Love, Pain, and Wings-Chapter 53
By MyNameIsCAB
I sat on the couch, staring at the floor, in Fang's hospital room. He was asleep, and due to be released in another week. X-rays and scans showed that things were starting to look normal again, almost healed. Of course, there was pain to still deal with. Fang would probably be prescribed some pain killers which he had to swallow with every meal. Either one or two depending on the pain, but no more than eight a day. That's how his pills worked right now at least.
A baseball game was playing on mute. I think it was the Diamondbacks playing. It was late, almost eleven at night. I was about to doze off when there was a knock on the door and Iggy tripped in.
"Ig, what are you doing here?" I asked in a whisper.
"Everyone at home is asleep. I thought I'd come and give you an update on Ella," Iggy replied, sitting on the opposite end of the couch that I was sitting down.
"Oh, okay," I sighed.
"You know how you went to the school and talked to those kids that were picking on her?" Iggy asked me.
I nodded. "Yea?"
"Well, just recently, she's gotten a few letters from some people saying how sorry they were to go along with Ryan's stupid plan." Iggy leaned back on the couch.
"Really? I didn't think they would," I replied quietly.
"Apparently some of them felt bad," Iggy answered. "And Ella started talking to Mom."
"That's good," I smiled. "Thanks to you." Iggy had finally gotten through to Ella.
"Hey, she wouldn't be talking if you hadn't talked to her first," Iggy insisted.
Okay, maybe he was right about that. But he probably deserved more credit in the first place. Maybe all we needed was for him to talk to Ella in the first place.
Iggy had left after spending an hour talking to me. He didn't want to fall asleep at the hospital and have the others panic he wasn't at home.
So now I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling. I was waiting for sleep to come get me, but I guess tonight it was busy getting other people. Maybe I'd lay awake for a couple more hours. Who knows?
Waking up, it was no surprise to see that Fang was still asleep. Rubbing my eyes, I stood up and walked into the hallway. It was quiet in this part of the hospital today. There weren't nurses and doctors rushing around with patients on stretchers.
"Good morning, Max," Dr. Jacobs smiled.
"Oh, good morning," I answered back automatically.
"Your Mom hasn't been around, has she?" he asked.
I shook my head. "How do you know her?"
"High school, she was my friend," the doctor answered. Something told me there was more to it than that, but I wasn't going to push it.
"Oh, okay," I said.
"Well, is Nick awake, yet?" I almost forgot that we had Nick as Fang's name. In fact, I was the only one in the flock that Dr. Jacobs knew by real name. Iggy was Jeff and the others hadn't been introduced to him.
"No, still asleep," I answered.
"Well then, when he wakes up, press the call button so we can get him some breakfast before I give him his meds," Dr. Jacobs told me.
"Okay, thanks," I said.
The doctor smiled and walked towards another patient's room. Looking down the hall, I could still see the policemen standing guard outside Jeb's room. Part of me couldn't help but wonder how Jeb was. I hoped he was suffering, but I knew that he couldn't possible be as bad as Fang.
I went back into Fang's room and sat back down on the couch. I guess all I had to do now was wait for him to wake up.
"Max…"
I looked up to see Fang was awake now. The way he said my name sounded like he was in a lot of pain.
"How're you feeling?" I asked.
I half expected him to say "like crap", but he didn't. Instead, he said he was hungry, so I pressed the call button for a nurse and she came in.
"I'll be back with breakfast," she told Fang. "And your medication."
He sighed as she left, closing his eyes again. "I can't wait to get out of here."
"I can't either," I answered back.
"But at least you can leave if you want," Fang muttered, adjusted the sling into a more comfortable position.
I wasn't going to argue with that.
"Besides, why are you wasting all your time here?" Fang asked. I think he knew the answer to that already because he went on. "Never mind. Just tell me when we get out of here that Iggy will cook me something good to eat. Hospital food tastes like…it just tastes bad."
I smiled. "Yea, I'll make sure."
