Finding Elise

Chapter Eighteen

    We pulled up to the Urgent Care. I jumped out of Dale's truck before he had even come to a complete stop.

    "Thanks!" I shouted, slamming the door shut. I rushed through the sliding glass doors and hurried towards the information desk. An elderly woman greeted me.

    "Hi, I'm looking for my boyfriend, he came in not too long ago." I said.

    "What's his name?" The lady asked.

    "Blane Stailey." I answered.

    She looked through the computer records. "Stailey...Stailey. Ah yes, here he is. Room 3, but he should be out soon so just wait in the lobby."

    I wanted to protest but decided that really wouldn't get me anywhere so I sat down, bouncing my legs the entire time. When I saw a familiar head of hair coming my way, it took every ounce of willpower I had not to launch myself at him. Instead I stood up and called his name.

    Blaine's face broke into its usual charming grin, but this time it was marred by a large white bandage over one of his eyebrows and his jaw had a purplish tinge to it.

    "Elise." He said, quickly making his way over to me and scooping me up into a big hug. "I missed you." He went in for a kiss but I put my hand up and blocked it.

    "No way mister, not until you explain yourself. I almost had a heart attack listening to your message of 'hey babe, not to alarm you but I'm at the urgent care. Oh the doctor just walked in so I gotta go." I gave him my best withering stare.

    "I'm sorry Elise. Everything just kind of happened so fast and I wasn't sure how long things would take and I didn't want you to worry." Blaine counted my withering stare with his best puppy dog eyes.

    "What exactly happened?" I said.

    "Well last night I went out with some buddies to a party. It was pretty late by the time we got there and there were a ton of people. I was talking with some friends when I heard some loud mouth drunks harassing a couple girls. I told them to leave the girls alone and the idiots got mad and came at me swinging. It took my buddies and I a few tries to get rid of them but not before I got an elbow to the eye and a fist in my face. My eyebrow split and was bleeding pretty bad so I came here for stitches."

    "Wow, that sounds crazy." I said. "I'm sorry about your face."

    "It's alright." Blaine said. He smiled. "At least it will be once you kiss it all better."

    This time I was happy to oblige.

    A few days later found me camped out at the school's library. I had a huge writing assignment due soon and had been procrastinating actually starting the writing process. I had holed myself up in one of the private study rooms, trying to ignore the call of the new book display when a couple girls caught my attention.

    They were sitting out in the main area, at one of the tables whispering. Every so often they would glance in my direction and then look away, pretending I hadn't just seen them do it.

    Weirdos. I wonder why they're doing that. I decided they probably had me confused with someone else. I turned my attention back to the computer screen and turned up the volume in my headphones just a bit.

    Okay focus on writing.

    My phone buzzed, distracting me once again. Annoyed, but not as much as I probably should have been, I opened the text. It was Blaine.

    Blaine: Hey babe, still at the library?

    Me: Yep

    Blaine: How's the assignment going?