IPNOTIZZANTE - Damiano David

Hospital

Amelia's eyes had slowly opened and the sight of a blank white ceiling and bright, white lights had almost blinded her after a while of being unconscious. She touched around herself to try and recognize the rough and cold material covering her body, but the feeling of the stiff bed and light covers over her confused her.

She could feel somebody else leaned on the bed and her head moved to her left side. The sight of Niccolo sitting next to the bed, his head leaning on the side of the bed, had surprised her. He was asleep. Amelia quickly sat up, which was a terrible idea since she immediately felt nauseous and dizzy. She glanced at the sleeping body at her bed once again, and that's when she noticed that he was holding her hand. Pulling her hand from underneath his, she had slowly started to get up and sneak out of the unrecognizable room, until she had heard his voice.

"Amelia?", she stood in her tracks. "You're awake."

She turned around. "Hey. What are you doing here? Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital. You fainted yesterday and I brought you here.", Niccolo stated while standing up and walking towards her.

Amelia was confused. "You...? How did you..."

"Lena called me. She knew I was the closest one at the moment.", he walked up to her and moved a strand of her hair from her face.

His presence made her nervous. "I want to go home, Niccolo."

He smiled. "We need to call the doctor first. We gotta know what happened to you."

Amelia didn't want to spend another minute in the same room as him, and she couldn't wait for any doctors or nurses to come by. "Can't you just drive me home?"

Just as she had said it, she felt sudden weakness in her knees and she started falling, as if someone had pushed her to lose her balance. Niccolo caught her and pulled her closer to himself. "See? And you want to go home while being unable to stand."

He picked her up and carried her to the bed, and noticed that her nose was starting to bleed. "Amelia... You're bleeding.", fear was evident in his eyes, as well as deep concern. He put her down on the bed to sit. " I'm going to get the doctor, you stay here."

He opened the door of the room to get out, and she could see a few nurses quickly passing in the hallway. She felt a bit relieved. She had touched her upper lip with her right hand, and she could see blood on her fingertips. "Shit", she murmured under her breath.

The door opened and Niccolo walked in with a middle-aged, good-looking woman in a long, white doctor's coat. The woman had long, curly brown hair and a pale face. She looked tired but kept a smile on her face. "Hello Amelia. I'm dr.Evelyn Bianchi. Your husband told me you have just woken up, so, how are you feeling?"

Amelia looked at her, absolutely confused. "Husband?? He is not my husband!"

Dr. Bianchi giggled. "My apologies, I saw the ring on your finger within admission, and this man here did not leave your side for a minute."

Amelia lowered her gaze and looked at her engagement ring, immediately thinking of Damiano. "He is my ex boyfriend. My fiancé is in Paris."

"Understood. Nevertheless, Niccolo told me your nose is bleeding and you've been feeling weak. Let me see.", the woman had approached Amelia and pulled a small metal shelf from beside the bed. She had opened a round, metal box and taken a sterile gauze then cleaned the blood from Amelia's face.  "Any headaches, nausea, any similar issues recently?"

"I've been feeling nauseous for the past week, and I feel sleepy a lot of the time."

"The tests will be here in maybe an hour or so, and in the meantime, I would advise you to eat something. Maybe your... Ex boyfriend can get you something from the cantine.", the doctor moved away and started checking up on her pulse and vision.  "Everything else seems fine, for now. Don't panic about the nosebleed, that's completely normal if you're tired or dehydrated."

"Thank you, doctor Bianchi.", Niccolo smiled at her.

"No problem. See you in an hour, Amelia.", the woman nodded and walked out of the room.

Amelia could not help but notice how elegant and sophisticated the woman looked, even when in her regular clothes and a white coat. She was tall, slim and had just a few gray strands of hair hiding between the brown curls. "Thank you."

"So... What do you want me to get you?", Niccolo asked her, while sitting next to her on the bed.

"I want to talk to Damiano.", she started looking for her phone, but failed to find it on the nightstand. "Where are my things?"

"Amelia, calm down. When I found you blacked out in your house, the last thing I thought about was your phone, I'm sorry.", he shrugged.

Amelia sighed. "Can we go to the cafeteria, please? I feel a bit hungry."

"Absolutely.", Niccolo walked up to her and took off his hoodie. "Here. It's a bit cold and I didn't bring your jacket."

Amelia hesitated at first, but after Niccolo's reassuring smile, she took the oversized blue hoodie and put it on. "Thank you."

"Don't even mention it. Let's go get some food in you.", they both walked out of the room and went to the hospital cafeteria.

While they were eating in the half-empty hall, they were talking about their lives after they have separated. Amelia spoke about Damiano and how they met, and Niccolo blabbered about his home and some renovations he was planning on doing.

Suddenly, Niccolo asked Amelia a question which almost brought tears to her eyes. "Are you happy now?"

She didn't know how to respond at first. "W-What do you mean?"

"Are you happy? With Damiano and the life you're having right now?"

"Yes. I am, actually. He asked me to move in with him and-"

Niccolo cut her off. "What about the house your grandparents left you? You're not just going to sell it?"

Just as Amelia was about to answer his question, she got a recently too familiar feeling of nausea and dizziness, so she quickly stood up from the chair and ran to the nearest toilet. Her stomach was turning and she found herself hovering over the toilet and throwing up again. At this point, she was concerned and scared of what was happening in her body.

As soon as she washed herself up and walked out of the toilet to face Niccolo in front of the door, very concerned, she fainted again right in his arms.

Niccolo took her to her room again, hoping for some good news from the doctor.