Be with Me (Book Two, Riding the Changing Winds)

15: Don't Touch What's Mine

The wind is a mix of a high-pitched whistle and deep flapping static. It whirls past me and carries its distinct voice into the shadowed darkness surrounding the parking lot of the hospital, my ears throbbing from its fierceness. It's the kind of storm where once it's over any remaining leaves on the trees will be gone, fallen to the soggy ground to become saturated in rain. My arm is suctioned to the big hospital window, cold air circulating from the glass touching my exposed skin that's on fire. Lighting fractures the blackened sky with its blinding bolt, my chest splits in half as soon as the cracked thunder resounds, vibrating everything in its wake. I continue to count the lightening bolts.

I've always thought of storms as nature's instruments. The winds playing in the trees and along the grass like a violin's strings, the thunder and lightning acting as percussion. I always identified with the wickedness of nature, finding comfort in how it sings and swirls like the emotions that rage in me. I sit, frozen in stillness, watching and waiting for the crescendo.

A solid blast explodes, winding up and spinning around so it alerts everyone in all different directions. The sound after a while reminds me of a vacuum sucking crumbs off a carpeted floor and it lasts a good three minutes. Golf ball-sized hail starts striking the window and I rest my forehead against the chilled window, listening to the rhythms of the beating pieces of ice.

"I swear, Giuseppe is going to win this thing! If he doesn't I will cry," Ellie states, not even a little bit bothered by the possible tornado that may plow through.

She sits in the bed draped in a hospital gown with tiny leaves peppered all over it. One of the nurses went on and on about it being designed by a famous fashion icon... it's still ugly but Ellie is beautiful no matter what she wears. Her eyes are puffy with purplish circles around them, her cheeks sunken in a little, blonde hair up in her signature bun, but the liveliness in her eyes hasn't diminished.

Bandages are sloppily wrapped around her hand with sprinkles of blood seeping through. The long bamboo spears are still stuck in place. Every time my eyes land on them guilt festers in me, devouring my heart little by little in the slowest most torturous pace possible, starting at the back of it as if termites were burrowing into the pumping muscles.

After the cops came in and had Ellie recount her experience. She was finally able to relax a little. We're waiting for the doctor to come back with the X-rays before he removes the sharp slivers. He said he'd most likely have to get a hand surgeon specialist to surgically remove them as they most likely hit bone.

Nausea knots up in my stomach.

I shift away from the window and the building storm, elbows on my knees as I watch Ellie wrinkle her brow at my phone. I lent it to her so she could watch The Great British Bake Off and distract her from the sticks poking out of her fingers. They gave her some medication so that she's not in pain and since then she has made jokes, like calling herself the female version of Wolverine, curling her fingers, and growling out a weird cat sound.