Comatose. Part One.

When Arizona Phillips woke up in a hospital bed no-one noticed. Liz Davis, her best friend was pacing the room repeating something along the lines of “How did she loose so much blood? She was shot in the arm!” in a whisper to herself and a boy leant against the wall watched her with sorry eyes. Ari wasn’t aware of this but Liz had been repeating the line almost non-stop for the five days she had been out of it.

Ari let out a cough and Liz spun round, the mystery boy’s head snapped up. The noise Liz made seemed far from human, even when she told the boy to go and get the Doctor and ring Ari’s parents it didn’t sound like the girl she remembered, she didn’t look it either.

Before she could ask questions she was wrapped in Liz’s arms. “Don’t you ever do that again” her best friend muttered, Liz was crying a little, her arms shaking – Ari just stared at the wall in front of her not really knowing what was going on.

“Do what?” Ari asked, Liz pulled away, wiping her tears and looking at her as if she was stupid.

“You were shot in the arm, Monday night – it’s Saturday morning” Ari shook her head, that wasn’t right, defiantly not right.

“No – it was Wednesday morning” She tried to correct, that was the last thing she remembered – Wednesday morning, getting ready for her first day of high school.

“Ari, you were shot in the arm, five days ago – I was there, Gus was there, he called the ambulance you was still awake when they came”

“Gus?” Ari wondered aloud – totally ignoring the fact she had been shot, Liz’s face dropped as she seemed to realise what was happening, Ari looked around as the mystery boy and the Doctor arrived. “The last thing I remember was our first day of freshman year...” She told Liz thinking it, she was completely normal, it was Liz who was crazy – playing some sort of sick game maybe. Something she had been planning while she was asleep, though the sarcastic, joking expressing she usually saw spread across her best friends face and lighting up her eyes wasn’t there anymore.

It was horror, terror and confusion. “Ari...we’re seniors, we have been for the last four months” Liz turned to the Doctor, tears filling her eyes again, her voice was shaken and weak like it was when she first woke up.  “You said there wouldn’t be memory loss”

“Memory loss?” New voices added, her Mum and Step-dad, Dave. Ari was ignored as the whole room burst into a mix of questions and arguments. She sat herself up further and tried to figure out what was happening, why it seemed she couldn’t remember the last three years of her life, how she managed to get shot in the arm – who the boy stuck in the middle of the arguments was, even though he had managed to slip out of  the room unnoticed.

She watched, she squinted her eyes but even though she had been stuck in a coma for the last five days and

it had seemed that everyone, at least who she could remember, the people that had been desperate for her to wake up was just totally blanking her. “Shut up!” She yelled, and like a scene from a movie, everyone suddenly stopped and looked at her the guilt obvious on their faces

“Can we stop arguing for at least one minute? Please?” Everyone looked down, extremely interested in the floor. “Doctor, how long do I have to stay here for?”

The Doctor stuttered on his words, and tided up her notes in his hands. “Well, all your tests came back fine – your arm has healed up miraculously well – and for the memory loss, there’s nothing medical we can do about that, but we have counselling classes that can increase your chances of  well...remembering – so you should be fine to leave”

Ari nodded. “Mum, do you have some clothes?” Her Mum nodded, walking over – Liz didn’t seem to be the only one who was crying “Hey, I’m alive – don’t cry – that goes for you Liz” she attempted to comfort them both, putting a hand on her Mum’s shoulder, as she passed Ari a bag pack of clothes. “David, contact the school – find out what I’ll have to do about not being able to remember the last three years of my education –Liz, come home with me...we need to catch up majorly” She had been awake less than ten minutes and already, she couldn’t bare being sat in the hospital bed helpless with nothing to do.

Liz smiled, Ari winced as the Doctor took the tubes and needles out of her arms. “Can you be a little more careful, I may not remember my teenage years but I do remember how much I hate needles, okay?” the Doctor nodded, Ari bit her lip as the last needle was pulled out, her Mum rushed back over her bedside keeping her steady as she dragged herself of the bed. She kept her hands on her arms until both of her feet touched the ground fully before letting go. “Don’t worry, I’m fine” Ari reassured, grabbing the bag of clothes and going into the little private bathroom, what she saw in the mirror she could’ve never been prepared for.

The last thing she remembered before she woke up was her first day of Freshman year, she had just finished packing her bag and she knew Liz was leant against her front door having a conversation with her Dad over how excited the two girls were for their first day in school waiting for her to come down stairs, back then she was short, had messy blonde hair and looked more like four than fourteen.

She looked at herself now, her hair had been cut and just touched her shoulders, she guessed she probably straightened it but at the moment it was wavy. – Instead of blonde, she couldn’t exactly tell if it was dark brown or black, with streaks of blonde. She was also defiantly taller, and wasn’t exactly flat-chested anymore. Her eyes were darker, which didn’t exactly had a proper explanation – she took a step back and breathed in through her nose and out from her mouth before opening the bag and pulling out a pair of skinny jeans and a t-shirt from a band she hadn’t even heard of. There was part of her that wanted to look in the mirror once she had got changed and remember everything, but that didn’t happen – she just looked at herself, and then walked out.

“Surprised? You’ve changed a lot in three years” Liz pointed out the obvious.  Ari nodded. “Come on, let’s get you home” and she followed Liz, her Mum and her step-dad David out of the private ward over to the nurses desk to check them out and pointed them to the exit, she remembered the Hospital but not this part of it – she’d broken her arm when she was ten, but she’d never been in a coma before so it was expected.

Her Mum also had a different car, nothing more exciting than her old one but it did take her a while to figure out her Mum had decided out it was finally time to switch from a three door to a five door.  Liz climbed in after her and they fastened their seatbelts as her mum ever so carefully backed out of the parking space that was on the most awkward slope ever. “Why would you put a parking space here?” Ari asked herself.

“You’ve complained about that before” Liz said, Ari looked at her confused. “You tried to skateboard, fell and we thought you’d broke your wrist or something. You spent more time complaining to Gus about his parking that the pain” Gus? Who the hell was Gus? She guessed that it was the boy who had somehow disappeared, but we’re they friends? Or...No, she wasn’t going to think about that.

It was short drive to, luckily the same house her Mum had lived in before which made her realise something. “Mum? I thought I lived with my Dad...?” The question hadn’t occurred while in the Hospital, it really should have because he should off been there.

“We’ll talk about that later, but he’s away at the moment, it was impossible for him to get a flight back from where he’s staying but we’ve been keeping him posted – Liz, will you take her to her room please?” It wasn’t hard to tell her Mum had switched from being relieved about Ari waking up to panicking over questions being asked that she really, really did not want to answer.