Over and Run With - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twenty-Four

The overnight room in the Gallagher Academy hospital wing is made up of 2,054 bricks, 783 slats of hardwood, 306 ceiling tiles, and one very big window with three separate panes that overlook the lake. I knew all of this, because it was not my first time waking up in the overnight room of the Gallagher Academy hospital wing.

I wasn't in pain anymore. I mean, I was—but it wasn't the same bright, burning, alive pain that I last remembered. It was the dull, day-after bruises and aches that always seemed to weave their way through my widest muscles and my longest movements. I noticed it first in my legs, heavy and sore, and it extended up through my hips, my chest, my arms. Everything about my body felt big, and swollen, and senseless.

I was no stranger to this feeling, but it never got easier. The first time waking up in a hospital is always the hardest. It always takes more work than you think. Your consciousness takes stock of the state of your body, and your breaths feel smaller than they should, and your eyes never open on their own. You have to pry them open from beneath the weight of sleep. Beneath the weight of the world.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Luke.

He was sleeping, exhausted in his own ways, hunched over the side of my bed with his arm as a pillow. He'd been here for a while—his clothes settled on his shoulders and his hair was turned every which way—but he'd been restless. He was always restless. His chair left thick black marks on the wood below, and the sheets were all ruffled around him. I decided to let him sleep, because I didn't know how long it had taken him to get there.

I might have joined him, if not for the stirring on my other side. If not for Alice Anderson, sitting upright and smiling. "Mags."

My head was too heavy to move, but my eyes drifted over to her. Dark circles sat along her cheeks and she moved with a stiffness all her own. I tried to call her name, but my mouth was thick, coated in sleep, and smoke, and strain.

She nodded. "Scout said you'd have a scratchy throat for a while," she said, in the softest tone I'd ever heard from her. "You were in that fire for a long time, Mags—longer than the rest of us."

But not longer than everyone. "Mom?" I squeaked.

"She's okay." And something felt off about the way she was talking to me. Not bad, just different. "Better than you, even. She and your dad had to go fill out some paperwork, but they'll be right back. They've been here with you all week."

Right. Mom and Dad. Both of them. Together. For whatever reason, my mind caught on the concept as though it was something foreign. And I guess, in some ways, it was. "Week?"

At the sound of my voice, Luke jolted awake—almost startled. If my movements were slow and sluggish, his were light and frantic. "Hey," he said, and he reached out toward me, his hand dancing as though he didn't know where to land. "Hi, hey. You're awake."

His hand finally settled in my hair. And I didn't care that everything was knotted, and sweaty, and sore, because his hand was warm, and that's all that mattered. "Now we're even," I huffed. "You ran into your burning building, and I ran into mine."

And he laughed, even though it wasn't that funny. But I think he just had to laugh. I think he'd been waiting to feel happy for a very long time, and now his relief flooded out of him. "Great," he said. "Now neither of us has to run into a burning building ever again."

He stroked his thumb across my cheek, and something deep inside of him seemed to settle. "Deal," I said. "Has it really been a week?"

His smile faltered. "You've been in and out," he said. "You've had a hard week—it's probably for the better that you don't remember most of it."