An Ordinary Me (16 page)

“Sit down for a minute.” She sat and I leaned down right in front of her.

“You know I am leaving tomorrow right?”

“Yeah, don’t remind me. I don’t know what I am going to do with you gone. I see you almost every day and I am going to be lost.”

“You’ll be busy! I’ll come home as much as I can on the weekends. You are as big a part of my life as I am yours.”

“Best buds!” She smiled at me and winked.

“Well, about that… I need to be honest with you. I want to clear the air before I leave. I actually should have done it before but I let my doubts take control.”

I could see the worry in her eyes, and I wanted to talk even faster so she didn’t worry.

“Reese, do you remember the song I have sung to you a few times? The one that you love and you ask me to sing.”

“Of course I remember it.”

“I should probably tell you that song is about…”

Ryan comes walking up with Autumn and she is crying. Reese turns to see what is going on completely distracted. Reese stands up to comfort her.  Hell! I finally get enough nerve up to tell her and then we are interrupted. Is the universe playing a joke on me?

“These damn high school girls! Everything is fine with Autumn one minute and then the next she is upset. I don’t get it!” Ryan exclaims.

I smirked at Ryan and didn’t have anything to add. There was only one girl I wanted, and that was Reese.

After Reese calmed Autumn down, she came back to sit with me. I could tell the chemistry had changed between the two of us. I hadn’t yet said the words to her out loud but it was as if it didn’t matter to her tonight.

We spent the rest of the night holding hands, her sitting in my lap by the fire. When midnight hit, I had to force myself to leave her knowing I had to leave early to get to my orientation in time. She said she was going to leave right behind me and assured me she would text me when she got home. I was sorry to leave but knew I didn’t have a choice. I had to believe since I was finally honest with her and myself that things were going to fall into place for us. Just like they should have been since the moment I felt the connection with her. She has been put in my life for a reason. This was just the beginning for us after all.

Chapter 14

Reese

I wake in a total state of shock. I feel like I’m dying. Why am I lying on my bedroom floor by my window? I am covered in vomit and blood. I’m not sure which I have more of. The smell around me is horrendous. I try to move to sit up but can’t. My whole body is numb and weak. My eyes are trying to close, and I am fighting them to stay open. I feel chunks of rising vomit burning my throat but can barely pick myself up off the floor to get to the bathroom. My legs are failing me, but I have got to get to the bathroom. I start to crawl and try to pull along the bottom part of my body. Only getting a couple of inches before I have to stop and lay my head on the floor to catch my breath and wake myself back up. I have no strength and the pain shooting through my body is like a venom filling my veins that I can’t fight. It is stronger than me. I’m telling my body to move but nothing is happening. I’m surrendering.

I finally make it to the bathroom and try to prop myself up to vomit over the toilet. I lean my body up against the bathtub so I can lean over, hoping I don’t fall in. I heave and heave and all I see in the toilet is blood. I blink my eyes to try to make it normal. It can’t be blood. It has to just be my eyes. I try to grab for a towel to wipe my face, and instead I fall hitting my head on the toilet. The loud bang of the collision or the retching sounds of me getting violently sick must have woken my little sister.

“Are you okay, Reese?”

“I don’t know.” That’s not true though. I know I am sick, but I’m scared not knowing what was happening and why I felt so sick.

She walks over to me to wet a washcloth just like my mother would have done. She saw the blood in the toilet and gasped.

“Is that blood?” I could hear the fear in her sweet voice.

“No…” I flush the toilet trying to hide as much as possible.

She rubbed the cloth over my face gently and showed me the rag covered in dark red blood.

“You have marks all over your face, Reese?”

“I’m fine, Natalie. I just did that when I overshot the towel rack and hit the toilet by accident.”

“I’m going to get Mom.”

“NO! Just sit with me.”

“I really think I need to get Mom. You don’t look so good. You have no color to your face and the blood, something is going on... I don’t...”

Crap. I have got to think of something really fast to keep her from getting Mom. “I am fine, just sit with me and you’ll see.”

“You’re scaring me, Reese...”

“I don’t mean to...”

She finally sat and didn’t remove her eyes off me. I couldn’t tell my little sister I was just as scared as she was. I had made a horrible choice last night and I hope it doesn’t cost me my life.

I fell asleep with my head in Natalie’s lap. She rubbed my head trying to make me feel better and eventually putting me in a slumber. I felt peace. Maybe this will all be okay...

I wake up with my body shaking uncontrollably. I can’t open my eyes and I can’t control anything.

I know I am lying on the floor, and I hear my sister screaming. I can feel her tears falling on me and I can feel her shaking me. “REESE... REESE... REESE... MOM... MOM... MOM... HELP... HELP!!!” I’m trying to tell or show her I am okay. I can hear her, but I can’t comfort her.

~ ~ ~

I am jolted awake and am moving my eyes around trying to figure out where I am. I am suffocating. I have a mask over my face and I feel tubes all around me. I start to pull at the mask over my face to get it off.

“Hi, sweetie, I’m Linda your nurse. You’re gonna be okay. You can’t take that mask off. You have to have it on to breathe. Listen to me, if you take it off your blood pressure is going to drop and you are going to get sicker. Do you understand me? If you do, shake your head.”

I shake my head slightly to show her I understood.

“We are finishing evaluating you and then I will fill you and your parents in. You just hang in there.”

I continue panicking, but I know there is nothing I can do but lay here. It is all out of my control. I’m trying to remember why I am here and all I see is black in my brain, a dark white gray cloud that is empty.

“Are you in pain?” Linda asks me.

I shake my head yes, but in all reality if I could have screamed it out I would have. I hurt everywhere. My head feels like it’s being pushed and pulled on at the same time. My chest feels as if someone was sitting on it, and my stomach feels like someone is twisting my insides. My skin even hurts. I try to move my hands down to see if I still had my legs and arms, I did but nothing seemed right. Pain is good right? That means I’m alive, for now anyway.

“I’ll get you some medicine and let your parents know you are awake.”

I closed my eyes again trying to remember why I am here concentrating until I couldn’t concentrate any longer.

~ ~ ~

Movement in my hospital room wakes me up. Two different nurses are trying to move me around and changing things out that are connected to me. It was a blur other than my mother sitting beside me holding my hand and my dad at a distance pacing at the foot of my bed.

“Oh, Reese, you’re finally awake, baby girl.” Her sweet voice. The voice that had comforted me so many times in my life. She had Kleenex in her other hand blotting her eyes.

“What… what…” I couldn’t get the words out.

Dad came and stood up beside me. I had never seen his eyes puffy from crying. “Reese, they are getting you ready for surgery. You have extensive body damage and internal bleeding. It is life...”

Mom finished his sentence, “Threatening. It is emergency surgery.’’

“But… how? Why?”

“Honey, we really don’t know anything. Natalie found you in the bathroom and you were vomiting blood. Then you passed out, but she thought you were just sleeping until she tried to wake you up and you wouldn’t…”

Oh my God… what is wrong with me?

We were interrupted by the nurses moving my bed. “We are taking her to surgery. We can’t possibly wait any longer. I will keep you updated as I am informed of her status. Please wait in the waiting room.”

“I love you, Mom and Dad.”

“We love you too, sweetie.” I saw out of the corner of my eye my parents standing beside each other and my dad comforting my mom. Mom’s head was tucked into dad’s chest and he was holding her close trying to give her the strength she needed. I wish he could comfort me too. What did I do to cause this?

Garrison

I have been texting Reese’s phone since last night after the bonfire and haven’t heard back from her. Her silence shocks me since we had such a wonderful night together.

Garrison: You’re not answering me… Did I say something to make you mad?  I am worried please text me.

After fifteen texts of similar pleading, she hadn’t answered me. Everything and anything was running through my head.

Reese: This is Natalie. Reese isn’t home. Actually it’s not good, she is at the hospital.

My heart stopped. I could have had her the entire time we were in school together but was too stubborn. Now, something is wrong and I’m not there to help her.

I called her number immediately hoping Natalie answered.

“Natalie, this is Garrison. What’s wrong with Reese?”

“I don’t know yet. Mom and Dad just called and she is having emergency surgery. She has internal bleeding.”

“How? What happened?”

“I have no idea. I just know I heard her in our bathroom last night and when I got in there she was sick, throwing up blood. Blood was everywhere. I was so scared…”

“Sure you were. But what happened?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t go out last night.”

I knew she had because she was at the bonfire with me. And Autumn. Did she sneak out to just be with me? It was my last night in town and I know how bad I wanted to be with her, she must have felt the same way.

“Okay thanks, Natalie. What hospital is she at?”

“Memorial Hospital.”

“Okay, I’m on my way. I’m in San Marcos but I’ll get there as soon as I can. If you see her, please tell her I love her.”

“I will… I hope my parents will be coming to get me soon so I can go see her. I don’t know what I will do without her…”

I am lost on how this could have happened.

~ ~ ~

I do the only thing I can think of. Call Autumn.

I dialed her number and it went straight to voicemail. I left a voicemail and dialed again.

Autumn answered on the third time I called. “This better be important!”

“Do you know what happened to Reese?”

“What do you mean what happened to Reese? She should be at home in bed sleeping like I am.

That’s where I left her.”

“WHAT do you mean that’s where you left her? Didn’t you leave right after I did?”

“I wanted to stay longer. She was ready to go. In fact she sat in the car waiting to go… total party pooper.”

“She is at Memorial Hospital about to have emergency surgery! Did something happen?”

“What do you mean she is having surgery?”

“I have been texting her phone and calling. Her sister answered and told me she had internal bleeding and was having surgery.”

The phone went dead.

“Autumn? Autumn?”

Damn it! I threw my phone against the wall.

Great. Just great. I packed a small bag and jumped back in my truck for the longest ride of my life not knowing how I could deal with the reality I would be faced with when I arrived.