The next time she woke up, she still felt groggy, but it was much easier to take in her surroundings. The whiteness of the room wasn't quite so bright, and the haziness in her brain seemed to have lessened. She wasn't sure if she could sit up, but she was able to turn her head slightly to get a good look at the room. It seemed like a standard hospital room with little more than a chair in the way of extra furniture. She was in a big bed, strapped to several beeping and blinking machines. A needle was in one of her arms, and plastic tubes were stretched across her face and hooked up to her nose. Maybe that was helping her breathe. It hurt so much every time she tried to draw air into her lungs. What had the nurse said? Punctured? No wonder it felt like fire in her chest.
A woman came into the room then. She was different than the nurse before, she was pretty sure, but this new woman was wearing scrubs, too. The woman looked surprised to see her awake.
"Oh! You're awake. How are you feeling, Barbara?" Terrible. Bad. Hurt. She tried to say any of those words, but all that came out was a whimper.
"I'll see if we can't get you something for the pain," the new nurse said. So much pain. The new nurse disappeared for a moment, and returned with a syringe filled with clear liquid, which she fed through the IV attached to her arm. She hated needles, but she didn't have the strength to protest. For a brief second, the strange sensation of something entering her veins put her entire body on edge, but it was quickly replaced by a rush of relief as some of the fire in her bones was softened.
"Better?" the new nurse asked. She nodded almost imperceptibly, but it looked like the new nurse had caught her meaning. "My name is Alice. Do you think you could answer a few questions for me, Barbara? Do you feel up to that?" Barbara. The old nurse had called her that, too. She figured no one had told them that she didn't like to be called that.
"Bobbi," she managed to mumble, past the pain, past the too big tongue that made her speech slurred. Her jaw throbbed when she opened it.
"What?" The new nurse scrunched her eyebrows together. Confused face. Then they moved apart back to their normal spot. Understanding face. "Oh, Bobbi. Is that your name, sweetie?" Bobbi Morse nodded again, happy she didn't have to explain. It was so much work to talk.
"All right then, Bobbi, do you know where you are?" She nodded. When the nurse looked expectantly at her, Bobbi gathered her strength and forced a word out of her mouth.
"'ospital," she murmured.
The nurse nodded. "That's right. And do you know why you're here? Do you remember what happened?" What happened? What had happened? Something bad. She had been so bad, and now she was hurt. The nurse interpreted her silence correctly, and tried prompting her memory further. "Your dad brought you in yesterday, Bobbi. He said you were in a terrible car accident; do you remember that?" Dad. Her dad. Slowly some of the pieces returned to her. He had been so angry earlier. The crack of knuckles, the flash of fury, the baseball bat sitting in the corner. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she shook her head. No. She didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to remember it.
"That's okay, sweetie. You just rest, okay? We'll try and jog your memory again later."