FOUR | May 12th, 2015

                                    

                                          
FOUR
                          
May 12th, 2015
                          
Hearing footsteps, I promptly close my eyes, the nurse's infuriating personality driving me to go out of my way to be that exasperating teen rebel.
                          
Clearly, she has no other work, because she takes a seat beside me, observing the specimen laying on the hospital bed before her.
                          
"I know you're awake, miss."
                          
Cursing internally, I allow myself three seconds of bliss before I let my eyes flutter open like I'd been dead to the world this whole time.
                          
My lips part, only to be pursed back immediately. The last time I'd tried to talk, Olivia, here, decided to be the smarty-pants she is and told me that I'd have trouble speaking for a few days.
                          
Her name isn't Olivia, of course. I just call her that just to annoy her.
                          
"Your father is still waiting outside to speak to you—"
                          
I flip open the notepad I use to communicate with people. And by 'people,' I mean Olivia, only person I do have conversations with. I'm going bonkers already.
                          
"No."
                          
"I'm sorry?"
                          
"Tell him I don't want to talk to anyone right now, and that he's wasting his time."
                          
Olivia hesitates, because she'll probably get fired if she actually goes and says that. 
                          
"Say that the only useful thing he can do right now is get me a bag of Doritos, which would be a hundred times better than this ASPHALT you guys are shoving down my throat. 
                          
"Thank you for your cooperation, and the time you took to read this."
                          
Her eyes shut momentarily. Evidently, I'm being a difficult patient. But I think I've got the right to do whatever the hell I want to do, especially since everything I spent weeks planning went down the drain. All Pa's going to do when he sees me awake is complain about the extra digits I'm adding to his bills. 
                          
"I'll tell him you're not ready to see anyone right now, but he's really worried about you. You really need to talk to him, okay, hon?" she says in that sickly-sweet voice of hers before turning around to tell Pa what she's been telling him for the past few days. Or weeks. Honestly, I have no clue what the day even is, or how long Olivia has been staring at me for, the creep she is.
                          
The doctor comes to visit me again after a while, and sits down in Olivia's Chair.
                          
He starts telling me a bunch of stuff, and I zone out, occasionally catching the words 'water,' 'miracle,' and 'drowning.'
                          
I don't like him all that much. He just laughed when I complained about the food.
                          
He fiddles around with a few monitors that beep every so often, and takes a few notes and leaves, after saying that I'm a miracle for the millionth time.
                          
Everyone says that. Apparently, I'm supposed to be dead after skidding over those slippery rocks, straight into the water, but this dude saved me, the meddling brat he is. Admittedly, though, beneath the irritation directed at anything and everything, I feel a ray of hope, glad that I'm still breathing.
                          
*
                          
I wake up again, to Olivia staring down at me, a horse-like beam on her face.
                          
And there's a dude occupying Olivia's Chair. He grins and waves at me.
                          
I silently beg Olivia to drive him out, beginning to think that she wasn't so bad, after all.