Chapter 3

[January 21st, 2021]

I've reached the end of my stay here at the hospital. My ribs are healing, but they still hurt like nothing else. My high school friend, Brandon, is going to be helping me while I heal. He's currently planning on staying over at my place until I heal. While I was trapped in my thoughts a nurse had walked in. I silently watch as the nurse brings in my wheelchair and moves it to the side of my bed. "Do you think that you can get into the wheel chair by yourself, sir?" I look at her and flash a fake smile. "Yes ma'am, I think I can." I use my hands to slide myself back and prop myself up on the wall. I move my left hand to the farthest arm rest on the chair and then move my right hand under myself. I lift myself up and painfully set myself down onto the wheelchair. I feel it start moving and we exit the room and start down the hallway. I feel the cold air from the AC as we go along and we soon arrive at the main desk. They just give me some pain killers and have me sign some paperwork. The nurse passes me on to another, like a very fragile, delicate, glass, cup in a way. This nurse is kind of short, I'm not sure why, but I just happen to notice that. This second nurse proceeds to roll me outside and I see Brandon's car. The car door opens and out steps my black haired friend with Jess in tow in the passenger seat. I wasn't told that she'd also be here. "Brandon, Jess!" They smile at me and wave as I get closer to the car. Brandon starts talking as we get closer. "Jackson, how've you been?" I just simply look at my legs and back at him and smile. He chuckles a little and opens the back door of the car. "Smart ass." He remarks. "I know that already, you say that like you didn't." "Yeah, well I should've." I think for a moment and realize that I have no clue how to get into the car. "Alright, now, how are we going to get me in the car?" I ask looking him in the eyes, but I can tell that he has no clue. We look at the nurse standing behind me, or I attempt to. She puts her hands on the handles of the wheelchair and pushes me up next to the open door and I figure that the nurse was going to help me into the car. She's been surprisingly quite the entire time. I look to her and she smiles at me. "You've been awfully quiet, I'm not sure why, but that kind of surprised me." She simply motions to her throat and I quickly understand that she's mute. "So are you going to help me or..?" She shakes her head and does some hand motions. "I don't know sign language." She pulls a pen and pad out of her gown and writes "good luck" on it. She shows me the note, waves, and just walks away. "She was cute." I hear Brandon speak up. "Is that really what we should be thinking about right now?" He looks at me like he was surprised that I cared for my own well being. "Listen, I have my priorities, and you have yours." "Well right now you two should work on getting into the car." I hear Jess speak out from the passenger seat. We both turn our attention to her. "You've been talking for quite a while now." I chuckle a little bit and do the same thing that I did to get into the chair earlier. I listen to the pop of the trunk and watch Brandon pick up the wheelchair and bring it around to the back of the car. I wonder how I'm going to pay off the hospital debt. I thought that I had an insurance plan but that was when I was living with my parents. I guess they took me off of the plan. "Those few days went by quick, huh?" Spoke up the women in the passenger seat. "No, Jess, it absolutely did not." "Awwwww, don't be like that." to be fair it probably went by quickly for her, she was probably waiting for me to be discharged and hanging out with her friends, so I can cut her some slack. It got real boring real quick for me. Couldn't move for the first day and a half, and after that I couldn't move much. I couldn't turn on the TV that they had in the room either. With all of that being said all that I could do was lay there for 4 days. "So how was your stay." "Well, it was really boring." "Oh, and why's that?" I stare at Jess dumbfounded as to why she'd have to ask that question. "I... couldn't move." "Oh." Brandon starts to look back and say something. "Ye-" "Road!" He looks back to the road after rolling his eyes. "Alright, Jesus." I'm not trying to break any more bones today. Well it's about one week down anyways, just got 7 more to go.