin roll sideways, taking me with it.
“Go get the nurse, now,” orders Coach to someone behind me. “Ali—”
My weight gives out, and Fisher barely manages to catch me before I collapse.
It takes the nurse barely a minute to determine I need an ambulance. Worst of all, when the paramedics come to pick me up, I cross paths with Jase in the hall just as class lets out. On top of my already massive list of pains, my stomach develops another.
Because I can’t bear the thought of him looking at me. Not like this. Broken and defeated as I’m wheeled out of the front office.
Yet, when he passes right by me without so much as a glance, my stomach drops altogether.
Things don’t get any better from there. When my parents arrive at the hospital, I’m once again far too stupid and hopeful to assume there might be some concern for my well-being.
Instead, I’m met with frustrated sighs, my parents upset over their plans for tonight possibly being messed with, and Blythe’s constant bitching about how uncomfortable the hospital chairs are. You know, the important things.
It doesn’t come as any shock when the doctors confirm I have a concussion, but dread settles in when they suggest I stay the night.
After one of the most miserable, painstaking days of my life, I want nothing more than to just go home.
I want to draw down the window shades, close my bedroom door, and lock the world out.
I just want to be alone, in my sanctuary.
Even though I still feel like I’ve been hit by a car, I implore the entire staff to let me go home, telling them all about how I’m suddenly feeling much better. No dice.
To my everlasting relief, a friendly face finally greets me shortly after I’m transferred to my own hospital room.
“Bubba!” Despite the pain in my head, I practically spring up from my bed at the sight of my brother, but Blythe’s reaction isn’t so enthusiastic.
When Derek heard the news about my fall, he bailed on his final class for the day and drove four hours to make sure I was alright. I can practically see the steam pumping out of Blythe’s ears as she lectures him about “the dangers of neglecting one’s studies.”
“I’m pretty sure Ali’s more important than my afternoon Econ class,” he says, brushing past her to sit at my bedside. “What little misadventures have you been up to now, Evel Knievel?”
I chuckle, but it doesn’t sound too convincing as I sum up my concussion as nothing more than “a mishap.” Yeah, I’m a liar, but with present company, my version of events will be swiftly shot down in favor of something more plausible.
Derek stays and hangs out with me for the next couple of hours before the nurses return to take me away for about the billionth time.
They’ve run every test in the book, and I’m positive at this point that they’re just making crap up.
All the poking and prodding proves to wear me out, because I wound up dozing off in the mobile bed they place me on while bringing me back up to my room.
My assigned nurse, Agatha, wakes me up a few hours later to check my responsiveness. She regrettably informs me that she’d have to do that every now and again throughout the night.
That’s not what bums me out the most.
I’m awoken to an empty room.
Blythe had insisted the entire time Derek was with me that he needed to head back to school, since it’s a long drive and he has early morning practices to attend.
He must have finally relented, but not before leaving me a sweet parting gift.
There’s an adorable plush penguin sitting on the tray beside my bed with its head wrapped in bandages, and it holds a stuffed heart that reads, “ Get Well Soon.” There’s also a box of contraband chocolates sitting beside it with a note from Derek apologizing for having to leave.
That still doesn’t explain the other two missing people from the room.
The look on my face must be a dead giveaway, because that’s when Agatha relays a message from my stepmom, telling me that both of my parents left for the night and that they’d call me later.
Is she serious?
They left their unconscious child alone at the hospital?
Derek calls me when he gets back to campus, and when I inform him that Blythe and Dad bailed on me, he’s livid. My brother promises he’ll come right back and pick me up, but he doesn’t have the authority to get me released since he isn’t my legal guardian, and we both know it.
Evening turns into night, and all I can do is hug the stuffing out of my new plush penguin, trying to fend off tears that threaten to fall.
The last thing I want to do is cry. Sure, it could be cathartic, but it’ll also make my pounding migraine infinitely worse.
It doesn’t help that my hospital bed appears to have been built by Satan.
It’s one of those stupid “smart beds” that adjusts itself every time I shift, and it only gets harder and harder with every movement.
I’ve never had back pain in my life, but it doesn’t take long before I’m in agony!
Plus, the original nurse I had when I came to the hospital couldn’t get the needle for my IV in, and by the time she finally managed to find the vein, the crook of my arm was bruised like a MoFo.
It feels like someone had jammed a pencil in there instead of a needle.
Between that, my head, my bruised fingers from Sienna’s shoe, and my newly acquired back pain, I feel like I’ve been hit by a car.
The hospital doesn’t have set visiting hours, so loved ones can stay with patients all night long if they wish.
My door is left partially open, and I watch as a bunch of people are joined by friends and family walking the halls.
And here I am. In pain. With no one. No parents to comfort me. No sister. No brother. No friends.
And I hate myself for thinking of Jase. I can’t shake away the image of him and Sienna all over one another, probably enjoying their Friday night in one of their beds, as I lie here in torture.
To add insult to injury, nurses and staff members continue swinging by my room to do checkups, restock supplies, and deliver my meals, all asking where my family is when they, too, observe the child abandoned in the empty hospital room.
By the time the next person approaches my room, I pretend to be sleeping just to avoid having to hear the question again. The only thing worse than getting someone’s pity is having to get it from a stranger.
I hear two set of footsteps, one making its way into my room as the other pauses at the threshold.
The woman by the door makes sure to be quiet, but I can still hear the confusion in her voice. “I thought Dr. Hayes said she could be released for home care when her test results came back.”
An ugly beat.
“He did,” the other woman finally whispers, “but her mother requested she stay overnight for further observation.”
Another beat.
I dare to open one eye just enough to see the nurse standing in the doorway.
She looks around the room, no doubt taking in my complete lack of company.
The other woman doesn’t need to spell it out. The expression on the second nurse’s face says it all.
The reason why my sister hasn’t even called me is because she’s performing right now in some Stravinsky ballet.
And it appears neither Dad nor Blythe wanted to miss her opening night. Not by having to stay with me in the hospital, and certainly not by having to stay home to actually take care of me…
I can’t hold it in any longer.
The instant the nurses exit my room, I turn onto my side, bury my face into the pillow, and sob. It causes the pain in my head to spike, feeling like my brain may very well explode from the pressure, but I don’t care. I can’t stop crying, even as black spots invade my vision.