Imagine (A Short Story)

Amy

   You're not exactly sure what to expect when you go in. Will she still be bloody? Will she be sitting up? Will she have tubes? But your most important question is answered. She's alive.
You're not sure why it means so much to you. Maybe it's because you feel connected to her. Maybe its because you saved her life. Maybe its because she has been on your mind since then.
  Taking another deep breath, you slowly reach out and grip the handle. Its cold, hard metal. Unforgiving and stiff. You push the handle in and slowly.. Ever so slowly, open the door.
  She's OK.
  You search over her, looking for problems, just to ease your mind.
She's awake. Not a problem.
She's really pale. Its just her hand.
She's hooked up to a machine. There!
  You grimace as you walk over to her. Your eyes focus on one thing. Not her hair, not her eyes, not the chair, just the machine she's hooked up to. You're scared to look at her. You don't know if you can handle looking up and seeing blood on her. You might finally have that breakdown everyone is waiting for.
  Her voice is high, but melodic. Like wind chimes.
  "Jake, it's OK. I'm fine, a little sore, but I'm alive. You can look at me." Your eyes immediately snap to her, like they were waiting for permission to look at her face. Your body doesn't listen to you wanting to stay put. It automatically moves closer to her, taking in every inch of her. Just to be sure..
"Jake?.."
Her voice. Its unsure this time. She's trading worried glances with a woman next to her that you didn't notice before. Her mother most likely. The woman scoots closer, watching you. You can tell what she is thinking Poor boy.. So terrified of her getting hurt. Poor poor boy. He's been through so much.
  "I'm fine." You declare. Needing them to see the words you're still trying to convince yourself. You move away again, towards the door. Turning back to face her you force a small smile on your face
"I'm glad you're OK Amy, you had me worried for a minute there." You say, walking out of the room.
  Your mom finds you, panting from racing around trying to find you. The whole visit took less than 5 minutes. No need to waste time. You smirk a little, feeling better already. You were on a roll. You've seen Amy, she's OK. You managed not to be a creep.. Ish. You tried really hard to not freak on her.. ish again. But now you had things to do. Important things.
  ~3 hours later~
Your wall was quite the interesting shade of white if you thought about it.  Not exactly white but.. Not exactly any other color.. Sort of just a dull off white. The cheap kind. The wall was painted the same color all over, no wallpaper. No different color. The panels of wood along the door and on your one window are dark brown. Completely ordinary. So opposite to you.
  There was really nothing to do, so you studied every detail in your room. You didn't mind, it was nice actually.  You liked being able to do absolutely nothing.
  There was a rather large commotion downstairs, your mom probably dropped something again. Nothing terrible. But you hear footsteps headed toward you, rather fast. You raise an eyebrow and watch the door, waiting for your mom. She appears, looking a rather odd mixture of terrified and excited.
  "Jake! Come downstairs. You're on the news!" She says before quickly speeding back down the hall. You slowly get up and follow her, disinterested but obedient. When you get to the living room, you see yourself.
  You're sitting on the sidewalk, covered in blood, talking to an officer you have no memory of. A reporter you've never seen in your life is beside you, talking rapidly to the camera, sad and excited. Excited. There's a lot of that. You tune into her words, rather shocked with the information.
  "I stand before you today, in the yard of Douglas highschool where a horrific shooting took place just hours ago. This young man next to me, Jake Alan, is a survivor from the shooting, but more than that, a hero. Jake risked his life to stay with an injured girl and keep pressure on her wound, most likely saving her life. She was taken to the hospital and suffers from a bullet wound to the shoulder and major blood loss. It gives us hope that among the bloodshed and loss.. We still have heros."
  A hero. They are calling you a hero. Is it heroic to be scared door your life? To want to hide in a corner and cry? To think that this was your last day? All you did was help someone who couldn't help themselves.  If that makes a hero.. Its a sad world.
  Your thoughts are interrupted by a phone ringing. Your mom runs to pick it up, listens for a moment then goes really pale. Then red. She answers in a low voice that you can't hear, says OK and hangs up. She turns to you.
  "Jake.. That was the news.. They want to interview you?" Her voice quivers, you can't tell if she's sad or excited anymore. Honestly you don't care. She is worried about you.
Or she is worried about how much fame and attention you're getting. There's no such thing as bad publicity right?