The Boy at My Window

Chapter Seven: Hernias Hurt

A nurse came into the room with a wheeled chair. "Shaina Collins?" she asked.

"That's me" I croaked.

"My name is Holly and I'll be doing your sonogram today. Why don't we go ahead and get you situated in the wheeled chair and we'll get going?"

Matthew gently lifted me from the bed and placed me in the chair. Instead of letting my feet dangle, I curled into a ball. Matthew draped the blanket over me.

As the nurse wheeled me to the sonogram room, Matthew never left my side.

My phone began to ring. I worked it out of my back pocket and brought it to my ear, "Hello?"

"Shaina?" Chad's voice boomed through the phone.

"Oh, Chad. Hang on. I'm passing the phone off I can't talk well..." I croaked.

"What's going on?" I heard his voice as I passed the phone to Matthew.

"Chad? It's Matthew. Look, I'm at the hospital with Shaina. She was attacked by some guys at school and we think she may have a hernia. You're welcome to come here and I'll meet you in the waiting room. We're in the ER."

All of sudden I felt that familiar taste. "Matthew..."

"Hang on." Matthew set the phone down on the arm of the chair and helped me sit up.

There wasn't a trash bag or anything around and I couldn't hold it in. I threw up on the blanket and all over the floor. But as always it was all blood.

"I'm so sorry." Matthew began to apologize.

The nurse took my blanket. "No worries," she said cheerfully, "Its nothing we haven't seen before." She grabbed her walkie talkie from her hip, "I need a clean up over in ER outside sonogram room. There's blood." She slipped it back in her pocket, "Alright let me go take care of this and we'll get started." She left with the blanket then returned a few minutes later and pushed me into a dark room with a bed and a monitor. "Alright honey, if you could just lie flat on your back on that bed."

I started to get up but Matthew beat me to it and swung me up in his arms. He laid me out on the bed then sat at my feet.

"I'm going to run this little wand over your stomach and you'll see the images up here on the screen. If I hit a tender spot be sure to tell me so I can be sure to note it. Ready?" I nodded. Matthew reached up and entangled our hands. I squeezed his hand in thanks.

The nurse lifted my shirt and squirted some gel stuff on the thing in her hand. She started running it over my stomach. "Alright nothing yet." she told us and then she hit a tender spot. I whimpered. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "And there is our hernia."

Matthew peered at the screen. The nurse pointed to a long dark spot on the screen. "That's the hernia. It's a big one. That boy must have kicked you hard."

"He did." I muttered.

"Well I'm going to go ahead and take you back to the room and the doctor will be in shortly to discuss what happens next."

She wiped the excess gel off my stomach.

"If you don't mind, ma'am," Matthew began, "can I carry her back. I just feel better if I have her."

The nurse smiled warmly, "That's fine. Are you her boyfriend? She's a lucky girl."

"Oh, I'm not her boyfriend." Matthew answered quickly. "I'm just her neighbor."

"Well she's still lucky to have you."

She's right. I was. I don't know what would have happened if Matthew hadn't have been there.

Matthew scooped me up from the bed, took me back to my room and we situated ourselves like we had early with my head on his lap. Matthew held my hand and stroked my hair.

"Matthew? I'm scared..." I muttered quietly.

"Oh, it's gonna be okay, Shaina. You've got nothing to worry about, yeah?"

Suddenly the door flew open and my dad rushed in. "Oh Shaina!"

"Hi, Daddy." I croaked.

He sat beside me on the bed, "What happened, honey?"

"I think Matthew should answer. It hurts to talk."

My dad turned and looked at Matthew.

Matthew cleared his throat nervously, "I um found Shaina being beaten on by a group of guys. I got them away from her. When I was going to take Shaina home she said she felt sick so I pulled over and she threw up blood. That's when I decided she probably needed to go to the hospital. We got here and she's thrown up four more times, all blood. She just had a sonogram and she has a hernia. The doctor should be in shortly to tell us what's happening next."

"Thank you for saving my daughter. I underestimated you, Matthew." He turned his attention back to me, "How are you doing, Shaina?"

"Very sore..." I croaked. "My tummy hurts."

"I'm sorry, baby. We'll figure this out."

Suddenly that familiar taste crept into my mouth.

I squeezed Matthew's hand.

Matthew jumped down from the bed, "Crap." he grabbed the trash can and held it to me. I threw up again. This was getting really old really fast.

My dad got off the bed. "Is she okay?" he asked worriedly.

"She's been doing this all day. We're kind of used to it."

The doctor suddenly came into the room followed by a nurse with two IV bags. "Am I interrupting something?"

My dad sat back down as did Matthew. "She just got sick again." Matthew told him sounding pretty annoyed.

"Well we have stuff to help that. And the pain." he held out his hand to my dad. "I'm Doctor Mike. I'll be getting Shaina situated."

"I'm Tony Collins. So what's going on?"

I stopped listening as the nurse started prepping me for the IVs.

"Alright can you make a fist for me." I clenched my left fist. "And release. And close again. Okay you may feel a slight pinch. This a one will help the the throwing up." She tapped the crook of my arm and slowly inserted the needle. I cringed a little. I hated needles. She placed tape to hold it in place. "This next one will go in the back of your hand and it should help with pain." She slid the needle into my hand and taped it down as well. "Your good to go. Those should start kicking in in a few minutes."

Okay guys so the next chapter will be before and after the surgery. I hope you guys enjoy it and the next chapter should be up soon.

So I'm going to write a companion book which is pretty much going to be this whole book from Matthew Knight's point of view! It's going to be called The Girl Next Door. It's kind of like, if any of y'all have read Divergent, it's like how Veronica Roth wrote Four which was some of the chapters from the series in Tobias's point of view. So I thought it'd be cool to give y'all the whole book from Matthew's perspective! The first chapter of that one should be up pretty soon. Maybe today, I'm not sure.

Avery