Graffiti Girl // Michael Clifford

|| 34 ||

You're not alone, there is more to this, I know! You can make it out. You will live to tell.

«You're Not Alone» Saosin

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"Andi," a voice whispers in my ear, close enough for me to feel the breeze of their breath. "Andi, babe, I need you to wake up."

As I move onto my back with a tired sigh, a sharp pain shoots up my left side.

"Shit," I hiss, closing my eyes tight and leaving my mouth open as I gape for breath. "Fucking hell!"

"Hey, hey, hey," Michael soothes. I feel a dip in the bed beside me, jostling my body and sending another wave of pain through my body.

"Michael, what hurts?" I force out.

"We pulled a big piece of glass out from your side last night," he reminds me calmly.

"What time is it?"

"It's almost five."

"In the morning?" I moan.

"No, babe, the sun's about to set. It's five at night."

"What do you mean? How long have I been asleep?"

"You've been asleep for about seventeen hours."

"What?!" I shriek, instantly sitting up and causing the worst amount a physical pain I've ever felt in my life. I cry out and grip my side, huffing out puffs of air.

"Andi, I need you to calm down," Michael hushes me, suddenly much more urgent. "You have a big hole in the side of your stomach that is being held together by rags and duct tape. That's the reason I woke you up. We need to check it out and get to an emergency room."

"Fucking!" I hiss at the pain as I physically flinch away at the suggestion. "I'm not going to a hospital!"

"Andi, you have a huge hole in your body. It was in there a good three centimeters. Maybe even four," Luke says. I look up from the mattress to see the rest of them hovering around me.

"Okay, well, if it pierced any of my organs, I would probably be dead or throwing up blood by now." I feel Michael flinch next to me at the harsh words. "I'm sorry, but that's a real thing with this stuff, right? Death?"

"Exactly why we need to get you to a hospital!" Ashton groans. "None of us are exactly surgeons or know anything about how to fix a hole in someone's body! We barely kept you from bleeding out!"

"I'm not going to the hospital!" I scream. "If I go to the hospital, it'll get back to my dad and that's so not a situation I can deal with, right now."

"We have to do something," Mike sighs. He reaches to thread his fingers through mine, gripping them tight. "You have to see a doctor, somehow. They have to check it out and make sure it doesn't get infected. It could necrotize and the side of your stomach isn't the kind of thing they can amputate. And if it doesn't get treated, it could spread to your blood stream and it could kill you."

"Did you go to med school while I was asleep?" I skeptically ask.

"A lot of Googling can be done in nineteen hours," he laughs.

"But," I sigh. "That doesn't change the fact that I don't want anyone to know about this. If I go to my doctor, it'll obviously get back to my parents."

"I have a weird idea," R suddenly speaks up. Her eyes are red and puffy and she looks exhausted. "It's idiotic, is what it actually is, but..."

"But...?" Cal prompts.