14- Friends

Genevieve's back of her head was bloody after falling backwards into the bench. She hit a metal piece of the bench hard with full force after her 'friend,' Lucy shoved her during an argument, and two younger girls from the playground rushed to her aid. Lucy shirked in fear of the consequences, and the fact that Gene wouldn't get up.

"Are you okay!?" One of the girls rested her hand on Gene's.

"I'll go get my teacher and the nurse!" The other girl with short curly chocolate brown hair, and hazel eyes; wearing the elementary school portion of the school's fall uniform bounced up to go get some help and rose to the occasion.

The girl resting her hand on Gene's didn't move her. She had straight mousy brown hair and freckles with grey eyes. She asked her what her name was; possibly to keep her conscious.

"My name is Genevieve but you can call me Gene, uuuh it hurts!" The girl grimaced back, and stroked Gene's hand gently.

"I'm Leslie, and I'm in Fourth grade year here. You?"

"Sixth. Oof." Gene was having a hard time staying a wake, opening and closing her eyes, rather slowly.

"I could of sworn you looked younger than that! Please stay with me!" Leslie slapped her cheek lightly with her hand. The girl with chocolate curls came running with two adults.

"We need to call 911 now." The nurse said. The teacher got out her cellphone and dialed them quickly. The fortunate part was that emergency services were usually as fast as lightening these days with the invention of the flying car/ambulance. The unfortunate part was that Gene had almost lost consciousness by the time the paramedics were there.

The EMTs rushed out of the ambulance after landing in the nearby sandbox. They cautiously, put Genevieve on a stretcher after placing a wrap around her head and the lady EMT kept telling her to count to twenty and spell her full name.

The ambulance rushed her to the nearest hospital.

Gene was taken to Seattle's UW medical center, and she was put under for a surgery on the back of her head. She had ten stitches and was in the hospital for a little while.

Her parents, Dan and Hilda visited her as soon as they could come to the hospital.

"Oh, my dear daughter! " Her mom held her head and kissed her forehead. She looked very similar to her mom, despite her mom's brown freckles.

Her mom had a deep red short bob cut and the same honey brown eyes as her. Gene had less melatonin in her skin making her look more pale because of lack of sun exposure because she was always inside studying.

Dan on the other hand had a black head of hair and brown eyes. He was japanese in ancestry, making Genevieve half Caucasian, half Asian. When Dan's great great grandparents parents immigrated from Japan after WW2, They changed their original last name 'Yasu' to 'Price.'

Her father, Dan was working remotely in their home in Enumclaw when the mountain had erupted. His parents had moved their originally to more affordable housing away from one of the most expensive places to live in the nation, Seattle. They had remote jobs as well. He met her mother, Hilda in Enumclaw at Highschool and found her to be a breath of fresh air.

"Are you alright, my sweet pea?!" Her dad frowned and looked at her bandaged head. It had seemed the hospital had to cut off a good part of her hair as well to perform the surgery.

"Who on earth did this to you?"

"A girl I thought was my friend but had actually just wanted to bully me. I tried to confront her and she pushed me down into a bench. I feel like she may of not understood entirely what she was doing."

"She should of thought about the consequences before pushing someone into a possibly dangerous situation." Her dad was always talking about cause and effect and consequences to actions to the point of obsession.

"It may of been a simple mistake, a fleeting cause of anger." Hilda said slowly shaking her head. Gene looked at her mother, some tears running down her face. Her daughter was stuck in a bed for who knows how long.

"We should go talk to the nurse, Dan." Hilda put her hand on his. He nodded back.

"We'll be right back, Sweetie."

--

"How long do you think she will be in the hospital for?"

"We need to make sure she is okay, she may be here for a few days to months. We haven't gotten to check her ability to move yet. She just woke up. Hitting the back of her head could cause coordination lost or difficulty with temperature or breathing, or with her vision."

"Oh dear, how do we intend to pay for this?" Hilda whispered to her husband.

"She's on state insurance, we may be able to get her out sooner than expected." Dan could be hopeful and be the rock for his family.

That was not the case at all, as Gene had lost a lot of ability of movement.

She stayed in the hospital for about a year, trying to keep up on her studies but it was super difficult to sleep. A few times she had some visitors from the school.

"Hi, I'm Leslie, and this is Maisie." The two younger girls had come to visit for the first time, a week after she had gotten hurt.

"We were just wondering if you made it out alive; we asked our teachers, and the answer was you had been hospitalized, and we felt so bad for you!" Maisie said.

"I felt like I had no friends at that school, I am super thankful you came to see me!" Gene said and smiled widely, tears in her eyes. The nurse had told her she had visitors, and she was confused because her parents usually came in at the same time every day and had already left.

"That's super unfair." Leslie shook her head. Her cute shorter hair shaking.

"Why didn't you have friends?" Maisie asked.

"I'm a scholarship student who skipped a year of school. We are also of a lower class than most of the kids that go to the school." Gene replied.

"Why did that girl shove you down if you don't mind me asking?" Leslie said, concerned.

"I was trying to confront her about why she had pretended to be my friend."

"You're so brave, I couldn't do that." Maisie said.

"Well, the bullying had gotten out of hand by the class. They wrote mean sticky notes on my back, pulled my pigtails and after Lucy found out I was from Enumclaw they wrote I was a 'dirty hick' on my desk in permanent marker.

"I'm surprised your teacher didn't do anything about it. " Leslie said.

"Some people just don't like to get involved with that kind of stuff." Gene shrugged.

"Wow it looked like they had to get rid of a lot of your beautiful red hair." Maisie frowned.

"They had to make room for the stitches." Gene was a tiny bit upset about it but there was nothing to be done.

"It'll grow back!" Leslie smiled at her.

"Hi, it's getting late, it's time to go girls, time for Gene to get some sleep and visitor hours are coming to the end." Her Nurse, Imogene had come in with her jammies. Gene could move her arms a little but not her legs.

"Okay, it was nice to see you, we will visit again, I promise!" Maisie smiled and waved.

"Bye!" Leslie said.

-

Their first visit had made them hopeful for the future, and their second visit made her even better. She had just gone through her first session of Physical therapy. She had felt somewhat defeat after the first time.

"You won't have the ability to walk again the first time you do the therapy." Her mom said, trying to console her. "You can't be expected to relearn walking right away. Your brain needs to repair itself."

Her mom was concerned too that She wouldn't be able to walk again but she was still hopeful she would recover, it was only the second week she was in the hospital.

"Hi Mrs. Price, there's some younger visitors to see Genevieve, is that okay?" Nurse Imogene had come in and mentioned. Gene's eyes widened. She was super excited to see it was the two girls she met previously.

"Please please please let them in mom!"

"Who are they?"

"Maisie and Leslie I hope!"

"Oh ok, you made some friends?"

"I hope so."

"Alright please let them in, Ms Imogene." Hilda nodded.

Leslie came in and held Gene's hand.

"We took the liberty to ask your teacher about your schooling. She got the principal to okay you to do it remotely and sent us with this computer. You just have to sign a paper for the check out of it." Leslie handed her the paper. It was a bit of a challenge to sign her name. Leslie noticed.

"Are you okay?"

"I lost a lot of movement in my arms, hands, and legs due to the blunt trauma on my head."

"She lost some of her abilities and needs to relearn them, it'll take time." Her mom said.