"Ow." Emily gasped as she opened her eyes. Too exhausted to move, she stared up at the ceiling as tears began to form in her eyes.
Why wasn't I more careful? She thought as she sucked in a lungful of air.
Whimpering and gasping in pain, she tried to stay as quiet as possible without waking Will.
"Emily, you're awake. How are you feeling? Do you want some water?" Will asked sleepily, exhaustion etched across his face.
Grabbing the pitcher from her bedside table, his hands shook as he poured water into a cup and looked at her sadly as he walked back over to her bed.
Taking a painful sip and trying to make the conversation lighter, she asked, "So, how badly am I broken?"
Making a pathetic attempt to smile, Will recited her injuries in the typical medical fashion.
"Um, you have five broken ribs, your nose, arm, eardrum, and ankle were broken, but everything was fixed in surgery. You had a collapsed lung, a torn diaphragm, and your heart stopped twice during surgery. I'm so sorry… If I was there and I would have drove you home, you wouldn't be here. It's my entire fault. I'm a guy, and I'm your best friend, I'm supposed to protect you." Will said as his voice shook and tears threatening to spill over.
"It's okay. I'm going to be fine. You're going to be fine, and when I get out of this hospital and I'm all healed, we are going to be happy and try to move on, okay?" Emily said as she held up Will's face with her good hand.
"Now," Emily said moving over on her hospital bed as painlessly as possible, "Get over here. This bed is a lot more comfortable than that chair and besides, you look like hell."
Emitting a watery laugh, Will took off his sneakers, made sure that he wasn't hurting Emily, and slowly but fitfully fell into a deep sleep.
With the comforting noise of Will's breathing and snoring, Emily's eyes grew heavy. Please God, if you are real, please fix this. Please catch that rapist, please help me get better, and please help Will.
With the morphine coursing through her veins and the exhaustion of her body weighing heavily upon her, Emily fell asleep.