Lost Girl (Boys of Neverland #1)

Bella

A pixie cut.

That’s what the nurse just called it. The nurse, with her long, long ponytail.

Slowly, tentatively, I run a hand over my head. Over what feels like my scalp.

I’d cry if it didn’t hurt so much just to breathe.

“I always wished I could pull off short hair,” she blathers on. “But you’ve got the bone structure for a pixie.”

A pixie. The name doesn’t even make sense. Pixies, fairies, whatever—they never actually have short hair. I think of all the princess stuff in my bedroom back at Gram’s, the Barbies and dollar-store picture books. Long hair, always.

And this isn’t a pixie cut, anyway. A pixie cut gets done in a beauty parlor. Not the back of an ambulance.

I find my voice. “Can I go yet?”

The emergency department at London Valley Memorial smells like barf and bleach. The lights make everything look green and the curtains they have between beds don’t give anyone any privacy.

Not that I’ve had any privacy for a while.

The nurse pretends not to hear me. Or maybe she actually doesn’t. It’s definitely loud enough in here.

“Five-eleven.” She blinks at my chart and does a low whistle. “God, I’d love to be that tall.”

She pauses. Like I’m supposed to congratulate her on being jealous of me. For something I have no control over.

“And you’re so skinny, too!”

I feel like nurses aren’t supposed to say that. But this is a shitty hospital and she’s probably a shitty nurse.

“You could model, you know.”

That.

Icepick. Stomach.

I can’t say anything, I can’t react, I can’t cry because I can’t even get enough air.

So I just ball up the blanket harder in my fist. Keep staring at the ceiling. At the ugly green light. Like it’s the morning star.

“Okay, then.” The nurse mutters it in a way that I’m not sure I’m supposed to hear. “Well, I am sorry about the wait.” She doesn’t sound sorry. “The physician will be with you as soon as possible, but I should warn you, we are very busy tonight.”

She doesn’t need to warn me. I saw the waiting room. I can hear all the stretchers banging in down the hall.

“Any new or increased pain since we checked you in?”

I shake my head.

“Okay. If you feel sharp pain or feel like you’re losing consciousness—”

“Can I at least take this off?” I don’t even know what it’s called. I just know I can barely breathe.

She smiles. Like I’m stupid for not knowing what the beige plastic-and-velcro thing smashing down my chest is called. “The support binder,” she says. “The physician will go over all of that when he arrives.”

When he arrives.

He.

“Okay, but…” My voice sounds craggy. I swallow. “Can you, like, ballpark it?”

“Unfortunately, I’m not able to speculate about treatment, diagnosis, or recovery times.

” She sounds all smug about it. I bet she was a mean girl in high school.

“You did sustain some severe injuries to the ribs and sternum and for the time being it’s very important that the fractures remain stabilized. ”

She’s got on pink scrubs. A pink headband. That long, long ponytail.

“If you want, you can ask the physician when he—”

Never fucking mind. I close my eyes and sink into the pillow. I’m trying to tune things out, when—

“Someone called for victim’s advocate?” The charge nurse, the one that barks everything she says. “LVPD actually sent someone for once.”

I open my eyes again.

No answer. Then the charge nurse again.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, honey. It’s Friday fucking night in the Valley and this is the emergency department. Everyone here’s a victim of something. You got a name, or anything?”

You bitch. You murdering bitch.

You fucking killed him.

I am gonna drag your skinny ass in on murder charges. Make no mistake, I am going to get the fucking cops in here and—

Headrush when I stand up. I grab my sweatshirt from the chair. There’s enough people walking back and forth that I make it to the end of the hall.

“Bella?”

Nurse Chelsea. I think fast. “Ladies’ room?”

She relaxes a little. I’m not here to bother her. “Around the corner.”

She points. I walk.

I’m not going to the ladies’ room. I don’t turn the corner at all, but she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Instead I keep going straight, straight on to the waiting room, to the sliding glass doors, to the outside.

The parking lot’s dark. London Valley never gets cold, not really, but when the sun goes down there’s a chill in the air, like the blue of the sky is freezing downward to earth.

I look up. Look up and take as deep a breath as I can under this stupid binder.

There’s stars out.

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…

The nursery rhyme goes off in my head, automatic.

Stupid.

Grow up, Bella, I tell myself. Grow the fuck up.

And then I run.