Sick Girl

~ 𝒻𝒶𝓁𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔 ~

My vision is slowing returning, bringing with it the warm haze of the morning. I roll over, almost hitting Kiera with the backside of my arm. She is wrapped up in the floral comforter, the sheets long forgotten and kicked to the bottom of the mattress. Her raven black hair collected around her fair face in clumps that clashed with my honey-brown hair that had formed a layer covering my white pillow. I stretch, careful as to not wake my best friend, and swing my legs off the bed. My skin is slowly getting used to the crisp autumn air as I contemplate drifting back into my dreams. My weariness is shaken by a soft sigh that escaped from underneath the mountain of feathered warmth. I muffle a laugh at the scene, Kiera has woken up and her four appendages,  are flexing as she stretches, have creeped out of the mound. As she comes to, the smell of buttery dough reaches my nose. I wait a minute impatiently for Kiera to fully awake and when she does, we walk together into the kitchen, which is where the sizzle of pancakes erupts from.

 I scan the room: Alex and Zack sat on cushioned barstools next to the island, Mom is wearing an apron to protect her pajamas as she flips a pancake on the stove, and Mittens, my orange cat, is nibbling on his breakfast in the corner where his food bowl resides. I make a beeline to the growing stack of fluffy heaven next to Mom and remark at the mountain atop of Alex and Zack's plates, "Who is going to win the eating competition, the Blazing Brown-Haired Wonder or the slightly misshaped one?" "Heyyyyy!" Alex protests and then reaches out his syrup-laden hands. I ran the rest of the way to Mom, pulling her into a hug to act as a shield. She laughed, spun around, and kissed me on the forehead. She pulled away to  divert her attention back to the pancakes. I made a plate for Kiera before I completed mine and walked over to the stools. I took my place next to Zack and began listening to the conversation they had formed about a TV show. Kiera, Zack, Alex, and I have been watching a show together called Stranger Things. They were debating what would happen at the end of the season. "Sam, what do you think? Superhero style ending or cliffhanger and blindside?" Zach asks, " We all know it's a blind-side! Someone is going to defect and ruin a master plan!" I join in, "What if its both?" We mull this over and move on to homework, then animals, as we finish our meal. Mom joins in on the animal conversation, telling the story of how I found Mittens on the side of the road and refused to sleep without him for months. Everyone listened expectantly even though we have all heard the tale of my cat rescue many times before.

After the dishes were done, flour wiped from the countertop, and ingredients in their respective places, we worked on homework, mainly biology. Kiera and I are Sophomores in high-school while Alex and Zach are Seniors, so they had more work than us. Now, we are slaving through calculus. I finally give up when I keep getting the same wrong answer to the last question. I ask Kiera for her answer and jot it down surrounded by a sea of question marks, before safely stowing it away in my backpack. Everyone else moved on to history, my favorite subject,  but since I was a month ahead on homework, I have decided to read a novel, The Help. I grew absorbed in the pressed, ink-filled pages, navigating slowly through the tale.

"Zach! Your mom is here to pick you up!" My Mom yells from the front door. "Coming Ms.Johnson!" Zach replies as he gathers his things. He says his goodbyes and we all walk him to the door of his beat-up minivan with his Mom waving out the driver window. A few minutes later, and they are pulling out of the driveway. Soon, Kiera receives a call from her Mom and walks home, leaving me, Alex, and Mom at home.

------------------------------

Pulling away from the parking lot of the baseball field where I play softball, Mom mutters something about "running errands". We drive along the highway, stopping at every kind of store one can think of: shoe, sports, clothes, and grocery. Our car is spilling with bought items, we drove our way to the last stop, the pharmacy, to pick up Dad's allergy medicine. We waltzed in, scanning the rows upon rows of pharmaceuticals. I paused for a minute, reading the label of the Claritin, "Hey Mom! I found it!" I called over the tall shelving unit. 

Suddenly, a wave of nausea and pain wracked my body. I clutched onto the shelf and took a deep breath. I saw mom come around the corner and rush up to me but I couldn't respond. I was falling, falling, falling. Falling? That cant be right. I lay on the cold tile as my vision turns to darkness. The last thing I remember is Mom calling to the clerk to get an ambulance.