Chapter 15
“Olivia!”
She was lying on her side on the bathroom floor, her eyes
closed. Her skin looked paler than its
normally light shade, and she was breathing raggedly.
And then Nick saw the empty bottle of Excedrin sitting on the
counter and a couple of pills lying on the floor. He let out a choked cry.
“Oh God!” he cried, sinking to the floor beside Olivia. His first thought was that she had taken the
whole bottle of pills.
“Olivia, wake up!” he cried, shaking her. “Come on, Liv, open
your eyes! Please!”
Panicked, he leaped up and raced into her bedroom, grabbing the
phone. He punched in the numbers 911
and told the woman that answered that his neighbor had overdosed on headache
medicine.
When he brought the phone back into the bathroom to check on her
breathing, he was shocked to see that she was waking up.
“Um… never mind,” he told the operator sheepishly. “She just woke up. She must have just fainted or something.”
“Is she all right?” the operator asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said, glancing down at Olivia, who was
looking up at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
He hung up the phone and sighed in relief. “God, Liv, you
scared the hell outta me!” he exclaimed.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
Olivia pulled herself into a sitting position and blinked. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I don’t remember.”
Nick frowned. “Was it
another headache?” he asked, eyeing the Excedrin bottle.
Olivia followed his gaze, and slowly, the events of the morning
came back to her. “Yeah,” she said
slowly. “A headache. I was so tired. I just lay down in here, and I guess I must
have fallen asleep.”
Nick wasn’t sure if she had just “fallen asleep” or passed out,
but he wasn’t going to ask. She was
still a little disoriented.
“Is the headache gone now?” he asked.
“Not really,” she murmured.
“There’s so much pressure.”
“Pressure?”
“Yeah.” Without warning,
Olivia pulled herself up from the floor and staggered towards the bathroom
door.
“Where you going?” Nick asked in alarm.
“I have to go to the store… get more pills,” Olivia mumbled, her
speech sounding slurred. She started
out the door, only to crash right into the door frame.
“Liv?” Nick asked in shock, as Olivia
wheeled backwards. She started to fall
over, but he quickly grabbed her around the waist and steadied her. “Olivia, I think you need to sit down,” he
said, watching her warily.
“Yeah…” she slurred, starting to sink to the floor. But all of a sudden, her eyes rolled back in
her head, and her body went rigid. She
started to go into a seizure right there in Nick’s arms.
“Olivia!” he cried, quickly sinking to the floor and laying her
body out on the ground. He watched
helplessly as her whole body convulsed.
Then, quickly coming to his senses, he grabbed the phone from the
bathroom counter, where he had sat it earlier, and dialed 911 again.
***
When Olivia opened her eyes, the familiar bathroom in her house
was gone, replaced by a strange room.
As her senses took in everything around her, the annoying beeping sounds,
the tubes running into her nostrils and arms, and the nauseating antiseptic
smell, Olivia realized she could only be in one place – the hospital.
A woman in pink scrubs walked into the room just then, confirming
Olivia’s suspicions.
”Miss Caisson. Glad to see you’re
awake,” she said. “My name’s Brenda,
and I’m a nurse. How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” Olivia said groggily.
She felt not only tired, but weird too, sort of like she was
floating. Must be the drugs they had
given her.
“You feel up to having visitors?” Brenda asked.
“My mom and dad?” Olivia
wondered how long she had been out; could her parents already have come down
from Iowa?
“No, they’re not here. I
can call them, if you want,” Brenda offered.
“No, that’s fine. Who’s
here?” Olivia asked curiously.
“A young man. Says he’s
your neighbor. He came here right after
you were brought in,” Brenda replied.
Olivia groaned. Nick. “I dunno…” she said hesitantly.
“He’s really anxious to see you.
He’s been very worried,” Brenda added.
“Will you let him come in, just for a few minutes? Then I can get him out of here.”
“Okay, fine,” she replied finally. Brenda gave her a knowing smile and left the
room. Olivia sighed, wishing she had
not said yes. She didn’t want Nick to see
her like this.
But, just minutes later, there he was, coming into her room, a
worried expression on his face.
“Liv,” he said eagerly, pulling up a
chair next to her bed and sitting down.
“How are you feeling? You scared
me to death, you know that?”
“Sorry,” she muttered, offering him a sheepish smile.
“Do they know what’s wrong with you yet? Why this happened?” Nick asked anxiously.
“I don’t know; no one’s been in to talk to me yet,” Olivia
replied. “I guess they’ll want to run
some tests.”
Nick nodded. “I hope it’s
nothing serious.”
Olivia forced a smile.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she managed to say. But deep down, she knew the truth. She was not fine. And she would never be.
***
