Categories > Original > Romance > I Hate You But I Like You
Elektra’s Story.
I woke up in a bed that was unquestionably not mine. The sheets were scratchy, the air smelled weird and I was definitely not in my room. I sat up, suddenly feeling terrified. I’m not a baby, but when I wake up, I like to know exactly where I am. And right now, I had no idea. All I knew was that I was almost certainly alone in this very dark room. I’m not scared of the dark, so that was a plus. But still.
“Ow!” I suddenly gasped, putting both my hands up to my head. My head had just started pounding from nowhere and it hurt like hell! And- what the shit? I had a bandage on my head!
As you can probably tell, I was really freaking out. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I was obviously in a hospital. Wild thoughts were running through my head. I’d been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. I’d been abducted by aliens. I’d been captured by a sex slave ring and had been transported to some filthy brothel with scratchy sheets and lumpy pillows to ‘service’ nasty, dirty old men who couldn’t get any from their wives and who wanted a nubile young thing like me.
Personally, I liked the first idea better. I wondered if my dad would pay the ransom. Coz the last thing I remember saying to him (yay, I didn’t have insomnia! I think) was “so what? You don’t own my ass! I don’t need you, or that fake ass skank you call your wife!”
Oh fuckity. I badmouthed his precious trophy wife. He is so not gonna pay off my ransom.
I lay back onto the lumpy pillows and tried to make myself comfortable, which was next to impossible because every time I moved, my head would start thumping again. I felt like I had woken up to a very bad hangover, you know, the type you get when you’ve drunk a full bottle of Grey Goose vodka and you’re downing shots of Tequila as fast as possible. Not that I’ve done either, dad, if you happen to be reading this. Ahem. Moving right along.
Suddenly, a door opened and someone tiptoed into the room. My first instinct was to pretend to be asleep, but curiosity won out. They had bandaged my head, hadn’t they? So they couldn’t be that bad, right?
“Where am I?” I asked, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. Didn’t work. I sounded like a 13 year old boy whose voice was just starting to break.
“Oh, you’re awake!” a lady breathed.
So not what I expected.
The lady flicked a switch and light flooded the room. I screwed my eyes shut. The glare hurt my already very sore head. I heard her come around to my bed and feel my forehead. I grabbed her wrist menacingly, smiling inwardly as I felt her stiffen. Good. I still had it.
“I said, where am I?” I asked her again.
“Sweetheart, you’re in the hospital. I’m your nurse. Your parents are outside.”
Oh.
More than a little bit embarrassed, I let go of her arm and decided not to correct her on her mistake. My dad was outside with his trophy wife. No way was I calling a 26 year old my step mom.
“How long have I been here?” I asked. Curiosity definitely trumps humiliation.
“The ambulance brought you in this morning. You had a massive head laceration. Needed 12 stitches,” my nurse said perversely. That made me feel rather nauseous and I didn’t protest when she stuck a thermometer under my tongue, checked my blood pressure and wrote down her findings on a chart that was at the foot of my bed.
“What happened to me?” I asked. The hospital was already starting to get to me. I haven’t been in one since my mom died and I hadn’t really been planning on ending up in one as a patient. Plus, I couldn’t remember anything much after my argument with my dad. I remember getting into my car, driving down to Starbucks, drinking a coffee and that was it. It hurt my head too much to even think, so I decided not to. The nurse turned to me, her face suitably solemn.
“Well, you hit your head on the sidewalk,” she said breathlessly. I scowled.
“How the fuck did I manage to do that?” I asked myself.
“It seems you were going to cross Sunset Boulevard, to get to where your car was parked. You were jaywalking and a car was heading straight for you. The guy who came in with you said he just grabbed you in the nick of time.” She sat down in the visitors chair and gazed at me in frank admiration. “You are so lucky.”
I couldn’t process what she was telling me. Oh, sure, I remembered something about the ‘jaywalking’. But the nearest traffic light had been almost a mile away! No way was I gonna walk a mile when there was a short cut. And that wasn’t the first time I had jay walked on a busy street. It was the easiest way to get to my car and I had taken it. Or tried to.
“So who the hell is this person who grabbed me in the ‘nick of time’?” I asked the nurse, who clearly had too much time on her hands. She wrinkled her brow.
“I thought he was your boyfriend, sweetheart,” she said. I glared at her. I hated people calling me sweetheart, darling and sweetie. Honey I’ll accept. Sweetums? No way.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I snapped. Then I decided to amend the statement, no sense in her thinking guys didn’t wanna take me down. Coz they do. “Yet. I don’t have a boyfriend yet.”
“Oh! Well, isn’t this romantic! He came in with you in the ambulance, wouldn’t leave until the doctor had called your parents and insisted on sitting by your bedside till they arrived. He was quite the charmer too!” The nurse giggled. “We were all sure he was your boyfriend.”
Well. This was interesting.
“What did he look like?” I asked curiously. Well, a girl has the right to know what her knight in shining armor looks like!
Ninny Nurse pursed up her lips in thought.
“He was tall, had caramel skin and dimples,” she cooed.
That sure narrows it down.
“Oh, and he was wearing a Sponge Bob t-shirt,” she remembered.
Oh, come on! I was saved by a guy who wore a Sponge Bob t-shirt? Not that I don’t like Sponge Bob or anything, but honestly!
The nurse’s pager went off and she reluctantly stood up.
“Well, I think I should call in your family. They’ll want to see you now that you’ve woken up. Are you feeling okay?” she asked me.
A question she should have asked way before she started me off on all that gossip. I noticed her blonde hair fluffed out under her nurses cap and her babyish face and decided she must be new. Shame on me for having encouraged her. I put a hand up to my still throbbing head.
“Big headache,” I said. She nodded understandingly.
“Doctor Macaulay will bring you some pain relievers when he comes by to see you.” She came closer and lowered her voice confidingly. “He’s a very good doctor. You’re in safe hands.”
Blushing and giggling, she tiptoed out of the room, leaving me staring after her in amazement. And I thought the doctors and nurses on Grey’s Anatomy were loco.
My dad was the first person through the door. He hugged me tight, as if he would never let me go. I was sure glad when he did. My dad is a handsome, young looking 50 year old, but at that moment he looked haggard and old. I looked around at all the faces in the room. My big brother Jayden looked worried and tired. Even the trophy wife looked upset.
“Honey, what- how did it happen?” Dad asked me finally.
“I can’t remember. All I remember is- getting coffee at Starbucks, then walking to my car,” I shrugged.
“The guy who saved your ass- sorry dad- butt said you just walked into the path of oncoming traffic. He said if he had been a second late, you woulda been hit,” Jayden spoke up. He was looking at me with a speculative expression on his face, one that I didn’t like at all.
“So? I didn’t see the car coming,” I replied flippantly, though I felt anything but flippant.
“He said it was almost as if you were doing it on purpose. Jaywalking at that dangerous intersection. Like you were trying to -.” Jayden shrugged. “You know.”
OMFG. They thought I was gonna kill myself? Shit, even I’m not that screwed up.
I opened up my mouth to try defend myself but dad beat me to it.
“Honey, I know that we’ve been at war lately, what with everything that’s been happening at home,” he started.
Oh yeah. Like you marrying a gold digging trollop who you’ve barely known for three months.
“But – you can’t solve your problems like this. We should sit down and talk them over, you, me, Jay and Suzanne, as a family.”
He smiled at Suzanne, AKA trophy wife, as he said this. Hand me a frickin bucket.
“For real though, Elektra. You scared the piss out of us- sorry dad.”
I was in no mood to argue, so I just squeezed out a few crocodile tears (my specialty). Suzanne tutted when she saw them and gave me a scented Kleenex.
“Don’t cry, sugar,” she drawled in the Southern accent (she hasn’t lived in Georgia since she was two! Get over it, already!) and patted my shoulder.
“I’m sorry for scaring you guys,” I muttered awkwardly. “And I promise I’ll never do something like this again.”
That ought to hold them. Sheesh, these days you can’t even jaywalk? Life sucks.
Dad gave me another hug just as the doctor walked in. He was cute. Not McDreamy cute, but still kinda hot. No wonder ninny nurse was such a – ninny.
He greeted me with a smile.
“Ah, Elektra, I’m Doctor Macaulay. I’m glad to see you awake,” he said and started probing at my head. I kind of zoned out at that point, trying to deal with the pain. I came around up again when I heard trophy wife ask anxiously “when can she come home, doctor?”
“I want to keep her in for further observation, but I’m sure she’ll be as right as rain in a day or so,” the doctor replied.
Jeeze, that clears things up immeasurably.
“So she can come home by the day after tomorrow?” Jayden asked. I could tell he was in protective big bro mode. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was glaring at Doctor McVague.
“Yes, I suppose she can,” the doctor said. He handed me a small plastic cup filled with water and two small pills. “Pain relievers. Nurse Adams told me your head hurts.”
I took the water and gulped down the pills. Nurse Adams was a Godsend.
“Doctor, has Elektra suffered any lasting harm?” my dad inquired nervously.
“No, not so much. She has an MTBI,” the doctor explained. We all stared at him. I mean, what the shit? In layman’s terms please!
“Say what?” Jayden asked. I could tell he was so pissed and I almost laughed out loud.
“An MTBI. Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Its not too serious,” he said hurriedly, noting the shocked expressions on all our faces. “Its actually the mildest form of consussion. Elektra had quite a nasty bump on the head and- well, her brain shook, so to speak. She’ll be just fine in a few days. But I’ll recommend several days of bed rest.”
Dad let out a sigh of relief and squeezed the life out of my hand.
“Thank God,” he muttered. “Thank God.”
Doctor Macaulay looked at dad, Jayden and trophy wife.
“I’m sorry, folks. I think that Elektra might be glad to get a bit of rest. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Sure, doctor,” my dad said respectfully, before turning to me and hugging me. He glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting in 30 minutes. I’ll come back to see you in the evening.”
“Okay,” I said. Trophy wife hovered by my bed side.
“Is there anything I can bring for you from home? Food, snacks- anything?” she asked me hesitantly.
The evil bitch in me was tempted to tell her to screw off and leave me the hell alone, but I wasn’t feeling up to being a bitch. I had a brain injury!
“I want sheets. Soft sheets. And my pj’s. And I want my Annie doll. And some Ferrero Rocher candy. And a -“ I started.
“Jeeze, diva,” grinned Jayden. I couldn’t resist sticking out my tongue at him. I knew he was just glad I was okay and to tell you the truth, I was glad I was okay too. There's nothing fun about a permanent brain injury.
And I’m not a baby. My Annie doll’s just for company.
Dad, Jayden and trophy wife walked out of the room after saying bye, followed by Doctor Macaulay. I lay back down, pulled the scratchy blanket up to my chin and slept like the dead.
I woke up in a bed that was unquestionably not mine. The sheets were scratchy, the air smelled weird and I was definitely not in my room. I sat up, suddenly feeling terrified. I’m not a baby, but when I wake up, I like to know exactly where I am. And right now, I had no idea. All I knew was that I was almost certainly alone in this very dark room. I’m not scared of the dark, so that was a plus. But still.
“Ow!” I suddenly gasped, putting both my hands up to my head. My head had just started pounding from nowhere and it hurt like hell! And- what the shit? I had a bandage on my head!
As you can probably tell, I was really freaking out. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I was obviously in a hospital. Wild thoughts were running through my head. I’d been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. I’d been abducted by aliens. I’d been captured by a sex slave ring and had been transported to some filthy brothel with scratchy sheets and lumpy pillows to ‘service’ nasty, dirty old men who couldn’t get any from their wives and who wanted a nubile young thing like me.
Personally, I liked the first idea better. I wondered if my dad would pay the ransom. Coz the last thing I remember saying to him (yay, I didn’t have insomnia! I think) was “so what? You don’t own my ass! I don’t need you, or that fake ass skank you call your wife!”
Oh fuckity. I badmouthed his precious trophy wife. He is so not gonna pay off my ransom.
I lay back onto the lumpy pillows and tried to make myself comfortable, which was next to impossible because every time I moved, my head would start thumping again. I felt like I had woken up to a very bad hangover, you know, the type you get when you’ve drunk a full bottle of Grey Goose vodka and you’re downing shots of Tequila as fast as possible. Not that I’ve done either, dad, if you happen to be reading this. Ahem. Moving right along.
Suddenly, a door opened and someone tiptoed into the room. My first instinct was to pretend to be asleep, but curiosity won out. They had bandaged my head, hadn’t they? So they couldn’t be that bad, right?
“Where am I?” I asked, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. Didn’t work. I sounded like a 13 year old boy whose voice was just starting to break.
“Oh, you’re awake!” a lady breathed.
So not what I expected.
The lady flicked a switch and light flooded the room. I screwed my eyes shut. The glare hurt my already very sore head. I heard her come around to my bed and feel my forehead. I grabbed her wrist menacingly, smiling inwardly as I felt her stiffen. Good. I still had it.
“I said, where am I?” I asked her again.
“Sweetheart, you’re in the hospital. I’m your nurse. Your parents are outside.”
Oh.
More than a little bit embarrassed, I let go of her arm and decided not to correct her on her mistake. My dad was outside with his trophy wife. No way was I calling a 26 year old my step mom.
“How long have I been here?” I asked. Curiosity definitely trumps humiliation.
“The ambulance brought you in this morning. You had a massive head laceration. Needed 12 stitches,” my nurse said perversely. That made me feel rather nauseous and I didn’t protest when she stuck a thermometer under my tongue, checked my blood pressure and wrote down her findings on a chart that was at the foot of my bed.
“What happened to me?” I asked. The hospital was already starting to get to me. I haven’t been in one since my mom died and I hadn’t really been planning on ending up in one as a patient. Plus, I couldn’t remember anything much after my argument with my dad. I remember getting into my car, driving down to Starbucks, drinking a coffee and that was it. It hurt my head too much to even think, so I decided not to. The nurse turned to me, her face suitably solemn.
“Well, you hit your head on the sidewalk,” she said breathlessly. I scowled.
“How the fuck did I manage to do that?” I asked myself.
“It seems you were going to cross Sunset Boulevard, to get to where your car was parked. You were jaywalking and a car was heading straight for you. The guy who came in with you said he just grabbed you in the nick of time.” She sat down in the visitors chair and gazed at me in frank admiration. “You are so lucky.”
I couldn’t process what she was telling me. Oh, sure, I remembered something about the ‘jaywalking’. But the nearest traffic light had been almost a mile away! No way was I gonna walk a mile when there was a short cut. And that wasn’t the first time I had jay walked on a busy street. It was the easiest way to get to my car and I had taken it. Or tried to.
“So who the hell is this person who grabbed me in the ‘nick of time’?” I asked the nurse, who clearly had too much time on her hands. She wrinkled her brow.
“I thought he was your boyfriend, sweetheart,” she said. I glared at her. I hated people calling me sweetheart, darling and sweetie. Honey I’ll accept. Sweetums? No way.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I snapped. Then I decided to amend the statement, no sense in her thinking guys didn’t wanna take me down. Coz they do. “Yet. I don’t have a boyfriend yet.”
“Oh! Well, isn’t this romantic! He came in with you in the ambulance, wouldn’t leave until the doctor had called your parents and insisted on sitting by your bedside till they arrived. He was quite the charmer too!” The nurse giggled. “We were all sure he was your boyfriend.”
Well. This was interesting.
“What did he look like?” I asked curiously. Well, a girl has the right to know what her knight in shining armor looks like!
Ninny Nurse pursed up her lips in thought.
“He was tall, had caramel skin and dimples,” she cooed.
That sure narrows it down.
“Oh, and he was wearing a Sponge Bob t-shirt,” she remembered.
Oh, come on! I was saved by a guy who wore a Sponge Bob t-shirt? Not that I don’t like Sponge Bob or anything, but honestly!
The nurse’s pager went off and she reluctantly stood up.
“Well, I think I should call in your family. They’ll want to see you now that you’ve woken up. Are you feeling okay?” she asked me.
A question she should have asked way before she started me off on all that gossip. I noticed her blonde hair fluffed out under her nurses cap and her babyish face and decided she must be new. Shame on me for having encouraged her. I put a hand up to my still throbbing head.
“Big headache,” I said. She nodded understandingly.
“Doctor Macaulay will bring you some pain relievers when he comes by to see you.” She came closer and lowered her voice confidingly. “He’s a very good doctor. You’re in safe hands.”
Blushing and giggling, she tiptoed out of the room, leaving me staring after her in amazement. And I thought the doctors and nurses on Grey’s Anatomy were loco.
My dad was the first person through the door. He hugged me tight, as if he would never let me go. I was sure glad when he did. My dad is a handsome, young looking 50 year old, but at that moment he looked haggard and old. I looked around at all the faces in the room. My big brother Jayden looked worried and tired. Even the trophy wife looked upset.
“Honey, what- how did it happen?” Dad asked me finally.
“I can’t remember. All I remember is- getting coffee at Starbucks, then walking to my car,” I shrugged.
“The guy who saved your ass- sorry dad- butt said you just walked into the path of oncoming traffic. He said if he had been a second late, you woulda been hit,” Jayden spoke up. He was looking at me with a speculative expression on his face, one that I didn’t like at all.
“So? I didn’t see the car coming,” I replied flippantly, though I felt anything but flippant.
“He said it was almost as if you were doing it on purpose. Jaywalking at that dangerous intersection. Like you were trying to -.” Jayden shrugged. “You know.”
OMFG. They thought I was gonna kill myself? Shit, even I’m not that screwed up.
I opened up my mouth to try defend myself but dad beat me to it.
“Honey, I know that we’ve been at war lately, what with everything that’s been happening at home,” he started.
Oh yeah. Like you marrying a gold digging trollop who you’ve barely known for three months.
“But – you can’t solve your problems like this. We should sit down and talk them over, you, me, Jay and Suzanne, as a family.”
He smiled at Suzanne, AKA trophy wife, as he said this. Hand me a frickin bucket.
“For real though, Elektra. You scared the piss out of us- sorry dad.”
I was in no mood to argue, so I just squeezed out a few crocodile tears (my specialty). Suzanne tutted when she saw them and gave me a scented Kleenex.
“Don’t cry, sugar,” she drawled in the Southern accent (she hasn’t lived in Georgia since she was two! Get over it, already!) and patted my shoulder.
“I’m sorry for scaring you guys,” I muttered awkwardly. “And I promise I’ll never do something like this again.”
That ought to hold them. Sheesh, these days you can’t even jaywalk? Life sucks.
Dad gave me another hug just as the doctor walked in. He was cute. Not McDreamy cute, but still kinda hot. No wonder ninny nurse was such a – ninny.
He greeted me with a smile.
“Ah, Elektra, I’m Doctor Macaulay. I’m glad to see you awake,” he said and started probing at my head. I kind of zoned out at that point, trying to deal with the pain. I came around up again when I heard trophy wife ask anxiously “when can she come home, doctor?”
“I want to keep her in for further observation, but I’m sure she’ll be as right as rain in a day or so,” the doctor replied.
Jeeze, that clears things up immeasurably.
“So she can come home by the day after tomorrow?” Jayden asked. I could tell he was in protective big bro mode. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was glaring at Doctor McVague.
“Yes, I suppose she can,” the doctor said. He handed me a small plastic cup filled with water and two small pills. “Pain relievers. Nurse Adams told me your head hurts.”
I took the water and gulped down the pills. Nurse Adams was a Godsend.
“Doctor, has Elektra suffered any lasting harm?” my dad inquired nervously.
“No, not so much. She has an MTBI,” the doctor explained. We all stared at him. I mean, what the shit? In layman’s terms please!
“Say what?” Jayden asked. I could tell he was so pissed and I almost laughed out loud.
“An MTBI. Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Its not too serious,” he said hurriedly, noting the shocked expressions on all our faces. “Its actually the mildest form of consussion. Elektra had quite a nasty bump on the head and- well, her brain shook, so to speak. She’ll be just fine in a few days. But I’ll recommend several days of bed rest.”
Dad let out a sigh of relief and squeezed the life out of my hand.
“Thank God,” he muttered. “Thank God.”
Doctor Macaulay looked at dad, Jayden and trophy wife.
“I’m sorry, folks. I think that Elektra might be glad to get a bit of rest. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Sure, doctor,” my dad said respectfully, before turning to me and hugging me. He glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting in 30 minutes. I’ll come back to see you in the evening.”
“Okay,” I said. Trophy wife hovered by my bed side.
“Is there anything I can bring for you from home? Food, snacks- anything?” she asked me hesitantly.
The evil bitch in me was tempted to tell her to screw off and leave me the hell alone, but I wasn’t feeling up to being a bitch. I had a brain injury!
“I want sheets. Soft sheets. And my pj’s. And I want my Annie doll. And some Ferrero Rocher candy. And a -“ I started.
“Jeeze, diva,” grinned Jayden. I couldn’t resist sticking out my tongue at him. I knew he was just glad I was okay and to tell you the truth, I was glad I was okay too. There's nothing fun about a permanent brain injury.
And I’m not a baby. My Annie doll’s just for company.
Dad, Jayden and trophy wife walked out of the room after saying bye, followed by Doctor Macaulay. I lay back down, pulled the scratchy blanket up to my chin and slept like the dead.
Sign up to rate and review this story