Young Writers Society

Chapter 2

Jay

The weight of a thousand pounds was crushing in on my soul. My mind was numb. I couldn’t move myself from the crouched position against the wall of the hospital floor, my head in my hands. It kept running over and over in my mind like a skipping record.

“It’s bad,” paramedic one said

“She’s cracked her skull.”

"There's excessive leakage of cerebrospinal fluid from the nose and ears."

“We’re going to have to rush her in for surgery”

That’s what they did. They had her out and through the double doors before I could make the first step off the ambulance. Carrying her beautiful, helpless face away from me.

She had been in there ten minutes. Still no word. I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t make it. I can’t lose her, I thought repeatedly. I heard someone bang through the door but didn’t care. Probably just another earthquake victim needing urgent help.

“Where is she?!”

“Where’s Sirena?!” That got my attention. I looked up and saw two wildly dressed men rushing to the counter freaking out at the nurse. Well, one was freaking out, the other just looked horribly pale and worried sick.

She looked dumbfounded. So I snapped myself out of my dark hole and jumped up, running to them, “You’re looking for Sirena?” They both turned to me with scared, confused, and hopeful faces on. “I rode with Sirena here, she’s in surgery right now, just went in about ten minutes ago.”

“What happened? Is she okay?” One asked. He had red hair and tight pants with a horrible orange scarf and a black jacket, probably in his forties. Who are these people? I thought. Seeing the terrified look on their faces I decided to postpone my question until later.

“The Earthquake, it shook our entire school violently. A few minutes before I had seen her walk by my class to go to the bathroom like she always does at the same time. When it started, I crawled out to find her and she was unconscious on the floor. She cracked her skull. When it was over I got her to an ambulance and now here we are.”

The second one with black hair and an outfit that had a likeness to the other guy scrunched his face up about to cry and covered his face with his hands.

Red hair spoke,“The Earthquake was pretty bad, God I hope she’s okay.”

I decided this was an okay moment to ask my question, “I’m sorry, can I ask who you are?”

“We’re Sirena’s Fathers,” black hair says, removoing his head from his hands.

“Fathers?” Was that plural?

They turned and looked at each other worried, “She’s never told you about us?”

Oh, crap. “Well to be honest, we don’t really talk…”

Red hair raised his eyebrow. “If you don’t talk how do you notice when she goes to the bathroom and why were you so concerned about getting to her, risking your own safety?” I looked down, embarrassed. Black hair turned to red hair and whispered something in his ear. His eyes widened. “Oh.” he dragged out. He turned an icy glare on me, obviously figuring out the answers to all his questions and said, “What is your name?”

“I’m Jay.” I held my hand out.

Black hair took my hand and said, “I’m Remmy, this is Ramone,” motioning to red hair, now Ramone. “So what’s going on with Sirena right now?”

“I don’t know, everything I’ve heard is that she’s in surgery. Her head was bleeding badly when I got to her, and then the paramedics said there was fluid leaking or something. It was really bad. All the nurse said is that she should be okay.” Ramone shook with worry and Remmy led him to sit down. I followed, sitting across the isle from them. And that’s what we did. We sat, and we worried, and we waited.

Sirena

There was an awful pounding in my head, and my arm. It felt like there was a cast on it. My eyes were shut, but I could hear a beeping beside my bed and murmuring across the room. What room? Slowly, I opened my eyes. It was dark. As the blurriness in my eyes started to fade I could see three figures sitting across the room. Two of them were whispering to each other and the other was asleep in the armchair. I still couldn’t see very well, but I could tell who the two whispering were.

“Dad? Daddy?” They both looked up, there faces startled and rushed to my side. My birth dad Remmy caressed my face while my stepdad Ramone held my hand. I started to panic, worried and not knowing what happened.

“Oh honey it’s okay, don’t panic. You're in the hospital. There was an earthquake. You fell in the bathroom at school and hit your head,” my stepdad said. Earthquake?

I was even more confused now and tried to sit up, but my head pounded even harder. I grabbed my head as Ramone left to get the nurse.

“Hey,” my dad whispered to me, “It’s okay, You’ve only been under a couple of days. You’re concussion was really bad, you cracked your skull and lost a lot of blood, but they patched you up good. Said you’re just fine, you only need some time for recovery alright?”

“Okay. Is anyone else hurt?”

“No. Your teacher is the only one that breaks the rules and lets people go to the bathroom in the time frame of fifteen minutes before the bell rings. So everyone else in school was in class or in their designated areas, the people in the hallway got to the doorways. Everyone’s okay.”

“Good. You said a couple days? Like two?”

“Yes honey but don’t worry. All your teachers know.”

“That means I’ve missed a ton. Dang it’s going to be hard to catch up.” I hated missing school. It means more work to be done.

“Hey everything will work out alright? Yolanda said she can come by sometime and help you out with your spanish. She’s worried sick.” Yolanda is our maid that comes by a few times a week to clean and sometimes cook. We were really close and she liked to help me with my Spanish.

“Okay.”

The nurse came in with Ramone to check my vitals and give me some pain meds. It was still dark and everyone was whispering. After the nurse left I asked my dads about it. “Why is everyone whispering?” They looked at each other and smiled. Then I remembered I saw three figures when I woke up, but forgot when my dads were fussing over me. I looked over in the chair and couldn’t believe my eyes. “Oh my God.”

“He rescued you from the bathroom. He said he remembered seeing you walk there every day and when the earthquake hit he went to go find you. He dragged you under the doorway and saw your head bleeding. When it stopped he rushed you down to the ambulances that were already there because of a boy who got injured in P.E. and they rushed you to the hospital. He has refused to leave since. Even made his best friend bring his stuff.” As my Dad explained this to me I was shocked. Jay Cameron cared enough about me to save me like that? He hasn’t even looked at me since that day.

“He was sleeping with his head on your bed holding your hand, but we made him move to the chair. It was bad for his back.” I laughed and shook my head at Ramone. I loved him so much. He was a second father to me and I couldn’t ask for better. He always thought of the funniest things to take care of. He was loving, kind, funny, he was my best friend. He turned to my Dad. “We should wake him up! Oh Remmy we should, we promised we would,” turning back to me he said, “you, pretend like you're sleeping again so it will be more dramatic,” he said doing his hand dazzle that he always does when he gets excited. I laughed some more. Ouch. That hurt my head.

“No Ramone,” I laughed. Ouch again. “And stop making me laugh, it hurts.” All of a sudden Jay’s eyes opened. He looked around and sat up. My heart was now pounding harder than my head. He rubbed his eyes and looked at my Dad’s, then looked at me with a blank stare. His eyes started to widen in surprise and he jumped up.

“Sirena! You’re awake!” He turned to my Dads and gave them a look, “I thought you said you would wake me up if she woke up?!”

“Oh Fuss!” Ramone stomped his foot and stomped out with a dirty look on his face. My dad just smiled and laughed.

“We’ll give you two a minute.” He walked out and shut the door. When I looked back at Jay he was staring at his feet with his hands in his pockets. He had bed head and it worked for him well. I laughed. Ouch! I really need to stop laughing. He looked up at me confused so I stopped my internal rant at myself and looked at my hands. I looked back up and he was staring at me intently. He turned around and grabbed one of the chairs behind him and pulled it up to my bedside.

Sitting down, he grabs my hand, “Don’t ever do that to me again.” And with that it all came rushing to me. All those years he completely and utterly ignored my existence, how he never acknowledged me again after that day. He never cared for me. He has never spoken to me. So why is he here? Why is he torturing me like this? I still loved him. And him being here, it feels like I should be jumping with joy, but I’m not. I am angry. I scowled at him, and I could see his eyes widen with fear.

I rip my hand from his, “No.”

“What?” he asks confused.

“No! Jay Cameron no!” Despite the pain my yelling was causing, I had to.

“Sirena what’s wrong?”

“Don’t. Don’t Jay, don’t act like you care. Why are you here? What are you doing? Is this some kind of trick? Why are you trying to hurt me?”

“Sirena I-”

“Stop! Just stop! For three years, you’ve completely ignored my existence, you never acknowledged me, except for once, which of course I am grateful for, but then you just went right back to ignoring me. I know well and good that you remember what happened and you never said a word. And now I hear that you know when I go to the bathroom? That you risked your life to save me? That you’ve been here the entire time that I was under? No! You can’t do that to me. Because you are just going to run out of my life again like you did in eighth grade and never speak to me again and it will hurt too much. I can't handle it. So no. Just no.”

“Sirena I know. I know I was stupid. Please don’t do this. I just thought-”

“I know what you thought. You thought I would wake up and be happy and dandy and feel wonderful that you were here, my knight in shining armor. And that everything would be okay.”

“I never said-”

“You didn't have to say. I know guys like you, you think that every girl will fall to your whim and so would I. Well here’s news for you Jay Cameron that’s not going to happen.” I moved to get up but my vision goes spotty, I grabbed my head and winced in pain, falling back onto the cranked up hospital bed. “Hey there, go easy.” He moved closer and held my shoulder. “You have a pretty bad concussion. You banged your head really hard on the bathroom sink.” I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. This is too much. I was on the verge of tears.

“Just stop,” I whispered. He didn’t move and he didn't speak. The nurse came in again to bring me food. I realized I was starving.

“Your parents are in the cafe, they said to call when you want them to come back up,” the nurse instructed me. She handed me my cell phone, and walked out. I held it in my hand. I didn’t want to eat until this Jay thing was sorted out. I looked up at him.

“Listen Sirena, I know what I did was pretty screwed up. But I’m a screwed up person. There’s a lot that no one knows. But as screwed up as I am I still felt the connection that we had in the auditorium. It was undeniable. It scared the crap out of me.” He takes my hand again. “No one has ever looked at me the way you did. I was scared. And I was convinced that I couldn’t approach you. I still am, but now we are inevitable. I can’t lose you. I still feel the pull between us. I do every single day. It’s like…”

“Magnetism.” I said with a breath. His eyes light up.

“Exactly,” he breathed. Closing my eyes I sighed and rubbed my temples with the hand he’s not holding. Is this real? Is he serious? I felt the warmth of his hand holding mine, his firm grip on it. I looked into his eyes. And oh God… he was dead serious. “I want to be with you Sirena.”

With that I've fallen to his whim. But I don't want to jump so deep so fast. We barely know one another, we've never even talked. I still need to fully trust him. "I still have feelings for you too Jay, I always have. But we hardly know each other, have never talked before today. Maybe we should just start out being friends, have fun together and see where it goes."

He contemplates this for a moment and then smiles, "Okay. Good thinking."

“This will be good.” I say. Then I call my dads and tell them to come back up and I start on my food.

“Gosh I’m starving,” I say to Jay. The caesar salad is good but not filling enough.

“Well I would be too if I hadn’t eaten in days,” he laughs.

“I mean really they couldn’t have made me a steak? I’m not a rabbit you know,” I say to the camera by the door.

“Well they don’t have steak in the cafeteria but they have some burgers. You want me to sneak you up one?” he asks. I grin at him mischievously. He laughs, squeezes my hand and walks out, at the same time my dads walk in.

Ramone cocks his eyebrow at me, “What did that boy do? Do I need to go all top model on him?”

I cock my eyebrow back at him, knowing full well Ramone could definitely not take Jay. “He just went to sneak me up a burger Ramone calm down.” I motioned to my empty salad plate.

“Oh okay. I mean what do these people think? They’re feeding rabbits?”

“That’s what I said.” I scraped the rest of the pudding out of my pudding cup.

“I’m going to go talk to the doctor to see about getting you out of here,” my Dad said. He walks out and Ramone comes to sit beside me.

“So whats going on with pretty boy?” he asks seriously. I laugh. Ugh.

“Always jumping right to the point eh?”

“Hey I’ve been waiting two days to talk to you about this. Spill, now.”

I shrug, and smile. “We’re just friends for now.”

“Oh? Just for now?”

“I just wanna take things slow and get to know him better.”

He smiles, “Smart thinking, he better be good to you.”

“He will be,” I may not know a lot about Jay Cameron yet, but when I say it I know it is true.