Page 131 of Wrong Pucking Jersey

We’re five minutes from the hospital.

Closing my eyes, I hope to get the quickest power nap before facing more madness.

I hate dealing with the consequences.

Will You Ever Change

~MIKAYLA~

Fuck. I’m tired.

I don’t even have the energy to correct myself properly.

Opening my eyes enough to look at the ceiling, I’m grateful to be sitting in this quiet hallway on the bench than lying on that hospital bed with an IV running.

Yes. I’m one of those nurses who hates IVs…

I only recently got over inserting them in other people and keeping the contents in my stomach, not all over the patient.

Needles in my own veins? Something I got to work on.

The vibration of my phone makes me sigh and lift it up.

Dimitri.

If it was Maddox, I would have ignored it—again.

Not because my boyfriend ‘not my boyfriend in public yet because of social media campaigns’ didn’t deserve to know I was okay. I just felt really overwhelmed, and confronting him on the phone wouldn’t do me any good.

It didn’t feel right. I wanted to see him in person.

Over the phone, I’d say something stupid and try to push him away.

Hospitals have an odd effect on me. This hospital, in particular, haunted me.

Clemency Gardens.

The place where Mother died…

I wonder if these walls remember my screams and wails of disbelief from years ago. I’m sure places like these harbor so many emotions.

Happiness revolves around the birth of life. Sadness surrounds the hollowness of death.

“Mikayla speaking.”

“Thank goodness, Mikay, you’re awake,” Dimitri sighs in relief.

“Awake and disconnected from that horror machine.”

“You mean the pulse oximeter?”

“No,” I groan. “I hate IVs.”

“You’re a nurse.”

“Registered Nurse with honors,” I say with pride. “Put respect on my title.”

“At least you don’t sound too groggy. Are you resting in the hospital room?”

---