Chapter Seven

I gasp waking up in a hospital bed, my grandmother's hand lays upon mine.

What's going on. I stare deeply at her, tearing up.

I groggily sit up and groan, she envelopes me into a hug. Tightly, she says, "____ I'm so glad you're awake. It's been a whole year." I stare at her blankly when she pulls away. She runs and gets the nurse and doctor, while she walks out I let my eyes wander around the room. White walls, gross green curtains and and empty view of my local hospital parking garage. I grip the thin cotton sheets, feeling the cotton stitches texture in the tips of my fingers.

What kind of fucked up dream was that?

I am startled by the doctor's loud rumble of a drum called a voice. I try to speak but words scratch across my throat as if I have been screaming for days. "That's normal Ms. (LN), you'll have that until you fully try to make use of it. You've been in a coma for a year now, you were found unconscious in the bathroom. Your coma was due to drug intoxication, a surprising amounts of gamma butyrolactone." I stare at him dumbly, like I'm supposed to know what that fucking word means. 

My head rushes and I lean back to avoid passing out, I groan and begin gagging as one of the nurses return just in time with some ondansetron. Curing me of hurling an empty stomach of acids. Just as I get comfortable he begins talking again, "Ms. (LN), if I ask you some questions can you shake your head yes and/or no?" I smile politely.

Giving an agreeing nod he begins, "Ms. (LN), you were dropped off at the front gates by a Jacob Mandazis, do you know him?" Affirming nod, a flash back of him pinning me to the bed after I tried to break up with him. He grabbed my face and poured a glass of what I thought was water down my throat. I shuttered and stared at him, the realization hits him that I've began to remember the events unfolding.

He takes a seat on the grey adjustable spin chairs you would see at a therapist appointment as a child. "I know this must be difficult for you. I know you can't speak to me very well, but I just want you to know that he is put in jail for what he did to you. They found his semen at the crime scene and the same matched the DNA we found in you. Also his fingerprints on the date rape drug bottle." I sighed a feeling of relief, but nobody can tell me what I just saw or why I just saw it.

He spoke up, "You can go home within the next few days as we need to keep an eye on your progress as to we need to make sure you're condition doesn't deteriorate. You're also going to begin rehabilitation, let me know if you need anything." I nod my head and he spends the rest of his time there talking with my grandmother outside. I hear him tell her that I was lucky to even be alive at that point, so she should count her blessings because I may even go downhill from here.

It was a Tuesday when I woke up next, as if I never slept the entire time I was in the coma, I slept for thirty-six hours straight. When I first woke up I went to the bathroom, stumbling in I kept seeing someone. He was dressed in black and his face was blue. I couldn't remember who he is, but I know him from somewhere.

I tried to put my finger on it but couldn't. Splashing myself with the stale hospital water. It smelled of iron and death. I hate hospitals with a burning passion.

I'd always rescue my mother anytime she'd fall into diabetic ketoacidosis. She was terrible at taking her insulin, I drove her once to the hospital when I was on my permit. Then I called 911 every time she slipped under the weather.

I cried a lot, especially when she died. My father never loved her enough. She was taken for granted, I actually quit talking to them leading up to her death. I regret it very much, I never got to apologise for telling her that I couldn't believe I was a product of the two of them.

After my mom died, I moved away with my grandma. She was alone after my grandfather had passed when I was thirteen. It's nice to have someone there for me, I thought I lost her long ago.

I looked down at my arms staring at the cigarette burns and cuts. Shuddering I see a flashback.

"____ you have ten seconds to make me feel good before I burn you again!" He says as he ties me to the bed and started choking me while he raped me. I remember seeing black then getting punched in the face.

I was so tired, I wanted to sleep. It had been going on for a couple of hours from what I could tell it didn't seem like all night. It was hell, he choked me so hard he broke a vertabre in the lower part of my neck.

I laid there, I couldn't control my neck and felt blood choke me. Then a needle went into my neck, after that I don't remember anything else except for black...

And blue.