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"She's still out from her head trauma. It could be days before she wakes up. You're welcome to sit with her though. I've always believed that patients can hear their loved ones even when they're out. She's in Room 102."
"Thank you," I tell him, watching him nod and then quickly walk away with a few backward glances to make sure Landon wasn't following him.
I stood up to go to Clara's room.
"Juliet," says Landon, grabbing onto my hand. I look at him. He looks...exhausted and rumpled, and still so beautiful that my heart gives a squeeze.
"I'll make this right," he says to me, and there's a hint of desperation in his voice, like it's imperative that I believe him.
Standing there, I feel dead inside. I want to believe him. I want this to be something that he takes care of for me, but I don't think it's possible. I leave Landon staring back at me as I walk away without saying anything to him in return.
I walk into Clara's hospital room and immediately want to throw myself onto the floor and sob. The blood has been cleaned off of her but she's a cacophony of bruises, stitches, and cuts. She looks like a shell of herself laying there in the sterile, white hospital bed. I walk to the chair that's sitting by her bed. I take her hand and begin to weep.
The days in the hospital all blend together. I lose track of the outside world as I sit in that chair. I sleep in small doses on a cot that Landon had brought into the room for me. He's in and out every day trying to get me to take care of myself. It's wasted effort though. I'm not leaving Clara's side.
I pull her blanket up to her chin for the thousandth time of the day. Clara looks so small and fragile laying there. It's not fair.
There's a poison that's been building inside of me. Every day it spreads until it feels like the black ugliness of it has replaced all the fluid inside my body. I want revenge. I want to slice open the person who did this, to make them suffer a hundred times more than what Clara has suffered. I want to wipe them off the face of the earth in an ugly, terrible way that I'm horrified and delighted to think about at the same time.
I just wonder if the person that is actually to blame for all of this is me.
I pick imaginary lint off Clara's sheet and sigh. I shoot up in my chair when I hear a small groan come from Clara. I look at her and I wonder if I'm hearing things since she seems to be still asleep. A small twitch in the sheet grabs my attention next, as her right hand moves beneath the sheet.
"Clara," I say softly, not wanting to scare her if she is coming out of it. I hear another small groan in return. "Clara," I repeat again, getting more excited as her legs shift under the sheet, and she groans again.
I give a small cry when her beautiful brown eyes open up. She blinks several times, looking around the room confused before finally settling her gaze upon me.
"Thirsty," she whispers in a scratchy voice.
I hurriedly grab the cup of water on the table next to us and help her put the straw in her mouth. She lifts her head up and takes several slow sips before laying exhaustedly back down on her pillow.
"Everything hurts," she whispers, looking at me sadly.
I can't help but tear up as I hold her gaze. I squeeze her hand, trying to think of what to say.
Her doctor walks through the door just then and Clara bursts into tears while trying to move farther up the bed away from him. I stand up and try to calm her down.
"Go away, Go away, Go away," she cries at him, practically clawing my arm as she tries to get away.
The doctor calls for someone down the hall and a nurse runs in a few seconds later with a silver tray. There's a needle filled with a clear liquid laying on the tray, and the doctor wastes no time grabbing it and hurriedly thrusting it into Clara's arm. In less than a minute, Clara's tears taper off and her eyes slowly blink closed until she's out again. I'm standing up in the corner with my arms folded, feeling horrified as she falls asleep. The doctor sets the needle back down on the tray and sighs.
"I'm going to have the nurses do as much as possible," he says quietly. "Ms. Cohen has been through a very trying experience. I suspect that her emotional recovery will lag greatly behind her physical one."
I nod in response, but that dreadful hate inside of me grows even stronger. Clara, the confident flirt who always makes her male customers blush bashfully, just acted like that doctor was a demon that was about to kill her. My poor, poor Clara.
In my exhaustion, I fall asleep draped over the edge of her bed. I wake up from a nightmare to Clara calling my name hysterically as she comes up from her own terrifying hallucination. A nurse rushes in with another long needle that calms Clara down. This happens a few more times before the doctor comes back in to say that he doesn't want to have to use the medicine again for fear that it will do permanent damage. I somehow manage to fall asleep again, my body too tired to stay up like I want to.
When Clara wakes up the next time, she can't stop crying. I get into her cot with her and gather her up in my arms.
"It's going to be okay," I lie to her, as I hold her tight. Her tears soak my blouse until her breathing slows and she falls back asleep, this time by herself. I'm wide awake as I watch the steady rise and fall of her chest.
"Juliet," Landon whispers, startling me from the doorway. "I found them."
Those words are enough to get me out of the bed, careful not to wake her. I follow him out to the hallway. He takes a step towards me, his arm outstretched, but I hold out my hand to stop him.
"Take me to them," I order, and his eyes flash at my tone.
"Follow me," he says stiffly, and we walk down the hallway where I tell the nurse I'm stepping out for a moment before walking outside the hospital.
