Living With The Bad Boy [COMPLETE][VERSION ONE]

Chapter 16

Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep.

"No. The cake isn't even close to done cooking," I mutter, rolling my eyes at my dad. I roll over to turn the clock off...

and smack my forehead straight into a plastic bar.

Pain sears through my skull and the dream fades. My eyes open of their own accord and the light is so painful, so hot-white that I let out a shriek.

Or try to, anyways. The only thing that comes out of my mouth is a hoarse whimper, and right away, I start to panic. My chest closes up and what little oxygen I was able to breathe before is completely gone, fogging up the... oxygen mask over my mouth. Where the hell am I?

With a gasp, I finally have the strength to sit up. Now the ever-present beeping makes sense. It's not an alarm clock. It's a heart rate monitor, one for hospital patients. Because that's where I am. The hospital.

"What the hell?" I say, wanting to cry when my words sound like faint scratching against sandpaper.

"What, you don't like the outfit? I had it picked out specially for you," Jase says. He's lounging on a small black sofa a few feet away, one hand pointing at my pink hospital nightgown and the other holding a TV remote. He practically gives me a heart attack. Why is he here?

"Jase, I'm serious. What the hell is going on right now?" I say. The anger in my voice would sound a lot more intimidating if I could actually speak like a normal human being. Instead, it just makes me want to cry. Everything hurts. My head, my lungs (I'm not joking, I can barely breathe), my eyes, which feel swollen, like I've been crying, my chest, my stomach, which feels like it's doing flips inside me. And I'm in the hospital and for the life of me, I can't remember why. And my mom isn't here and instead I'm left with... Jase? God, wake me up from this nightmare. Jase is probably videotaping this entire experience, planning to post to YouTube later a video of Sienna Brown looking like absolute death in a pink nightgown that is way too small for her chest. If I start crying, well, I think he may die of excitement.

Jase opens his mouth to respond when a nurse walks into the room, befit in bright red scrubs, his short hair peppered with black and gray. He takes a look at the clipboard in front of him and then looks back up at me. "Hey! You're Sienna, right?"

"The one and only." I try to smile, but it ends up looking more like a grimace.

"Perfect," he says, like everything's completely normal. Though I guess, for him, it is. Today's just another day, and I'm just another patient. "I'm Nurse Oni, by the way. And how are you feeling right now?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Well, that's kind of a subjective question."

He smiles. "Let me make it easier for you. Does the oxygen mask work okay?"

"Yes. I barely notice it," I say. The oxygen mask is actually the least painful part of this whole ordeal.

Nurse Oni looks back down at his clipboard, handing me a piece of paper with faces on it. "What would you rate your pain on a scale of 0-10?"

I look down. Zero is a smiley face proclaiming no pain, and ten is not being able to move.

"A seven..? I guess? I mean, it's hard to think about anything else, but I can... move. And talk. Obviously."

Nurse Oni nods. "Areas of pain?"

"My head, eyes, I guess, my lungs, chest... and I feel really dizzy and nauseous."

My nurse nods and finishes writing down his notes. He takes my blood pressure and listens to my heartbeat, almost as if this is a normal checkup and I'm not... you know... in the goddamn hospital.