Sapphires and Desires (The Gem Fairy Series Book 1) (2 page)

He’s distracted by his cellphone and hasn’t noticed me yet so I stick my finger in my mouth and the shove it into his ear.

“Aww! Gross, Laytah! Seriously?” He cries shoving his phone into his pocket and using the front of his shirt to dig the spit out of his ear.

I laugh.

“That’s sick. I’m gonna get you back later you know,” he laughs with me.

I’m not scared, he’s not near as stealthy as I am.

“You ready for the test?” he asks eagerly. I’m sure he was up all night studying where as I was definitely not, I was having nightmares. I guess that’s one difference between us, he’s a studier, and I’m definitely not.

“What do you think?” I say all snarky.

He laughs.

“I had the dream again last night, thirteen nights in a row and counting. It’s the longest streak of it I’ve had in a couple years. The last three nights have been so intense that they’ve actually woken me up.” I admit.

“Jeeze,” he supplies. “Well, I really think you should go see one of the councilors here, they’re free and I mean you really shouldn’t be having creepy flashbacks from something that happened almost twenty years ago. I know I’ve said this like a thousand times…or more…but seriously, go get help.”

He’s given me variations of this speech for my whole life and I’ve never went to get help so I don’t know why he keeps trying.

I don’t say anything and he changes the subject to his latest humanities class project as we begin walking to class. Something about a slide show presentation or something, I try to listen but just keep zoning out and thinking about last night, I eventually just end up nodding now and then to make him think that I’m listening.

I keep thinking about the voice from last night, the door swinging open by itself, and then this morning, how it all seemed to be somewhat real. I mean the banana and the phone, what are the chances? I find myself unable to pay attention to what Geoff is saying. Soon my head begins to hurt and I find my nose to be a little runny. I grab the pack of tissue I keep in my jacket pocket and blow my nose into one. When I pull it away from my nose it’s bloody. Hmm, the air must be dry today. Gross. I never get nosebleeds, Geoff is usually the one that gets them.

“Oh yuck, Laytah,” Geoff says pulling hand sanitizer from his own pocket. “Here, use this crap,” he murmurs drenching my hands in it. What a germophobe.

“Thanks.”

“Whoa, you look pale,” Geoff says throwing his hand up to my forehead.

“I must be getting sick. Can you get nosebleeds from having a cold?” I ask while tearing open my backpack to find my cold medicine. Sure enough I’ll be half through the test and have to leave because I’m so ill.

“I don’t know, I’m in general studies not med school, but probably.”

“Great, right before finals,” I complain as we turn into our classroom.

‘Cultural Studies’ is the only class that Geoff and I have together. I needed an elective last minute due to one of my classes being cancelled and he forgot to sign up for his classes before they all filled up so we decided to take cultural studies together although neither of us is really interested in it. Obviously not many were interested in it since it was the last class to fill up.

To tell you the truth, we hardly even go to this class. We usually go for coffee or sleep in instead. The class is blatantly boring and pretty straight forward if you read the text book, not to mention that it’s far too early in the morning for our tastes. Easy I say, yet I suck at it. Who am I trying to kid? It’s not hard but it’s so boring that I can’t learn any of the material.

“You gonna be able to manage?” Geoff asks, eyeing me as if I’m dying or something.

I nod and we both head to our assigned seats.

You’d think that in post-secondary you’d be able to have the freedom of picking your own place to sit. Not in this class, another reason why I hate it.

I glance up at the clock at the front of the room. We’re just in time and it isn’t long before our professor starts handing out the exams and giving us the ‘test speech’.

“This test is meant to be completed alone, there will be no copying, asking questions, or other interactions. It is due at the end of class when you will flip it over where you sit and leave the room. There should be nothing on your desk while you write, please keep all cell phones in your backpacks or hand them in to me at the front here. You may begin.” The professor, a balding man in his sixties, instructs.

The test takes me about an hour and Geoff half an hour. I know he’s waiting for me outside the classroom and so I try and hurry, to no avail.

When I finally finish I flip to the front and print my name on it along with my student number. Then I quickly flip through the pages of the test to make sure I didn’t miss any questions. When I’m about halfway done flipping through it, I realize that I forgot a whole section of questions that I skipped because I didn’t understand them.

I cuss silently and look at the clock. I’m pretty well out of time.

Tired, sick, irritated from the test, stressed out from exams, and tormented by my night I stand up and flip over my test uncompleted and leave the room. You know how I said that this class is pretty straight forward? Well, I swear it is. I only suck at it because I don’t study, don’t review the notes, and don’t listen in class probably because I never go to this class, so it’s 100% my fault that I’m probably going to fail it. Geoff is going to be so mad when I tell him my mark once it’s done being assessed.

Outside of the room Geoff sits on a bench in the hallway holding two steaming hot coffees. My day just got a little bit better.

He’s smiling, he knows he’s made my morning. I mean you can’t outdo coffee, especially on a morning like this one. It’s practically a gift from god. Whoever invented coffee deserves a high five and their name on some sort of plaque or something.

“That test was terrible,” I say grumpily and grab my coffee from him.

He laughs. “It really wasn’t that bad, Laytah, you should’ve studied.”

“I know.”

“Whatever! It’s too late now! See you this afternoon when I’m done classes? I better get going or I’ll be late.” He shrugs and I wonder why he’s so outgoing this morning, he’s usually a bear in the morning like me. Hell, he was probably up early studying and already chugged six coffees.

“Sure.”

He stands up and heads towards his next class while I head to the front parking lot to grab my car. I’m so happy that I only had one class today.

As I near the school’s front entrance, I begin to feel dizzy. I contemplate whether or not I should go back to bed instead of going uptown to get groceries. I know I probably shouldn’t drive.

I decide to go against my common sense and I head out of the front doors to find my car. Of course I parked it at the far end of the parking lot and have to walk a mile to find it. Once I finally get to the vehicle, I jump in it and head towards the nearest super market.

The drive is long and painful although it’s really only a few minutes away. As I drive, I dig through my center console trying to find my student ID so I can get a discount off of my groceries. I know I should probably wait until I’m parked to distract myself with this but I’m not always one to make smart decisions. I wing a bunch of junk onto the passenger seat. I have everything in here from makeup to tampons to dirty socks it’s no wonder I can’t find a little tiny card.

Someone honks behind me and I look up to see that the light has turned green and I’m holding up traffic. Oops. I slam on the gas and speed over a hill and onto a bridge. The supermarket is just on the other side of it. I take my eyes off the road for a second to look into the console I’ve been ravishing. THERE IT IS! Right at the bottom, of course. I dig it out and throw it into my pocket. Another horn sounds behind me and just as I look up to see what I could’ve possibly done wrong now, a red car rams into the side of my own and sends me hurdling through the guard rails and off the edge of the bridge towards the river far below.

Time slows down just like they say it does when you’re about die but my life certainly doesn’t flash before my eyes. Instead, the only thing going through my mind in those last seconds before I hit the water are the words ‘holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…’ and flashbacks of the last time I was in a car plummeting towards a river. When my car finally reaches the water a strong pain radiates throughout my whole body for only a second and then everything goes completely black.

Chapter Two

I don’t know how long I am mentally unconscious for but it must be a while because when my brain is finally able to function again, I can tell very vaguely that I am in a hospital. I can’t move or feel any part of my body, all I can do is lay and listen. I can hear machines beeping and assume that I’m hooked up to far too many to be in good health. At least I’m alive, I guess. I’m tired, I feel like sleeping only I’m too scared to go to sleep again, because what if I don’t wake up? I can’t open my eyes but I can tell that I’m not alone in the room. Someone’s breathing is just loud enough that I can hear it. Whoever it is they must be standing beside my bed. Could it be Geoff? Or is it a doctor? Nurse?

I listen more intensely and can hear phones ringing outside my room and people’s footsteps in the halls. I use all my strength to try and force open my eyes. Nothing happens. Great.

“Hello again, little one.” An all too familiar voice caws in my ear. If I could move I would’ve been up and off the bed in an instant. “Sorry for the scare last night.”

I hear one of the monitors begin squealing and I’m sure it’s because my heart is pounding so hard.

“Deep breaths, little one. You’re much safer with me than with
him
if you die. I know all of your secrets now, even the ones you don’t know about yourself.” The voice rants.

I try to tune it out by singing Christmas songs in my head.
We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas…

The same cold feeling from last night brushes my cheek before I drift into unconsciousness.

“Wheel her down the hall and notify her family please, Margaret,” a deep raspy male voice says from right next to me. It must be the doctor.

My family hasn’t been notified that I’m in the hospital yet? Maybe I haven’t been unconscious as long as I thought, it feels like I’ve been laying here for years.

I try and sit up. Nothing. I hope that it’s just the medication that they’re giving me that is making me unable to move and I’m not paralyzed or something terrible.

“Dr. Thomas, I think her toe just moved!” A female voice cries out excitedly. I assume the voice belongs to Margaret, who I assume is a nurse or something close to it.

“That’s not possible, Margaret. She’s gone. The tests have all proven the same thing.” The doctor says. ”She’s dead.”

Dead? Who are they talking about? Not me surely because I’m very much alive. Maybe I’m in a shared room with someone and they’re dead because I’m quite obviously not.

A touch of sadness attacks my heart. Is this possibly death? Will I be stuck in a rotting body for eternity? No. That can’t be possible. What about heaven? Geoff has always believed in god and life after death, so if I am dead, then where is all of that? Obviously I’m not dead. Or maybe, I am so close to death that the machines are saying I’m dead because they can’t even tell I’m still alive. Maybe I’m about to die at any moment and I’m just barely hanging on. OR maybe I am alive and the machines are all wrong. Whatever it is, something is very, very wrong.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, Dr. Stevens. I just hate losing patients so young.”

“It never gets easier, you just find ways to deal with it. We lose some but we help more than we lose. You’ll understand the longer you work here. The first year is the worst.” The doctor replies to Margaret and then I hear a door open and I can tell that I’m being moved.

It’s not long before I’m wheeled into a room that’s cold. Like freezing cold. I know exactly where I am, I mean, how many hospital rooms are super fricken cold, one, that’s right, one, the morgue. And that’s when it all really hits me and I start freaking out. They think I’m dead and I have no way of telling them otherwise. The tests and monitors that could’ve maybe saved my life have been unplugged. I’m not dead yet but I’m about to be. I pray to god that the doctor has made some sort of mistake and I’m alive just unconscious and drugged so I can’t move. Maybe I’ll wake up and be fine.
Right
. I’m about to die, doctor’s don’t just claim patients dead and have them wake up in the morgue. When have I ever heard of that happening?

Is it going to hurt? Where will I go? What will happen? Oh god, Geoff and my aunt. I feel as though I’m about to cry but no tears come out, at least none that I can feel. I use my rage, my sadness, my will to live, and my remaining strength to attempt to open my eyes one last time. Nothing. The exhaustion finally overwhelms me and I slip into unconsciousness again, maybe for the last time. I savor what could possibly be my final second.

I wake up with an exaggerated gasp and an anxiety which I don’t understand. Where am I? Why am I so damn cold? It’s dark, like super dark. I’m in a bed. Not my bed, mine is huge, this one is just small, a single probably. When I roll off, it takes longer for my feet to touch the floor than I anticipate and I nearly fall onto my butt. When my bare feet hit the ground it’s even colder than the air around me. I begin feeling my way around the room.