Chapter Twenty-One: Mending More Than Bones
"Alex! I've been trying to get a hold of you and your sister for days now. Are you both all right? Where are you? Did you both make it to Phoenix?" Charlie spat out quickly. He had answered the phone so fast it took me by surprise.
"Hey, dad," I said slowly, "Bella and I are in Phoenix. Sorry, I forgot to call."
I heard him give a sigh of relief. "Are you both okay?" He asked again.
"Not exactly," I muttered, turning to look at Bella passed out in the backseat. That only set Charlie off and brought on another round of questions. What had happened? How bad was it? Did they need to go to a hospital? Were they already at a hospital? It was enough to make my head spin.
"Dad!" I cried suddenly, interrupting him. "Bella got hurt pretty bad. We're on the way to the hospital now." As the words left my mouth, Carlisle pulled up in front of the hospital. "We just got here. I have to go. Please call mom and come up here? I love you."
Not giving him a chance to ask any more questions, I ended the call. Getting out of the car, I opened the door for Edward and watched as he picked up Bella just as carefully as he had done before and carried her into the hospital. Everyone looked at us for a moment before they all jumped into action. A gurney was brought over and Edward sat Bella down on it before walking with the hospital people as she was led out of the entrance. Carlisle walked up to the front desk and I followed closely behind.
"Can you tell me what happened, sir?" The nurse asked, her voice calm and eyes alert.
Carlisle began to tell her exactly what had happened, well, a made up version of what had happened. Bella was on her way up to his and Edward's hotel room when she fell down two flights of stairs and went through a window. He sounded so confident that I almost believed it to be true even though I knew it was a lie. He also started to tell the woman of Bella's severed femoral artery, how he made a makeshift tourniquet out of a belt, and the many other injuries he thought her to have.
The woman nodded her head before asking about Bella medical information: allergies, blood type, full name, parental information and more. Being her sister, I gave her everything that I knew. I also told her that I had already informed our parents so she didn't have too. When she had everything she needed, Carlisle and I walked away from the front desk and moved over to the waiting room.
"So, Bella went through a window, huh?" I said, and eyebrow raised. "How are we going to prove that when there aren't any hotels with a broken window?"
Carlisle gave me a small smile before pulling out his small silver cell phone. His fingers flew across the numbers quickly before he brought the device to his ear.
"Hello, Alice," he said, "Is everything taken care of?"
I couldn't hear Alice's answer but knew that everything was finished from the slight nod of Carlisle's head.
"Before you all leave, there's something else you need to do." Running his hand down his face, he gave out a sigh before bowing his head.
I wondered if something had gone wrong but quickly realized he was hiding his mouth so that he could speak quickly to Alice. It would probably be really unnerving for someone walking by to see his mouth moving in a blur or overhear that he was telling someone to break the window of a hotel. The total conversation lasted a total of thirty seconds at most before Carlisle lifted his head and returned the phone to his pocket.
I sat there quietly for a moment before looking at him, a small smile on my face. "You guys sure know how to get things done."
Carlisle didn't answer but merely smiled at me. We sat there for a few minutes before Edward came back and sat down in a chair across from us. After informing us that Bella was going into surgery, we slipped into silence as we waited for my sister to hopefully come out of surgery without any problems.
I got a call from Charlie around noon the next day. After a slight delay, his plane had finally landed and he would be there within the hour. He had talked to mom and she would be here soon as well. He tried to get me to tell him what was going on, but I promised I would tell him everything when he got here. He seemed a bit unhappy about that, but accepted it, telling me he would see me soon.
After putting my phone in my pocket, I got up from my seat and started down the long hallways towards the cafeteria. Without a word, Edward got up from his seat and started following behind me.
"James is gone, Edward. You don't have to worry anymore," I said without looking behind me.
Coming up to a vending machine outside the cafeteria, I started looking at all the different options before deciding on a small bag of cookies. My hands went to my pockets but came up empty. Just as I let out a sigh of disappointment, a white hand passed in front of me holding a crisp green dollar.
"Thank you." I flashed him a smile before feeding the money into the machine and pushing the numbers that would give me my snack. Bending down, I grabbed the package and quickly opened it up before placing one of the delicious chocolate chip cookies in my mouth. "Oh my god, that hits the spot," I moaned happily. It had been almost a day since I've last eaten something.
"So how are you hanging in there?" I asked as we both walked back to the small waiting room.
"Better now that I know she's okay," Edward replied slowly, his hands deep in his dark blue hoodie.
It had been a rough first couple of hours. Bella ended up having four broken ribs, a broken leg, a few cracks in her skull, and needed at least three blood transfusions to help replace some of the blood she had lost. It had been early in the morning when the doctors came and told me that Bella was fine, but couldn't be seen just yet because they wanted to monitor her for a few hours.
"We'll get to see her soon, hopefully," I said returning to my chair.
Charlie arrived twenty minutes later. He had been surprised to see Carlisle and Edward sitting next to me, but didn't question it as I jumped up from my seat and rushed into his arms. I apologized for running out on him and then not calling for a couple of days, but he hushed me, awkwardly patting my hair. I didn't let go of him as Carlisle started filling Charlie in on what happened. He seemed a bit uneasy with the story but didn't say anything. He was just happy to know that Bella was fine.
"Alex!" Renée cried, running into the waiting room. "Baby! Are you okay? How's Bella? What happened?"
A chuckle rippled out of my mouth as I shook my head, wrapping my arms around my mom. "I'm fine, Mom. Bella is too. The doctor said she's been moved to her own room and that we can see her in a half hour."
Letting go, I pulled Renée over towards the row of chairs and sat her down before filling her in on everything that had happened. I started with what had "happened" in Forks that led Bella to want leave in the first place, explaining that Emmett (Edward's brother) had said something she felt uncomfortable with and that Edward had tried to make her feel better but instead said the same thing and made it worse. When he and Carlisle had come to explain everything, Bella had tripped and fell down the stairs on the way to their room resulting in her going through the window at the bottom. Carlisle, being a doctor, fixed her up as best he could before driving her to the hospital.
I was so used to the lie by now that it came easily. Renée took the explanation without question, thanking Carlisle and Edward for coming after us. She believed that Carlisle was the reason why Bella was all right and I couldn't really disagree. Without his cool head and quick thinking, things might have ended differently.
After that, she filled me in on everything that happened with her and Phil while we waited for the doctor to tell us we could see Bella. Apparently he had gotten signed so they were going to move to Florida. She wanted Bella and I to move with her, but I turned her down. As much as I loved her, I liked living in Forks and didn't want to leave Charlie again.
"Swans'?" A nurse called, walking into the waiting room. "Isabella is still sleeping, but the doctor has informed me that you are welcome to see her."
Charlie, Renée, and I both stood and followed her as she led us to Bella's room. My heart ached as I looked at my sister laying on the hospital bed with a large mess of tubes attached to her. I took a step towards Charlie who put an arm around my shoulder. We all pulled up chairs next to her bed and sat down, hoping that she would wake up soon.
A large smile stretched across my lips as Charlie pulled the cruiser into the driveway. It had been almost a week since I'd last seen it and it warmed my heart. Unbuckling my seat belt, I got out of the car and hurried to hold the front door open for Charlie who helped support Bella. She had trouble walking when she was completely healthy we didn't want her to fall down and hurt herself even more now that she had a boot on.
"Guys, I'm not made of glass," Bella protested as we helped her up into her room as well.
"Are you sure? 'Cause you've broken more bones than I can count," I shot back, an eyebrow raised.
Bella shot me a glare as she sat down on the bed. I unpacked her bag for her before going into my own room and falling face first onto the bed. A groan escaped my mouth as I blindly stretched out a hand to grab a corner of my comforter and fold it over my body. After days of very little sleep, it felt good be in my own bed. I didn't get to sleep too long, however, as someone started yelling in my ear.
"Wake up, bitch!"
"Huh?" Lifting my head, I jumped as my tired eyes only made out a head of flaming hair. It took me a moment before I realized it wasn't Victoria, but rather Leslie standing in my room. "What?"
"Thanks so much for telling me you were going out of town," she said angrily, hands on her hips. "And answering my texts. You're a real friend."
"I'm sorry, it was an important family thing," I said, sitting up. My mouth opened wide as a long yawn overtook me. She just glared at me. "Come on, I said I was sorry."
She sighed after a few seconds, her hands dropping from her hips. "Fine. I'll forgive you. But you so owe me."
"I'll watch whatever superhero movie you want me to watch," I promised, causing her to smile widely.
"And pizza. And chocolate. You're going to bring lots of chocolate," she said happily, clapping her hands. "I'm going to introduce you to Marvel next."
I rolled my eyes but didn't say anything. "Okay, this weekend."
"So will I see you at school tomorrow?"
"Yup. I'll be there." She eyed me suspiciously for a few seconds but soon nodded her head.
"I'll see you then," she called over her shoulder, walking out of my room.
I watched her go for a while before lying back down and closing my eyes.
Authors Note:: I had a really hard time writing this chapter...the hospital parts anyway. I think I rewrote it at least three times before deciding to write it this way. It's still now how I would like it to be but I figured I might as well post what I have now and fix it later so we can get one step closer to ending this story. I also wanted Jacob and Billy to stop by at the end but couldn't get it to work so that kinda sucks. Oh well, we'll just get more Jacob/Alex interaction in the next chapter then, which just so happens to be the last chapter! Yay! We're almost there! Thank you so so much to the seven people that reviewed the previous chapter, you guys are awesome! I have Alex's fate all planed out so even though it would be awesome to see her handle life as a vampire before Bella, it's not going to happen. As for New Moon, the plan is for Alex to move away from always being with Bella to being more of her own person. You'll start to see that change in the mini series. Thank you everyone else who has read, favorited, and followed this story! You are all awesome too!