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Of course I knew who Kathy was as soon as Ava gave her description. It was the girlfriend of the guy who made fun of me for only having slept with one single girl. The guy I put down for thinking he was God’s gift to women, simply because he knew how to throw a ball. His girlfriend suddenly asking for my number did not make me excited. No matter what the two of them had planned that would require my phone number, I wanted no part in it. I was more concerned about Ava’s inability to use punctuation in her texts, than the remote possibility of hooking up with Kathy.
It didn’t end there, though. About two hours later, when I was just trying to distract myself with a little work on my laptop, I got another text from Ava.
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This wasn’t good. Mia had suggested that my popularity might have gone up after her friends saw me push Campbell out of the room, which would probably entail a significant improvement of my school life. Though, at that moment, I had other scenarios on my mind.
If Ava asked her friends why they wanted my number, they would surely tell her about what really happened at Mia’s. Consequently, she should be able to guess that I was in the hospital. At that moment, I would learn whether or not the rest of the family somehow shared Aaron’s renewed resentment towards me.
But, thinking about it, Ava did not ask about where or how I was. So, either her friends hadn’t told her yet, or she really didn’t care. Or, maybe, she did know, but had also learned about my wish to not be on display, and they simply chose to respect that. But if that was the case, why wouldn’t she even ask how I was? Thinking about it further, though, I remembered Aaron showing up because the hospital called him. If he knew, the rest of the family should know as well. That was days ago, so I should have heard something by now, but maybe this was the logical outcome after they had seen how reluctant I was to let them help me after being stabbed?
My thoughts kept circling around that question, making up countless possible explanations for this situation. All the while, I couldn’t even decide how I would feel about any of those possible explanations. Only one thing I knew for certain: The family seeing me this helpless was something I wanted even less than Nora and Mia seeing me like this. I couldn’t tell how long I sat there, lost in my thoughts, until I was abruptly brought back to reality by the dulled sounds of distant explosions.
After looking around confused for a moment, I realized that it was pitch dark outside and colorful sparks were visible in the distance, partly obscured by the treeline. Then my phone went off, announcing the various New Year’s greetings. Last year, I had gotten those solely from the people at work, so I was expecting the same now. To my surprise, now I got messages from the people at work, all of the Millers, almost my entire family except for Aaron and Logan, and a few girls I had met at Mia’s party. Apparently, someone had given out my number.
And then it hit me. By my own choice, I was sitting alone in my hospital room on New Years Eve. And I even almost missed it completely over contemplating the current situation, while everyone else was probably celebrating right now.
I watched the pretty lights for a while, before I slid further down the bed to put my head on my pillow and get to sleep.
The next day, my long awaited liberation came about. After almost a week of being restricted to lying in that bed, the swelling in my leg wound had reduced enough, and, in the absence of any signs of infection or inflammation, I would finally be freed of my catheter!
