It's What You Do to Me

It's What You Do to Me (30)

“Hey there, Delilah, what’s it like in New York City?”

If I had a nickel for every time I heard this song, I’d be a billionaire by now. It was such an annoying song, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever like it.

I also hated it because it had my name in it, and I hated my name as well. Mr. Higginson had said my name so much that I couldn’t stand hearing it anymore. I wished that I could have just changed my name, but I knew that I couldn’t, which was just unfair…

The first thing I realized was that my shoulder didn’t hurt. It made me feel a lot better because the pain I had been feeling hurt so much that it felt like my arm was being ripped away from my body.

When I opened my eyes, I expected to see Mr. Higginson looking over me, smiling like he always did. But when I was met by the familiar bright whiteness of a hospital room, and I let out a sigh of relief.

I looked over to see River passed out asleep on the couch across the room, and I let out another sigh when I saw that he was alright as well. But where was everyone else? And how long had I been passed out for? The last time this happened it had been weeks…

“River,” I called from my bed, happy when I found that I could sit up without feeling any pain whatsoever. I was afraid I was going to look over to see that I had no arm or something after all the pain that I felt whenever I had moved it. “River, wake up!”

He sat up almost immediately at the sound of my voice, and I saw him sigh as well. He didn’t seem as urgent or as scared as he did last time, so I was pretty sure that it wasn’t as bad as the last time.

“Thank God,” he breathed, rubbing his forehead after he had stretched out. “I thought that you weren’t going to wake up for a while. You were starting to scare me.”

“What happened?” I couldn’t help but ask as he made his way closer to me. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing my hand as he did so. “I thought Mr. Higginson shot me. How long have I been out?”

“You’ve been out for about four hours,” River informed me with a shrug, and I couldn’t help but let out another sigh of relief. I was afraid that I had been out for weeks like I had the year before, and I was sure glad that I had only been out for a few hours. “And you didn’t get shot.”

“Then who did?” I asked again, now fearing that I had gotten someone else hurt. “I heard a gunshot before I passed out. I know I did. Who got shot, River?”

“Higginson got shot.”

My eyes widened at him in surprise. Mr. Higginson was the one that had gotten shot? Who had shot him? Why was I always the one that had to pass out before anything happened? It just wasn’t fair!

“Who shot him?” I asked, my eyes still wide.

“Kendra did,” River answered me with a shrug, as if it didn’t mean very much to him at all. “I guess she had a gun or something, but I don’t know how she got it or why she didn’t use it earlier before Jay got shot.”

“Is… Is Mr. Higginson dead?” I whispered, staring down at my lap now. “Since he had already gotten shot by Jay and everything… Did Kendra’s shot kill him?”

River frowned and shook his head. “No, the cops and ambulances got there before he could die, as unfortunate as that is. But then again, Kendra’s not that good with guns because she shot him in the leg instead of the back of the head. I don’t think she really wanted to kill anyone though, so I guess what she did was good. Not that she would have gotten in trouble if she killed him…”

I could tell that River was upset that Kendra hadn’t killed Mr. Higginson, but I didn’t really blame him for feeling that way. If Mr. Higginson was dead, that meant that everything would really be over. There would be the possibility of it happening all over again like it just had…