Chapter Seventeen - Nick

I wake up and feel like I’m going to be sick. The room is dark and the only light is from the hallway. I look around and see a shape sitting on the chair with their head on the bed. It takes me a minute to see who it is in the bare light of the room.

“Nick,” I say, my voice barely audible and croaky from disuse. I reach out and touch his hair.

Nick sits up quickly and looks startled for a minute before he realizes that it is my voice.

“Oasis, you’re awake,” He says sounding on the verge of tears.

“Nick, Where am I?” I say trying to sit up.

“Don’t sit up,” He says carefully pushing on my shoulder so that I stay laying down. “You’re in the hospital.”

“What?” I say confused. I feel like there is a something that I’m missing and I can’t quite remember what it is. “Why?”

“I need to go tell the nurse that you’re awake and call your parents,” He says not answering my questions. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He quickly ducks out of the curtain and I hear some mumbles coming from somewhere nearby. After a minute, I hear footsteps coming down the hall and then a nurse walks into the room. She starts checking my vital signs. After another couple of minutes, Nick walks back into the room.

“I’m going to get the doctor,” The nurse says before she heads out of the room.

Nick comes over and sits back in the chair. “Your family will be here in a couple of minutes to see you,” he says with a smile.

“Nick, what’s going on, why am I in the hospital?” I ask him, needing to get some information as to why I’m in the hospital.

“Please, Oasis, I think the doctor should be the one to tell you,” Nick says sounding like he is about to cry.

We sit there in silence for a couple of minutes, until my parents and sisters come into the room. I try to sit up and feel a sharp pain shoot in my stomach. I let out a gasp of pain as I collapse back onto the bed. As the shooting pain goes through my stomach, I remember everything that has happened to land me in the hospital

“What’s wrong?” Mum asks quickly.

“My stomach. There is a shooting pain in my stomach,” I say, trying not to cry from the pain.

There is a knock on the wall next to the curtain. Minerva opens the curtain and a doctor enters the room. Nick quickly gets out of the chair and moves it out of the way. The doctor moves over so that he is standing next the bed.

“So I’m glad to see that you’re awake, Oasis,” the doctor says. “My names James and I’m your doctor. Now I hear you have some questions about why you’re in hospital.”

“No, I remember now,” I say feeling tears in my eyes.

“Can you tell me what you remember?” James asks patiently.

“I remember I was riding Marina at a competition and then I heard a gunshot and felt a sharp, horrible pain through my stomach. I fell off Marina and then my friends were around me pressing on my stomach. I remember the ambulance coming and being put on a stretcher. I remember the ambulance officers putting me in the ambulance and then I blacked out.” I say in a rush to prevent myself from crying.

“Okay, it’s good that you remember what happened,” James says quietly. “Now can I look at your stomach to check the stitches?”

I nod and he pulls the blanket down and carefully moves my hospital gown so that he can see my stomach. He carefully feels around my stomach near the stitches. I let out tiny gasps of pain and he asks me where it hurts. I show where it hurts the most.

“I’ll go get you some pain relief,” James says and ducks out of the room.

“Mum,” I say carefully not sure that I want the answer but needing to know. “Is Marina okay?”

“I’m sorry, baby,” She says looking like she is about to cry. “She got hit by the second bullet. It did a lot of damage to her colon and there was nothing the vet could do.”

I just nod and feel the tears start to run down my cheeks. Just then James walks back in with a needle.

“This’ll make you very sleepy,” James tells me, as he puts the liquid into the IV in my hand. “You might want to say bye. Visiting hours are finishing up,” He says to my family and Nick.

“All right, Sweetie,” Dad says coming over and giving me a hug and kiss. “I’ll be back to visit you tomorrow.”

Everyone else says bye and gives me a hug or a kiss on the cheek. They all leave. I start to fall asleep and just as I am on the edge of sleep I get a faint glimpse of a memory from the riding competition, but I am asleep before I can grasp it.