"Carlos, the doctor said you need to rest," Alexa giggled. She and Carlos were cuddled together in the recliner in the living room of the cabin. Dr. Bonilla released him after he went 24 hours with no complications. He set him up with a doctor in Aspen to check up with regularly, but Carlos did not need to stay in the hospital. At the moment he had been tickling his girlfriend.
"I hate resting. All I do is rest."
"You had a pretty serious accident, a major concussion, and your liver is still healing." She kissed his cheek. "You're probably dying to jump around and be your usual self, but you just can't. I know sitting still is like a death sentence for you."
"I want to play my snowboarding game," he whined.
"I know, but we need to get you healed."
Carlos looked like he was about to cry. Honestly, he felt like crying even though it made his head hurt. He was overly frustrated with all of this. Sitting around, doing nothing, that wasn't him. He was the one bouncing off the walls, literally.
"Can you believe it?" Logan entered the room with his laptop under his arm. "The class I missed on Tuesday was all review for the test we're having on Thursday! I would have forgotten we have a test tomorrow if Alicia hadn't texted me wondering where I was."
"You're not going to study in here, are you?" Carlos asked.
"Yep." Logan plopped down on the leather couch and opened up his laptop. "That is precisely what I'm going to do. I need to study and keep an eye on you."
Carlos rolled his eyes even though that action hurt his head. To be honest, most everything hurt his head, but that was to be expected he had decided when one has a concussion.
"I've got Alexa and my mom here," Carlos informed him. Officer Garcia had to fly back that morning to get back to work, but Mrs. Garcia was able to take a few more days off to take care of her son. He told her he had Logan and Alexa to watch him, but being his mother she insisted and Carlos didn't really object to it. He enjoyed having his parents around. He enjoyed having Katie and Mrs. Knight around, too, but they had to get back to LA so Katie wouldn't miss anymore school.
"I know," Logan responded without taking his eyes of his monitor.
"Look what came today." Kendall entered the room carrying a humongous box with his open laptop on top.
"Your laptop?" Carlos asked.
"No." He turned the laptop around while still holding the box with one arm to show Carlos. "I'm talking to Jo. Say hi to Jo."
"Hi, Jo," Carlos, Alexa, and Logan though he was out of the frame chorused.
"Hey," Jo replied. "Good to see you're home, Carlos."
"Thanks."
"OK, back to the box." Kendall laid the box on the floor and put the laptop on the coffee table with the screen facing him. Opening it, he pulled some of the items inside, "James's hockey skates, Logan's hockey pads, my hockey helmet…well, it looks like we won't be needing these any time soon."
"I'm sorry."
"I—I didn't mean it like that, no," Kendall instantly felt shame. He didn't mean to make Carlos feel guilty.
"But, it's my fault…"
"No, no," He exchanged a look with Jo. "I—no. Carlos, no."
"Hey, Carlos," Logan piped up, "how would you like to quiz me for my test tomorrow?"
"No." Carlos made a face causing Alexa to burst out laughing. No one else had been looking at Carlos to see it. "My head hurts too much to do that."
"How bad does it hurt?" Logan asked curiously.
"Bad enough to not want to quiz you in Biology." He glanced over at Kendall who was lovingly fingering his skates. "If you want to go skating you can, you know."
"No, no, I'm good." Kendall placed the skates back in the box. "I'll just go put this in my room and maybe later…"
"I'm sorry," Carlos exclaimed causing everyone to be taken aback. "I'm sorry I befriended such idiot people who made me, made me, made me do stuff and treat you guys like crap. I'm sorry I got hurt and now you can't do what you love to do because you don't want to do it without me." Carlos jumped up from the recliner and ran to the stairs. He made it up three steps before he collapsed.
"Carlos!" Alexa shouted running to him. Logan and Kendall stood up, but they let Alexa deal with him.
"Dizzy," Carlos responded.
"Why don't we go lay down in bed? We can snuggle," she whispered the last sentence.
Mrs. Garcia ran into the room.
"Just a dizzy spell," Logan assured.
"Do you need anything?" She asked. "Let me get you some medicine for your head, Bebe."
"OK," he said softly as Alexa helped him up the stairs.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Garcia joined them in Carlos's room with two ibuprofens, a peeled orange, and a glass of water. Carlos was lying on top of the covers and Alexa sat next to him. Mrs. Garcia sat down on the other side.
"Eat this. It should help you feel better." She handed him the orange after he took the pills.
"Don't want it."
"You need to eat something besides corn dogs and Fruit Smackers. You need to eat some fruit."
"Fruit Smackers is fruit."
"Fruit flavoring. I'm pretty sure it has no actual fruit in it."
"You like oranges," Alexa said. She took the orange from Mrs. Garcia, pulled apart one slice, and handed it to Carlos.
He took the slice and chewed it gingerly.
"Thanks, Mom."
"Dinner should be ready in an hour." She kissed his forehead. "We're having tacos."
Carlos loved his mom's cooking, but tonight he was not feeling it.
"You don't have to join us if you don't feel like it. Does your incision hurt? How about your ribs?"
"They're uncomfortable."
"The ibuprofen should work for that, too." She kissed his forehead again. "Just be patient. I love you," she said before leaving the room.
Alexa laid down and put her head on Carlos's chest as she had done many times before when Carlos grimaced.
"I'm sorry." She quickly sat up. "I forgot that's where your incision is. How are we going to do this?"
"You lay down," Carlos instructed.
Alexa did as she was told and Carlos put his head on her chest.
"Only if you take off your helmet."
"Aw," Carlos whined, but complied, throwing his helmet on the floor.
Alexa ran her hands through Carlos's short black hair and occasionally rubbed his head. Carlos closed his eyes and let her motions lull him into a trance, but he didn't fall asleep. When what felt like a couple of minutes passed Carlos opened his eyes.
"I did drugs."
"I know." It hurt his neck, which was no longer in the brace, but he positioned himself so he could see her brown eyes. He hated causing her pain and he knew telling her this probably hurt her, but he had to tell her. She had to know. He wasn't going to keep secrets from her.
"Marijuana mostly, but Sunday night I smoked crack for the first time. I was high when I got hurt. On marijuana. I only used crack that one time. I thought I was invincible, but boy was I wrong." He moved back into a more comfortable position to give his sore neck a rest. A tear slid down his cheek and he didn't bother to wipe it away. "I know drugs are bad. I did it because they did it."
"Peer pressure," Alexa said knowingly.
"They never pressured me. They were doing it, so I did it, too. I wasn't doing it to be cool or anything like that. They were doing it, so I did it, too. I don't know why I let them influence me so much. They could have been eating barbecued cockroaches and I probably would have just joined right in."
"If they jumped off a bridge would you do it, too?" She continued running her hands through Carlos's short hair soothingly.
"I probably would have. I acted so dumb." Another tear slid down his cheek. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I scared you and didn't call you and…now I have to get a new phone."
"Don't beat yourself up over this. We all make mistakes. The important thing is you learn from it and don't do drugs again."
"You're very cool for being so understanding." He closed his eyes and let Alexa's soothing touch put him to sleep.
In previous chapters I've changed Mr. Garcia to Officer Garcia. I've been questioning myself since his introduction whether I should call him Mr. or Officer and I think I made my final decision today. I think. I also hope you don't think Carlos didn't spend enough time in the hospital. When my dad had prostate surgery he didn't have to stay in ICU, but they did only keep him overnight so I figured that would probably be the case with Carlos here. Hospitals like to get you in and out as quickly as possible (whether it really is a good idea or not).
OK, I just saw the Big Time Christmas Ep. and now have no more new episodes of BTR to watch ever. But, I'm caught up on all my episode knowledge, so… well, that's no consolation. No new (to me) episodes! Aw, well. I can't believe how the ending closely resembles my Big Time Thanksgiving one-shot found in my Big Time One-Shots collection (except in that one Bitters is upset about the boys spending the holiday with him and there's no Gustavo or Kelly). Well, I shouldn't be too surprised since it's not an uncommon theme. BTW, if I had the Palm Woods all to myself, I'd go dancing up and down each hall. Honest.
Oh, btw, Happy New Year!