Another updateeee. Wow, this is my third tonight. I should slow it down a little bit. Maybe. Probably not. Haha, enjoy!
Chapter 44
He ended up spending almost five months in the hospital. He never expected it to take so long to recover. The only positive thing that came out of staying to long was that Allison stayed by his side the entire time. The night she went on a date with Jeremy was a hard night for him. Not only was his shoulder and leg hurting more than ever, but the fact that Allison was out on a date with another guy didn't help. He couldn't help but imagine what they were doing and if Jeremy was trying to put the moves on her. He knew Allison could take care of herself, but he couldn't stop his mind from wandering.
He lied awake for almost an hour and a half. His night nurse finally showed up and gave him some medicine, which eased his pain tremendously. He eventually fell asleep but woke up numerous times throughout the night, trying to get into a better position, but just couldn't find one. He woke up at 7:45 that morning and couldn't fall back asleep. He sat up a tiny bit and carefully stretched his arm and then stretched his other arm. While he was stretching, he heard someone ask,
"Hey, are you okay?" He looked and saw Allison walking towards him, now in her nurse's outfit. He smiled and nodded,
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just woke up and needed to stretch." She nodded and, as she got closer, surprised him by feeling his forehead,
"Wow, you're really warm, are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, these blankets have been on me all night though and I'm still in my air force uniform which makes it even worse." She nodded and surprised him again by sitting on the edge of his bed.
"Well, I think this might be your lucky morning."
"Why is that?"
"I brought you some different clothes." She bent down and picked up a plastic bag and he smiled,
"Really?"
"Yep, I borrowed some from Jeremy; I'm sure he won't mind." He smile slowly left his face and he cleared his throat,
"Oh, well tell him thanks. I don't think I'm the skinny jean and ripped up jacket kind of guy, though." She smiled,
"I know, that's why I brought you a pair of normal blue jeans a black t-shirt." He looked at her, then smiled,
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. I hope they fit though, you're bigger than Jeremy is; way more muscular."
"Yeah, I didn't want to say anything, but he's kind of a shrimp." She laughed,
"Don't pick on him." He shook his head,
"I'm not picking on him, I'm just being honest; you know he's a shrimp, too." She smiled, then shrugged her shoulders,
"Okay, I guess you're right." He smiled,
"I know I am." She smiled and looked at him for a minute and then sat down on the same stool she had last night. She continued to look at him and then finally asked,
"You're still the same, aren't you?"
"Pretty much, I haven't changed a lot in two and a half years."
"You look different though."
"How?"
"Well, you've definitely gotten more muscular and you've lost some of your belly. Your hair has grown some and, plus, you have facial hair now. Are you growing a goatee?" He smiled and shook his head,
"No, I'm just growing a little stubble; I've heard it makes me look a little older and more handsome." She laughed,
"You're crazy." He smiled and she looked at him again,
"But there's one more thing."
"What?"
"Your eyes are different, they're older, too. It's like they've seen and experienced things you shouldn't have seen and experienced. They're sad almost."
He looked at her and she was looking in his eyes. For a second, he considered kissing her. He wanted to, more than anything, but he forced himself not to. He replayed the smile on her face when she saw Jeremy and he didn't want to mess up anything in her life. It wasn't fair to her and, despite how much he wanted to hold her in his arms and kiss her, he forced himself not to. He simply smiled and shrugged her shoulders,
"Well, I'm in the Air Force; I've gone on a lot of missions and you're right, I have seen and experienced things I shouldn't have."
"I've always said I'd never make it in the Air Force."
"I don't know, you're stronger than you think, Allison." She smiled and they sat together for a few minutes before he felt a massive surge of pain shoot through his leg, only it was his left leg; the one not in a cast. He immediately grabbed it and Allison stood up as he grunted in pain.
"What? What is it? What's wrong?"
"I think I've got a Charlie Horse in my leg" He said, gritting through his teeth. She grabbed his arm,
"Here, you've got to stand up and walk on it."
He pushed through the pain and she helped him up as quickly as possible. He put his arm around her shoulder and she pulled him up. It was the first time he had stood up in three days and, as soon as she stood him up, pain shot throughout his entire body. He grunted in pain again and she held his hand that he had around her shoulder and wrapped her other arm around his waist and helped him walk. She helped him walk back and forth for almost five minutes as he limped, trying to get rid of the Charlie Horse. It hurt to walk, but it finally went away after walking on it for a few minutes. He sighed,
"Okay, it's alright."
"Are you sure?" He nodded and they walked back to his bed and she helped him sit down. When he was situated, she sat down on the stool and he looked at her. She wouldn't meet his eyes and he asked,
"Allison, are you alright?" She nodded, still not looking at him; he wasn't convinced that she was okay.
"Allison, I've known you for almost six years, I know when you're lying." She finally looked up at him and then started to laugh. He raised his eyebrow, now as confused as ever,
"Why are you laughing?" She continued to laugh for a second until she shook her head,
"I tried not to laugh, Ben."
"What are you talking about?"
"It was just the way you reacted to having a Charlie Horse You were trying to put on a brave face, which didn't work by the way, but I could tell that it was really hurting you. I've seen you show that you were in pain more in the last three days, than the three years we were together." He looked away for a second; Allison just mentioning their relationship was enough to bring a swarm of memories back to him. He shrugged his shoulders,
"Well, I hadn't been shot three times and my leg wasn't broken while we were together."
"Yeah, you're right."
"But I've been in pain much more worse than this before and it actually happened when we were together."
"What? When?" He shook his head,
"Never mind, you probably don't want to hear it; it's not really appropriate." She surprised him once again by putting her hand on top of his. He looked down at her hand on his, then back up at her. She was looking at him with a serious expression,
"Ben, tell me, I want to know." He sighed,
"I felt more pain than this every time I had to leave you and go back to Afghanistan." Her expression turned sad and she put her other hand on top of his. She opened her mouth to say something, but a nurse called her name. They both turned to look and the nurse was looking at them, a surprised look on her face.
"What is it, Kristen?" Allison asked, pulling both of her hands from the top of his hand. Kristen cleared her throat,
"Head nurse wants to see you in her office." Allison nodded and turned back to him,
"I'll be back in a few minutes okay?"
He nodded and she looked at him for a second, then got up and headed to the head nurse's office. He sighed and lied back down, thinking about what had just happened. He probably shouldn't have told Allison what he had just told her. He really didn't want to complicate things in her life, but he couldn't help how he felt. She had wanted to know what he was thinking and he didn't want to lie to her.
Allison ended up being in the office for almost twenty minutes. He wondered what the head nurse wanted with her and when she finally came out, she had a sad and concerned look on her face. He sat up against the backboard of his bed and she sat down on the stool when she reached his bedside. She didn't say anything for a few minutes and Ben finally asked,
"What did she want to talk to you about?" She still didn't say anything until she finally sighed,
"She's gotten a lot of complaints that me and you have been acting 'too friendly'" she sighed again,
"And she doesn't want me being your nurse anymore." He sat up even more,
"What? That's crazy; all we've been doing is talking. You helped me stretch out my legs and helped me get the Charlie Horse out of my leg. Did she say who's complaining?"
"No, but she said she doesn't even want me near you anymore."
"What? Why not? She can't tell us what to do. We're just friends; we're not even a couple."
"I know that and that's what I told her before I told her, before I asked her to please let me stay as your nurse; actually, 'ask' is not a very good word, more like plead." He looked at her,
"You plead with her not to give me another nurse?"
"Yeah, I guess I did." He smiled,
"What did she say?" She smiled and shrugged her shoulders,
"She might have let me stay as your nurse."
"Really? Yes!" She laughed,
"So you're glad, then?" He nodded,
"Absolutely. I mean, as long as you're a nurse, you should definitely be a nurse to someone you know. And, as long as I'm a patient, I should get a nurse that I know. Plus, I should receive the best care possible and I know that no other nurse could be better than you. I mean, what other nurse would help me up and walk with me down the hallway while I'm limping, trying to get the Charlie Horse out of my leg?" She smiled and laughed,
"No one; everyone else would have laughed at the face you were making." He smiled,
"But you didn't." She smiled and shook her head,
"No, I didn't. I couldn't just sit there and laugh while I saw you lying there in pain."
For the next two months, he focused very hard on his recovery. He had, lately, begun taking walks around the hospital, trying to make his leg recover faster and trying to get used to finally walking again. The pain in both his side and his shoulder had subsided a little bit but the pain in his leg still remained the same, even after two months.
Since the head nurse had warned Allison to not get 'too friendly' with him, she had kept her distance for a while. But, after a couple of weeks, she had slowly started to decrease the distance between them. She was still with Jeremy, of course, but she didn't seem to ever want to talk about him, which was fine with Ben.
In addition to being his nurse and comforting him and helping him recover, she had also come in to sit with him after her shifts were over. She didn't come in after her shifts every day of course; she went home to her apartment, which was conveniently right down the street from the hospital which, in turn, was right down the street from the mini-hospital Ben was at.
It got kind of lonely on the days Allison didn't come in. His other nurse, the one that worked at night, wasn't friendly at all. Besides asking him if he needed any medicine, she barely said two words to him. But, when Allison did come in after her shifts, it was worth having to be stuck with the horrible nurse he had at night. Allison would go back to her apartment and change clothes, then come back and sit beside his bed, just talking and keeping him company.
She told him everything that had happened after they had broken up. She had finished college with a degree in nursing and had gotten a job at the New Hanover Regional Medical Centre hospital in Wilmington. Almost a year after she had graduated from college and gotten a job nursing at the hospital, her mom had overdosed on the pills.
She said that her mom dying was one of the hardest things she's ever had to go through, even harder than her dad dying. They had gotten so close since her father had died and it was almost impossible for her to imagine life without her mom. Her sister had come down and helped her plan the funeral and stayed with her for a few days after it, going through all of their parents' things. Eventually, her sister went back home and she was stuck in Wilmington, alone.
She said staying in Wilmington was too hard of a thing to do, so she decided to move. She didn't know what possessed her to move all the way to California, and was actually really scared to be starting all the way over in a new city and a new state entirely. She found an apartment in L.A., right down the street from the hospital. She got a job at the hospital a few weeks after she moved into her apartment and met Jeremy about a month after.
She really didn't mention anything else about him; not how they met or what had even attracted her to him. Ben surely didn't to hear about it so, instead, she talked of how much the place had grown on her in a short period of time. She loved the fast-paced action of L.A. and her life was really good. While she was sitting beside him one day, something hit him,
"Wait, what happened to you singing with the church?" She laughed,
"Finally! I've been waiting two months for you to notice that I haven't brought it up. I had continued to sing for it up until the very day I left Wilmington. It was actually one of the hardest things I let go of. I absolutely loved doing it and I miss it a lot."
"Why did you leave Wilmington?" She shrugged her shoulders,
"I've already told you, Ben, I needed a change. There was nothing left in Wilmington for me." He shook his head and sat up, much more swiftly than he had in two months,
"Why do you keep saying that? There were tons of things left in Wilmington for you." She scoffed,
"Oh yeah, what?"
"Well, you had a job nursing at the hospital, you sang for your church, which I know that you loved with all of your heart, and you have all of your memories there." She looked at him and he shrugged his shoulders and continued,
"I mean, of course you still have your memories here with you in California, but Wilmington was the place where you made those memories. All of the memories of your mom and dad, your childhood, singing with the church, and going to college were all made in Wilmington."
"And the ones with you." This time, he looked at her,
"What?"
"All the memories I made with you were in Wilmington, too." He sighed,
"Allison-"
"What? I'm just saying they were; they happened, Ben."
"I know they happened, but that's over."
"Well, think about this, if I wouldn't have packed up all of my things and moved here, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now." This made him stop and think for a second. When she saw this, she smiled and put her hand on his arm,
"I'm going to go get us some snacks from the vending machine, I'll be right back."
He nodded and she got up and walked past the rows of beds and to the end of the hallway. She disappeared behind a corner and he was left alone with his thoughts. He started to think about the last two months and what was happening with him and Allison. Eventually, he would get better and return to the Air Force. What was going to happen then? He had lost Allison once and he didn't know if he was willing to lose her a second time. Scratch that, he knew he wasn't willing to lose her a second time. Before he could think any more about it, he saw her walking towards him. He sighed knowing that, despite how close he was to her, he was still as far away as he could be. When she got closer, she extended her had to him,
"Here, I got you peanut butter m- and-m's; I know you used to love them. He took them and looked at her as she sat down,
"You remember that?"
"Of course I remember, you used to get them every time we would stop and get gas from the gas station." He smiled and they sat in silence for a few minutes. He was debating whether or not he wanted to tell her about what he was just thinking. He had to find out what she thought, so he sat back up and looked down,
"Allison, what are we doing?"
"What do you mean?" He looked up at her and raised his hand,
"I mean, for the past two months you've been nursing me back to health and we've talked about everything that's happened to each other since we broke up, but we haven't really talked about what's on both of our minds. You mention our relationship briefly, but say nothing more about it and I mention it briefly as if it ended happily ever after. You say that you're going out on a date with Jeremy but you say nothing more about him. You told me you met him a month after you got a job at the hospital, but you never bothered to tell me how you met him or anything about him."
"Because it's none of your business."
"You know what I mean. We keep sidestepping things instead of actually talking about it. We keep acting like nothing has happened between us and that we're both fine with what happened between us. I'm not fine with what happened between us." She shook her head,
"I'm not either, Ben, but I don't know what you want me to say."
"I read the letter you wrote to my dad when we broke up." She sighed and looked away,
"Ben-"
"I want to talk to you about it."
"There's nothing to talk about!" She said, her voice now loud. She sighed again,
"I wrote that letter a long time ago, Ben. My feelings have changed, I've changed; there's nothing to talk about." He opened his mouth to say something, but a nurse came up to his bed and put her hand on Allison's shoulder,
"Allison, is everything okay over here?" She looked at Ben and nodded as she stood up,
"Yeah, everything's fine, I'm just going outside to get some air."
She stood up and he sighed and called her name, but she ignored him and went through the doors outside. He sighed again and lied down, now as confused as ever.
Hmmmm, excited to see what's going to happen? Me too! Even though I already know what's going to happen haha. Please review! :)
