Next Chappie is up.
Review.
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I slowly open my eyes. I'm in the hospital again.
In my line of vision, two dark dots appear. They're flecked with bits of red. I realize a second later that they are someone's eyes.
There's a voice accompanying the eyes. It says, really softly, "Susannah."
"Jesse," I say questioningly.
The eyes nod.
"Do you hate me?" Is all I manage to get out.
"No, of course not," Jesse says lightly, running his hand down my hair. "Susannah, I am so sorry, I can't believe I was so stupid, to put you under so much pressure without any regards to what it was doing to you, I---"
"Jesse," I say, interrupting him, "It's not your fault."
"Of course it is, every time something bad happens to you, it's always been because of me," he says. The world suddenly becomes clearer and I am able to see the worried expression on his face.
"It's never been because of you, Jesse, it's just that I'm screwed up," I say, giving out a little laugh, which I realize later, after my stomach retaliates, is a bad idea.
The reason for the redness around his eyes suddenly dawns on me. Could he have been crying? "Jesse, god, I'm so sorry that I'm making you go through this."
"You're not making me go through anything, Susannah," he says softly. He takes my hand, making my intestines and stomach collide in an all-out Sumo-battle. "I'm just glad that you're OK."
I smile at him, as much as I possibly can because the effort of it makes my head spin.
"Do they know what's wrong with me?" I ask, curious.
"No, not yet," he says, still holding onto my hand. Stomach and intestine collide once more, with stomach seemingly winning.
Long pause.
"Umm...there's something I have to say, I know that it's not the greatest time and all, but...you know how your stomach was...well, when they...you know..." he says, talking in fragments, "there was no baby, alive or otherwise...which... which means that you were never pregnant...though I'm sure you know that... I... just...if you don't want to explain then I won't ask," he says, and, looking at my horrified expression he adds, "don't worry, I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."
I completely forgot about the baby. And my stomach!
I feel for it under the sheets. Its been thoroughly bandaged. I see that there is blood on the bandaging.
How badly was I bleeding? Why would be an even better question.
More importantly though is that Jesse knows. He knows I've been lying to him.
I believe him when he says that he won't ask me further, but I know that I've hurt him.
I have to tell him the truth.
But the truth will sound even more farfetched than the lie did.
"Jesse...I...you have to understand...this...this wasn't for me, I...have no idea even know where to start," I say, babbling complete nonsense.
I lift my bandaged hand up to my temple as my head starts to hurt again. Jesse sees me in pain and states, "don't even worry about it, I just want you to focus on getting better, forget I even mentioned anything."
"No, it's all right, you have a right to know," I say. More pain, harder hand pressing on temple.
"No, it's fine, I can see that I'm just making you feel worse, I'll just...I'll just leave you alone," he says, getting up from his chair and proceeding towards the exit.
"No, don't leave, I don't want you to leave," I say desperately.
Jesse turns around to face me. He doesn't say anything. He slowly walks back towards me. When he nears my bed he crouches down until he's level with the bed and me. A second later, he reaches over and softly touches my cheek with the palm of his hand. For a moment all I can do is just stare at him. "Susannah, I lo---"
"OK, the results for your diagnosis have arrived," says the doctor person entering through the door.
Jesse's hand lets go of my cheek, despite the cheek's protest.
"Yeah?" Jesse says, urging her on. He's even more curious than I am about what could possibly be wrong with me.
"Well, actually, we have no idea," she says, "there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with you, expect of course a minor concussion and a deep hole in your abdomen, however, the cause of both these phenomena is, medically speaking, unknown as of yet."
"You mean to say that, medically speaking, nothing at all is wrong with me?!?" I ask, a bit more rudely that I'd intended it to sound, "so, spontaneous abdominal bleeding is completely normal?"
"No," she says obviously, "of course not, it's just that there doesn't seem to be a reasonable explanation for it," she ends off, looking at me, "but the hole in your stomach, it goes right through. If, according to our records, there doesn't seem to be any medical cause for it, we suspect it might have been caused by a bullet."
"A bullet? But I hadn't heard anything that sounded even remotely like a gunshot," I say, my eyes wide in surprise. "Right Jesse? You didn't hear anything, did you?"
Jesse shakes his head at me, equally surprised by this as I am.
"And anyway, why would my head start bleeding prior to my stomach? There is completely no correlation between the two."
"The head injury was caused by a blunt object," she says. "Our guess is that someone must have hit you, hard."
"But that's not possibly, no one was there expect me and Jesse," I say incredulously.
I might have suspected Josh to pull this off except that I saw him leave. And, as I've already established, Josh, contrary to Gabrielle's belief, can't possibly be a killer. Sweet, I-built-a- restaurant-for-my-mom's-birthday-Josh, a killer? Puh-lease. It makes me want to laugh out loud, just the thought of it.
The doctor eyes Jesse suspiciously. I can't believe this. She's attempting to blame the inadequacies of the medical system on innocent, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly Jesse?
I know that he is kind of scary looking, but he would never hurt me, not intentionally anyway. Plus, he was walking away from me when all of this happened, so how could he possibly have been the cause of it?
Just the thought makes me sick.
Jesse, instead of rudely trying to disprove the idea of him being considered a suspect in the investigation of my being hit by a blunt object and shot in the stomach, a feat, that, to my knowledge, never occurred, says, "So, is she going to be all right?"
"Yeah, she'll be good to go even as early as tomorrow," she says.
As early? I don't want to stay here even for one night.
"What if I plan to leave tonight, how does that sound?" I ask, my eyes puffed up and acquiring the appearance of pure innocence.
Both the doctor and Jesse pounce on me like wild animals.
It goes something like this:
"Of course not...blah blah blah...you have to heal... blah blah blah...you're still too vulnerable."
After which Jesse says something so incredulous my eyes almost pop out of their sockets. He says, "After these injuries...you have to stay here for at least a week."
A WEEK? Has he gone completely mental?
He's going to kill me. He really will. I know that he is just looking out for my best interests, but a week in here will surely kill me.
"I don't think so Jesse, tomorrow will be just fine," I say, holding my breath. I hope he'll go for it. If he doesn't, I know I won't get out of here until his precious little week passes. Jesse can be really persistent, so much that he could convince the doctors to keep me here for years if he really wanted to.
I won't say that out loud though, it might give him ideas.
"All right, but if you don't get better, I'm not letting you go anywhere," he says, "Have we got an understanding?" He asks me, in a mock stern voice.
I nod my head. OK, that wasn't the smartest idea. The whole head nodding, I mean.
At this point, the doctor person leaves, saying that she's got another patient to go take care of.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," Jesse says. He comes up real close to me and softly kisses me on thoroughly bandaged forehead. "Bye."
I wave to him.
He gives me a quick smile and then he proceeds to exit the room, leaving me on my own.
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"So...are you sure you're OK?" Dana asks me for the fifth time.
"Yes, I'm sure," I say, "Have you seen my purse?" I ask, remembering my Louis Vuitton handbag.
"What purse?" She asks me.
"My Louis Vuitton," I say, "I remember bringing it in and putting it on my bed."
"No, haven't seen it," she says, opening up her biology textbook.
I'm sure that I brought it in. How could it be gone? Oh well, it wasn't really mine to begin with so I guess it's OK.
Anyway, I have bigger things to worry about right now. I open up my computer and start typing.
"What are you doing?" Dana says abruptly, her eyes no longer glued to her textbook.
"I'm typing up my essay," I say matter-of-factly.
"No typing, close your computer," she commands. I stop typing, afraid. "Get back in bed, I don't want to see you typing anything."
I lie back down. She can be real scary sometimes. Dana continues reading her textbook.
I go to sleep.
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"Are you sure it was him?" I ask.
"Yes, I'm sure," Gabrielle says. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I don't think Josh did it," I say. "He doesn't seem the type."
"I don't care if he seems like the type or not, he's the one who killed me," she says.
"Was there anyone else there?" I ask, "Maybe you missed something."
"I don't know, all I remember was that there was a lot of light and---"
I suddenly remember the gun.
"You said he was holding a knife?" I ask, interrupting her.
"Yeah, so?" she says.
"Well, do you actually remember being stabbed?" I ask, "you said you saw a light right after he took out his knife, which doesn't really make sense, usually, with a knife, it takes a lot longer than..." I say, stopping myself short. I don't want to be too graphic about the knife stabbing. What I wanted to say was that with a knife, it would take a few stabs to kill someone, which isn't consistent with what she said. She never mentioned being stabbed, and, she said that once he took out his knife she saw a bright light, and then she was dead. From what she's telling me, it sounds like the weapon might have been a gun, because a gun can kill you within the blink of a second. Anyway, that was what the news article said when I read it a few weeks ago. I was basically taking it from there.
"Are you sure it wasn't a gun?" I ask.
"Well, I did hear a loud sound, it might have been a gun, why, does it really matter?" she asks me, her eyes wide.
"Yes, it just might," I say, rolling my eyes. I can't believe this; she's been feeding me the wrong information. And just think, if she's wrong about the knife, then she might be wrong about who killed her. Can I trust what she says about Josh if she's wrong about this?
"Yeah, I'll see ya, K?" Dana says, coming inside the room. I see Matt standing in the doorway. Matt comes inside and gives Dana a kiss on the cheek, after which she becomes as red as her hair. She closes the door as soon as he leaves.
"Hi," Dana says, skipping over to her bed and opening up her textbook. I eye her slyly. She hasn't even told me she was going out on a date with him.
I go out into the hall, Gabrielle following suit.
As soon as I close the door I open my mouth to say that we'll continue this later when Gabrielle states, "Was that Matt?"
"Yeah, you know him?" I ask, surprised.
"Yeah, he's my best friend," she says, a smile spreading on her face.
"Was," I say.
"Whatever," she says, "but what's he doing with her?" she asks, looking at the door with a disgusted expression on her face.
"Hey, you're talking about my friend here," I say, getting defensive. How dare she talk about Dana like that? "So, you used to be friend's with the guy?"
"Yeah, he and my dad were pretty close too," she says, her eyes glazing over, "We used to hang out all the time. He is such a great guy, sensitive, funny...I bet he was so upset when he found out about me...he probably wept for days...stopped eating..."
"Yeah, I bet," I say. He doesn't look too bad, if you ask me, for someone who's supposed to be in mourning. "Anyway, I'm going to head off..."
I hadn't even finished the sentence before she left.
Great.
I head back inside and begin to question Dana about her date.
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A/N: I'll try to update as soon as I can.