13.

The gurney wheels squeaked loud enough to make me cringe. The pain was an entity of its own, a parasite determined to steal both my sanity and my soul. This is one of those things I had been hoping would not happen – that I found something too painful to take my mind off of heroin. In the back of my mind I was already pondering whether I had known this would happen when I jumped in front of Bella – if, somewhere in the foul depths of my subconscious, I had actually meant to get hit by a two ton van.

The nurses at some point had washed the blood from my eyes to the point where I could see again. My vision was still hazy, but I could see the bright fluorescent lights above me and recognize that I was neither in an OR nor in critical condition. My right hand reached out, padded around until it bumped a doctor. She ceased her prodding and leaned over me. What had I wanted to say?

For a moment I blinked, unable to remember. Then, a flicker of pain, and I knew. "Not Dr. Cullen – I don't want him in here." My voice was an unpleasant hiss – a mixture of pain and agony – and the probing fingers were across my body. My skin was tingling from what felt like a million insect bites; I could not tell if they were real or the product of a desperate imagination. I desperately wanted them to be real.

A hand touched my arm and I jerked away from it, though my muscles locked up with the pain and only helped to make it worse. The unobtrusively brunette doctor was explaining things to me – procedures and pain – that I was barely following. Why did I care that they had to reset my shoulder or remove the little shards of glass from my back? I was in enough pain already – it could not get much worse than this.

In five minutes I felt like an idiot for even thinking that. The movement alone was enough to wrench a scream from my lips; it sounded like a demon being purged from my soul, matching the pain in intensity. The doctors tried to work quickly, but I was not a gentleman about it. A stream of curses and bitter insults slid through my gritted teeth as they made sure to bandage the tiny cuts along my back, something they had to do before letting me go.

I felt clammy, nauseated, and wimpy for not being able to take a little pain. My eyes were closed, my lips slightly parted as I gasped in breaths. My body was burning, especially my back. I wondered what ointment they had smeared on me to make it hurt so badly.

"Are you ready? We're going to set your arm now."

"No," I gasped, "it's broken! It hurts. I want morphine. Give me morphine!"

She smiled gently and told me that x-rays indicated that my hand was in worse shape than the arm as the doctors ignored my request. Their hands were on me, holding me still, and I felt the tension build. Loud, hissing breaths were echoing through the room. The threat was in their eyes.

"Don't you fucking touch me," I spat, trying to throw them off. The grip was too tight –

"Counting from three…"

"It hurts!" I panicked. My voice was loud. "You're killing me, you sociopaths!"

"Two…"

"Get me morphine!" I swiped at the doctor on my right, my face livid as I tried to strike. "Don't touch me or I swear to God – FUCK!" The threat cut off into a yell.

They had not waited the full count. My back contorted and curled off the bed as the pain seared through me, hot, quick, and intense. It was gone just as suddenly, but my brain carried the aftershocks through my body. I reeled in the pain and fought the urge to vomit; it seemed a more acceptable solution to let my eyes tear, so I held back the nausea and gritted my teeth.

After five minutes, I could breathe again. After ten minutes of concentrated breaths, I could open my eyes enough to notice them prodding my broken hand; it should hurt but my nerves were overworked in concentrating on other forms of agony. After twelve minutes I realized that this bodily ache was not going away and I had no idea how long it would be with me.

After fifteen minutes: "How's the girl - Bella?" Like a wild horse being broken in, my voice reflected weariness and quiet pain. They had beaten me over without assuaging the pain and, even though I was bitter about it, the reasonable thing for me to do was ask about her.

"You can ask her that yourself," the doctor said. I could hear the smile in her voice. "She's been waiting outside for a while. Do you want me to let her in now?"

I looked down at my bare chest, covered in pale scars and fresh pink cuts, and took a breath. My arms, too, were exposed; no doubt the staff had seen my track marks. I cursed because it had occurred to me to use a femoral vein for shooting up – less noticeable – and at the time it seemed inconvenient. Now they would not give me morphine because they knew. The bastards.

"Can I have… a shirt or something first?" I asked.

All the doctor had was a white sheet, but she pulled it over my chest before admitting my visitor. Bella entered quietly, her silence almost reverent, and sat down by my bed. There was a small butterfly band aide tacked to her forehead; it almost looked as if it had been placed there for show.

"How're you doing?" I asked with nervous grin. I still was not sure if I could be myself around her – she seemed just as prickly as I was – because our tempers mixed like volatile chemicals. Maybe Southerners like us were part cactus.

"They thought I might have a concussion," she whispered, nearly to herself, "but it was just a bump on the back of my head." She looked at my face. "I don't think they should have worried so much about me."

The attention placed upon me was unnerving; it needed to be relieved. "I'm sturdy – I can take it," I said with a laugh and rested my head back on the pillow. "But they will have to worry if I don't get a cigarette soon. I'm not responsible for my actions then."

Bella laughed nervously. She was wringing her hands and biting her lip. What was she up to? "I – I'm sorry for snapping at you this morning, Jasper." She paused and looked me in the eyes. My jaw was slack with shock at her words – at her use of my name, spoken gently and without judgment.

"Bella, I –" I closed my eyes and allowed myself a laugh, "I was going to apologize to you for being such an ass the other day. Repair my karma and all that. Damnit! You must think I'm quite the wit."

Her eyebrows pursed. "Now I feel even worse! I haven't seen it, but Charlie told me that there is a shoulder print in my truck. Some of the doctors told me that you were pretty cut up, and one even told me about your hand: they're going to have to remove bone fragments."

I tried to brush her apologies off. "Like I said, I'm durable. It wasn't even that bad, really." The scene flashed before my eyes. The van… the grinding metal… the sound of my body cracking off the pavement. I was lying; it had been horrible.

She frowned and remained quiet. After a few moments, she spoke in a hushed voice that I had to strain to hear. "I heard you screaming, Jasper, so I know it couldn't have been good."

"They wouldn't give me morphine." I shrugged and the movement stretched the fresh cuts in my skin. I winced and breathed in loudly.

"Maybe that's because you aren't a terminal cancer patient," she said in a dry voice that bordered on sarcastic. My first instinct was to snap back. But where had that gotten me recently? I laughed and her expression lightened as well; she had the instincts of Emmett to diffuse an obviously awkward situation with humor.

I was getting insights into her – how she thought and how her emotions ran – but it would be foolish to think the distraction could last long. Our personalities were made to clash and it was only coincidence that had kept the snipping comments at bay for so long. The doctor came back in to announce that they were going to work on my hand before they put the cast around it.

"Do you want to stay, or are you squeamish?" The doctor asked Bella without consulting me – the patient.

"She's leaving," I answered for her, my voice suddenly hard. If there was one person who should know as little about me as possible, it was her. She would be sick; she would be disgusted.

Would she be as furious as she looks right now? Her eyes were ablaze as she glared at me. She got up and, without saying a word, cursed me in all the tongues of Heaven and Hell. Then she turned and stormed from the room.

My doctor shook her hand and pulled the sheet back. She was swabbing my hand with a nasty-smelling antiseptic when I heard the movement and saw her out of the corner of my eye.

"Were you curious? Want a look?" I spat and turned.

Her eyes were averted from me. She was covering her mouth, and there was a bright blush flooding her face that was easily visible – even for a blind man. Her brown eyes were shiny and moist; she had already seen before I had time to notice her return. Damn it!

"I forgot my bag," she muttered with a sniff, still avoiding my gaze. I watched her pick up the bag and stumble over her feet in her hurry to leave.

The nurse in the room was trying to reassure me as he gave me the anesthetic for my hand, but it was obviously not his forte. "It'll be quick. We're just going to open it up and remove some of those bone fragments; those will cause more harm than anything else."

I wanted nothing more than to shout at him for telling me things I had no interest in knowing. Jolts of pain whipped through my nervous system, and they hadn't even sliced into me yet. I felt sick, nauseated. I closed my eyes and gripped the metal edge of the bed until my knuckles popped, and endless prayer for drugs running through my head. Morphine, Vicotin, Oxy, Percoset, Codeine… Heroin.

"Oh, Goddamnit!" I yelped when the scalpel ran across my swollen flesh, pulling against still-active pain receptors. Either my pain tolerance was plummeting or they were finding new ways to cause me bodily harm. There was no reason for me to have to keep dealing with this shit. It was unreasonable.

Then it occurred to me that this all was reasonable. It's just that karma was a bitch.

So I'll see you all next week. I'm now off to get my car from the shop and take it back to the dealer... I could curse fiercely because the catalyst converter is shot and I have to spend $$$ for a new part. Bollocks and sucks to that! I'm getting my WARRANTY to cover it. ARGH!

Also, the New Moon Trailer.. ooooh buddy! I knew I loved Jasper, and seeing the trailer makes me love him a bit more - if that were possible. Just the ferocity in his eye. Yowza.
Oh, and I was skimming the news the other day: the bishop of my region retired. His name? Edward Cullen. hahaahahaa... to funny to be true, but it was!