Chapter 54 | Hospital

Isabella:

Bright light floods my vision as I slowly prise my eyes open, blinding me for a second. My mouth is dry and I feel hazy all over. There is a pounding in my temple that only heightens when I try to move my head.

Confusion rushes through me as I take in the unfamiliar setting and my mind stays cloudy with questions on why I'm here and how I got here.

I take in the sound of the machine beeping beside me and faint sound of someone speaking softly and another of someone crying.

...And then my mothers sobbing face comes into view and everything rushes back to me in an instant.

Being at the park. Seeing Leo. Feeling dizzy and then black dots taking over my vision.

I flit my eyes over to my grandmother who is sitting beside my mom and the defeated and disappointed look in her face causes my face to crumple and chest to constrict.

"I'm sorry," I manage to croak out, my voice barely above a whisper. I pull my trembling bottom lip into my mouth, biting down on it hard.

My mom stops her crying and dabs her eyes with a tissue and her pained expression causes the tightness in my chest to increase.

"I-I wasn't going to let it get this bad again-"

"Mija," my mother's gentle voice cuts me off, her eyes rimmed red as she pulls the tissue away from her face. "Why didn't you tell us?"

I let silence stretch across the room for a few beats before answering.

"You guys were...busy, I didn't want to be selfish and bombard you with my problems."

My grandmother scoffs before sniffling loudly. "Isabella stop with that crap," abuela's spanish accent comes off stronger seeing as she's mad. "We want you to get better, we want to help you and we cannot do that if you do not speak to us!"

"Ma," my mom interjects, placing a hand on my abuela's knee. My grandmother's face immediately softens and she lets out a sigh before leaning over and grasping my hand.

"It doesn't matter how busy you think we are, you come to us when you feel like this. When you're in a bad place okay? Don't suffer in silence."

I nod my head, the pounding only increasing.

Then there is then a knock at the door before it swings open to reveal a doctor. He's around my moms age, cropped brown hair and dark skin and he smiles when he sees that I'm awake.

"Hello Isabella," he greets, looking down at his clipboard. "How are you feeling?"

"Good," I nod, mustering up a small smile.

He nods in return before turning to my mom and grandmother. My mom immediately stands up and sticks her hand out. Her sad expression wilting away immediately.

"Valeria, Isabella's mother," she smiles her best smile as the doctor takes her hand in his and I snort. The doctor takes my mother's appearance in appreciatively, eyes grazing over her blouse and skirt combo. She was still in her work attire.

"Dr Smith." His smile broadens.

My grandmother clears her throat and my mom finally draws her eyes away from the doctor she clearly has the hots for before gesturing to abuela. "This is Isabella's grandmother."

"Hola," my grandmother simply says, lifting her hand up in a lame wave.

After the doctor says hello he turns back to my mom. He opens his mouth to say something but no words come out and both my abuela and I watch as the two of them continue to ogle each other once again.

"Mr doctor," my grandmother announces, trying to get their attention. "Please take your eyes away from my daughters breasts, I can give you her number later but right now can you please focus on my grand daughter, I would like to take her home as soon as possible. Hospitals give me heebiejeebies."

The doctor winces and immediately turns around as my mothers face flushes red and she promptly sits back down in her chair.

"So sorry about that, that is not very professional of me." He clears his throat and looks back down at the clipboard, a sheepish expression lacing his features. "So Isabella. We've run a couple of tests on you and we've found that you're low on iron and some of the basic vitamins," he then glances up and the three of us nod our heads in understanding, the movement causing a sudden shooting of pain to spread across my head and I bring a hand up to my temple. As I feel a band aid on my forehead, Dr Smith continues speaking.  "You have a nasty cut on your temple but that should heal soon enough."

The doctor then pauses for a beat before looking back up at me. His gaze piercing as he does so. "Isabella when was the last time that you ate?"

I stiffen immediately and retract my gaze from him, breaking contact. I'm considering lying to the doctor but the glare my grandmother sends me stops me before I even have the chance to think of a lie.

"Three days ago," I respond quietly, fiddling with the end of my hospital gown. I don't look up but from my peripheral vision I see my mom's face drop.

Doctor Smith frowns. "Any particular reason for that?"

"She's had a history with eating disorders," my mom says for me, dejection clear in her voice. "Anorexia nervosa and bulimia."

"I was getting better," I quickly interject. I hate the look the doctor and my mom and grandma have on their faces the moment my eating disorder was mentioned; pity and disappointment drawn across their features. "I was almostt 9 months free of restricting...but I relapsed but it's not that bad-"

"Mija you collapsed in the park and now you're in hospital! It is ba-"

"MA!" My mother sends my grandmother a pointed look, menatlly telling her to shut up and my grandmother huffs and slouches back in her chair.

"Sorry Bella."

My mom briefly fills the doctor in on my situation; telling him how I had been admitted into a clinic when I was 14 for 6 months and how after I was discharged my parents made me go to regular check ups at the hospital to check that I was improving on my recovery and so on but now that has stopped when we arrived back in the US because I had been doing significantly better.

Dr Smith continues talking for a little while longer before leaving for a moment and then returning with a bunch of pamphlets. He hands them over to my mom and I don't even have to take a look to know what they're about.

He turns his back when speaking to my mom one last time so that I don't see what he says but when speaking he isn't as quiet as he thinks he is so I very clearly hear every single word her says.

"...I think it would be best to consider looking into clinics once again if Isabella's situation doesn't improve. Relapsing on the road to recovery is somewhat normal but just keep an eye out incase it only worsens.l

His saying that I might be admitted back into a clinic if I don't improve is like a kick to the gut. It reminds me that I'm back to square one after all that progress I had made.

The doctor then leaves alongside my grandmother who shortly comes back with a tray full of hospital food. I don't know how she got her hands on that seeing as it is only for overnight staying patients but then again its my abuela we're talking about.

I stare down at the contents of the tray. It's a plate full of some potato looking unflavoured dish with carrots on the side and then a carton of juice and a pudding cup. I hestiatntly reach for the pudding cup first. It looks the least disgusting.

As my mom and grandmother watch me intently as I eat, I can't stop the tremble coursing through my body as I will myself to eat. Nausea flushes through me and the food is incredibly hard to swallow due to the tightness in my throat. My entire body feels closed off and tightened; like it is refusing to take in the food I put in my mouth. There is a huge knot in my stomach and hand shakes as I bring the spoon of pudding to my mouth once again.

My mind feels like it is racing 100 miles per second every time I take one measly bite and I feel so pathetic struggling so hard to simply eat. Both feelings disgust and frustration well up inside of me: frustration for my body and brain refusing to let me eat and disgust for doing so and the conflicting emotioons only causes my head to pound harder. It feels like hours until I've finished off the meal and although I've barely touched the wierd potato thing my parents seem satisfied with the how much I did eat.

As the nurse comes and takes my food away, I lean back down in my pillow feeling defeated. My mom hands me the leaflets Dr smith gave to her and as I gaze over the phamplets my chest constricts. I think about how all the progress I had made has gone to waste and how much worry and dissapointment I'm causing my friends and family like I always seem to do.

I chuck the leaflets back on the ground out of frustration. I do not want to go back into an eating disorder clinic but if I continue at the rate I'm going now it wont be long till I'm re admitted.

Mia and Grace stumble into the room as I'm in the middle of my wallowing party and they both promptly rush over to me and squeeze all the air out of my lungs as they pull me into a bone crushing hug.

As they pull back I have to adjust the drip attatched to my arm.

Mia smacks my arm. "I hate you! You had us all so worried!"

"Yeah," Grace nods her head vigorously. "Sammy was on the point of hysterics."

See, you're making everyone worry and burdening them with your problems. It's almost 7 o'clock, they should be at home not here in the hospital because of you.

I press my lips into a thin line. "Sorry guys."

Mia's face softens. "I was only kidding babe, you don't be sorry, we're just glad you're okay."

The two stay in my room for a couple of minuets longer, getting on the hospital bed with me, just talking about the events that went down. Sammy and Leo join us shortly after, going against the hospital rulings on the ammount of visitors allowed.

"How did I even get here?" I ask them all once I realise I still don't know how I arrived from the park to the hospital.

Mia and Grace share a wary look but before either of them can answer Leo speaks up.

"Lucas brought you here in his car."

I stiffen, my heart skipping a beat as his name is mentioned. "Lucas?" I furrow my eyebrows. "...Where did he come from?"

"We're not entirely sure ourselves...he sort of came out of no where."

"He was in running gear," Grace points out. "Ao I'm assuming he was on the way to the park for a run when he saw us."

Sammy nods. "Thank God he was in the area though because he's the one who carried you to his car and drove you here."

I blink slowly. "...He carried me? And drove me here?"

Leo nods. "Yeah, but he left after they said visitors could come see you."

"Oh."

I don't know why dissapointment floods through me at that when it shouldn't. I made it clear I didnt want to see him and he's just following upon what I said. So why do you feel hurt that he didn't stay?

I shake myself out of my thoughts as the nurse strolls into the room followed by my mom who had been filling out the paperwork. The nurse tells me that I'm discharged and hands me back my clothes and I get changed before following everyone out to the exit.

"We're coming over tomorrow," Mia says, when she and Grace hug me goodbye.

I nod before turning and giving them all a small smile. "Thanks guys for coming, sorry for wasting your time."

"Nonsense, we're just glad youre okay." Leo buts in and I don't know why a sudden rush of annoyance shoots through me as he says this, well at his presence here in general. I'm disappointed at myself for feeling this way however, the guy had waited four hours for me at the hospital. And Lucas left.

Leo gives me a hug goodbye and I wave my hand at Sammy.

"Take care of yourself," Sammy tells me with a smile as I'm getting into my moms car.

As we zip off back onto the road, the car falls eerie quiet. I clear my throat not liking the silence. It is usually never silent in my family.

"So Ma did you get that doctors number?"

"No," my mom sighs, gripping the steering wheel. "The pendejo was married, I didn't see the ring on his finger until he was leaving the room."

"I knew he was bad news, he keep staring at your chest," my grandmother mutters. "Men," she scoffs. "What idiotic creatures."

"Yup." I agree and my moms hearty laughter fills the car. She puts on the radio after that and the light hum of Christmas tunes occupies the silence.

Before heading home we stop by my grandmothers friends house where she had left Sofia on rushing over to the hospital.

"Hey Sof," I coo as my mom straps her into her baby seat beside me. She waves and grins happily on seeing me.

"Belly!" She babbles and I freeze.

"What...did you say?"

"BELLY!" She repeats and my eyes widen.

"...No Sof...it's Bella," I tell her slowly.

"Belly!" She continues before bursting out into peals of laughter.

"No, Sofia it's Bella. Be-lla. Bella."

"Bellyyyy!"

"BE-LLA."

She pauses for a second, her eyes widened at my loud tone before a toothy grin breaks out on her face and she kicks her legs in her car seat happily.

"Belllllyyyyyyyy!"

I will be castrating Lucas.

The rest of the drive home consists of Sofia screaming Belly and laughing and me fighting the urge to chuck her out of the window.

The moment we pull up into my drive way, I fly out of the car before my mom has even pulled into park properly.

As I'm running up the porch steps, I almost trip over something and fall flat on my face in the darkness.

"Shit," I curse, trying to steady myself. I look down to see that I had stumbled over a brown suitcase just laying on the porch steps. My eyebrows furrow in confusion and immediately, I raise my head and my eyes latch onto the figure sitting on the porch swing in shadows, snoring loudly.

"Shit I completely forgot about him!" My mom runs up the porch, her heels clicking loudly. Bending down over him on the porch swing she smacks my fathers arm. "Wake up!"

When he still doesn't wake up my mom smacks his arm once again. The sound of the smack echoes through the air and this time my dad's eyes fly wide open.

"Jesu-oh hi Valeria," he rubs his eyes before standing back up and pulling my mom into a hug. She stiffens and her hands stay limp at her sides.

"Where were you guys I've been out here for ages!" My father says after pulling away. He then scoops up Sofia and peppers kisses all over her face causing her to erupt into another fit of giggles.

"We were at the hospital," my abuela replies with a sigh and instantly my father freezes. His eyes immediately graze over my face and his smile drops.

"I relapsed," I tell him quietly, confirming what I can tell he's assuming before my dad pulls me into his embrace, squashing Sofia between us.

"Oh mija."