Nicky looked at the clock.
1:48am.
Time was going by so slow.
Blood was everywhere.
Nicky wondered if they put all that blood back in her. They should have. They better have.
Nicky was scared. She had never felt so in the dark and unaware of her surroundings in her life. She never felt this unsure and this uneasy. And her eyes were begging for some sleep but there was no way she'd allow herself that luxury.
She stood up and began to pace, something she always did when she was worried about something. As she stood up she looked at the clock again.
2:02am.
'Alright, so the doctor should be coming back in an hour or so. Right? Not sure of the time anymore.' Nicky thought to herself. And she sat back down.
She heard footsteps and two people in conversation. This was the first sign of people Nicky had seen besides the nurse at the nurses' station since she had been in the waiting room. She just hoped it wasn't the doctor.
To her horror, the doctor that said he was doing the surgery came into the waiting room. He had splats of blood on various parts of his white coat. He immediately made eye contact with Nicky and the first thing that came to her mind, she said.
"You didn't want to change your coat, so you know, I don't have to look at my mother's blood all over you, that clearly did not decide to stay in her body?" Nicky so anxious.
"I'm sorry. I just wanted to get down her as soon as I could." The doctor sounded sincere.
"Which is earlier than you said it would be." Nicky spat back. She didn't know why she kept stalling from what he had to say. Subconsciously she did not want to hear it, as much as her heart told her she did.
"Yes, I know. There was a problem."
"Oh my God." Nicky whispered as she sat down in the chair and the doctor sat across from her. She felt as though her neck was on the guillotine and she was bracing herself for the blade to drop.
"When we examined the wound," the doctor began. "we found that a piece of her skull got lodged into her brain."
With each word, Nicky felt her knees getting weaker and weaker and she was grateful she was already sitting.
"Is she alive?" Nicky felt tears form in her eyes at how real this question was.
"At the moment, yes."
"What does that mean?" Nicky's tears began to fall and the nurse that walked in with the doctor handed her a box of tissues. She felt her gut being carved out.
"Because of the bit of skull that got pushed into her brain, it was not as big of an area that we needed to fix as we thought initially." The doctor explained.
"So her surgery time was normal then?" Nicky was confused.
"Yes, however, because we pulled the bit of bone fragment out of her brain, we won't know the damage until she wakes up."
"So she will wake up?"
"That is something that we don't know either."
"Did you get all of the blood put back in her?" Nicky was borderline sobbing at this point. She sounded so small, like a child.
"Yes, that was the first thing we did." The doctor nodded his head.
"When you said there was a problem, what did you mean then? Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out what you're telling me. Nothing seems to be sticking." Nicky sniffled.
"The problem I was referring to was the bone fragment. That means that there most likely is some sort of brain damage because of the location it was pushed into."
"What, so like memory loss? Loss of hearing? That type of thing?" Nicky didn't know how to get across what she meant. Or maybe she was being very clear, she couldn't tell. Her mind was on her mother's smile. That's all she could think about this entre time, her mommy's smile. She had no idea why that was the image in her head considering all that was going on. But she was grateful for it; it kept her warm.
"Possibly. Or it may be as severe as paralysis, or a vegetable state."
"Ok, ok, I can't do this anymore. Just come back when I can see her." Nicky whispered so quietly and broken.
"I'm sorry." And the doctor stood up and left, as did the nurse who came in with him.
Nicky looked at the clock.
2:30am.
Every now and then, she would glance beside her to make sure the little black bag was next to her. It was the thing Red told her to get out of the safe. Once while in the waiting room she peeked inside but only saw a small box. Not wanting to be snoopy, she decided to wait for Red to do with it what she wanted.
Miserably tired, miserably hungry, and miserably worried, Nicky sat with the blanket wrapped around her, her knees up to chest and face buried in her hands, crying uncontrollably.