Chapter Four
"Lucas. Lucas...honey, wake up." Karen gently shakes her son.
He stirs slightly.
"I brought you some coffee." she says handing him a cup.
"Thanks." he replies.
Karen sits at the foot of the bed and takes my hand in hers. "You think she'll remember any of this when she wakes up?" she asks softly.
"I hope not, for her sake. I wish I could be so lucky." Lucas sighs.
One by one, everyone takes turns watching over me in the same chair that Lucas has been occupying. Before long, my room is filled with cards, flowers, balloons, and pictures. Everyone waits anxiously to see when I'll wake up.
Lucas is in with me yet again when a nurse enters the room. He gets up to leave but the nurse stops him. "It's okay, I'm just here to check her vitals." she says.
She checks the monitors and then takes out her penlight. She opens my right eye to check for any dilation, when suddenly I blink, scaring her almost to death.
"Peyton? Peyton, baby, come on. Wake up." Lucas pleads.
I open my eyes slowly and look around the room, wide eyed. I start to struggle, not knowing where I am, but then realize that there's a tube down my throat, therfore keeping my from going very far.
"It's okay. It's okay. You're in the hospital. Can you hear me? Blink once for yes, twice for no." the nurse says.
I blink once. I look over at Lucas and a tear falls from my eye. He kisses my hand as the tears fall freely from his cheeks. I close my eyes and wish I could scream. My whole body feels like it's being torn apart, and there's nothing I can do about it.
The doctor comes in and examines me a short while later, and decides to remove the tube down my throat. As it's removed, I cough and gasp for air.
"Water." I whisper. Lucas holds the straw up to my mouth and I drink slowly.
"Peyton, do you remember what happened?" the doctor asks.
I nod silently.
"We had to preform surgery to repair your lungs. We had to stop some of the internal bleeding, and we had to implant a metal rod in your leg." the doctor explains. So that's why I feel like I was pushed off of a cliff...the cliff. The water...those kids pulling me into the boat..."How long was I gone?" I ask. "Almost five days."
The doctor leaves and me and Lucas are alone. He caresses my cheek. "You have no idea how scared I was that I was going to lose you." he tells me. "I know. I was so scared. I didn't know how I was going to get out of there." I whisper.
Suddenly I feel really tired and I just succumb to it and fall asleep.
The next morning, I'm trying to eat a little bit, and having a hard time with it. My right arm is broken in three spots, and my left arm is just retarded. Brooke comes in and sits down.
"Hey buddy." she smiles.
I smile back at her. "Decided to give Lucas a break huh?"
"Yeah. The poor guy will probably never let you out of his sight again." she laughs.
"I actually don't think I would have a problem with that."
I lay back in the bed. I'm still on morphine so the pain is managable.
"The cops weren't in here for very long." Brooke says.
"I just told them everything I could about it..."
A tear slips down my cheek. "Why does this keep happening to me? I'm like a magnet for death and pain and horrible things. I just want to be a normal girl with a normal life. I don't want this black cloud hanging over me!"
Brooke hugs me softly as I cry into her shoulder.
"We're not going to let anything happen to you. None of us." she whispers.
Later that night, me and Lucas are in my room watching TV. "You need to shave." I tell him.
He chuckles. "Yeah, that really wasn't my top priority. I'll shave as soon as we get home tomorrow."
Home
"I'm not going to be worth a shit for a couple months. I hate this."
I have a cast on my left leg going from foot to knee, my right arm is in a cast all the way up to my shoulder, and my chest is all bandaged up from the repair on my lungs.
"Well, just think. You get to be waited on hand and foot. No pun intended." Lucas says.
"Ha...ha...ha."
The next morning, the doctor gives me one last exam and clears me to go home. He gives me a prescription for pain medication, two different antibiotics, and sleeping pills.
"You're a very brave girl" he tells me.
"Maybe brave, but not very smart." I say.
"How do you mean?" he asks.
"If I had just listened, I would have never gone out that night. And none of this would have happened."
"The important part is that you're alive. A little banged up, but alive. And that's all that really matters in the long run." he assures me.
The nurse helps me out of the bed and into the wheelchair and gets me loaded into Lucas' car. I fall asleep before we even leave the parking lot.