Teaching Willow: Session Three

Teaching

Willow

Session Three

A serial novel

By

Paige James

Amazon Edition

Copyright 2014, Paige James

Cover photo by Forewer

www.shutterstock.com

All rights reserved.  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.

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This book is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental.  The characters and storylines are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

FROM THE HEART

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Teaching Willow

Session Three Description

It started with waking up in a strange place.

It ended with everything that I thought I knew coming into question. 

Now, I’m watching love turn into hate, bend turn into break and lies turn into truth that hurts worse than the deception ever did.

Such is my life, The Wicked World of Willow Masters.

ONE- WILLOW

I force my sluggish eyelids open, blinking at the harsh light. It seems to penetrate my brain like a hot knife, causing a searing pain to slice through my head.  I grit my teeth and drag in a breath of air around them.  I note that my mouth is so dry that I doubt I could speak if I needed to.

But why?  Why the pain?  Why the dry mouth?  Why the nagging sense that something is terribly wrong, only I can’t remember what it is?

Braving the pain, I crack my lids again, holding them open until my eyes can adjust.  As it turns out, the light isn’t that bright after all. In fact, my surroundings seem to be a bit dark. 

I stare up at the unfamiliar ceiling with its white squares of dropped ceiling and long rectangles of fluorescent lights.  It looks very austere and functional.  Clinical almost.

Clinical.

Hospital?

Bits and pieces of the last things I can remember come tumbling back like boulders in a rock slide, bringing with them the emotions attached to each. 

Darting across the street.

Urgency.

Hearing Sage’s voice.

Panic.

Seeing the flash of headlights.

Fear.

Absorbing the crunch of metal.

Numbness.

I had a car accident. And I must be in the hospital. 

I lie perfectly still as I run an internal diagnostic and make a self-assessment.  I need to know what kind of damage was done. 

The first thing I do is wiggle my fingers and toes. When they move effortlessly, I sigh in relief.  That’s a good sign. At least I’m not paralyzed. 

Gingerly, I straighten my arms, reaching for my upper thighs.  That’s when I run into my first problem.  Only my right arm will move.  My left seems…tethered. 

I turn my head enough that I can glance down at my left arm.  It is bent at a ninety degree angle and strapped across my ribs. It’s completely immobilized and held in place by Velcro cuffs that wind around my forearm and upper arm, attaching them to a band that circles my torso.  When I try to lift it, a dull pain radiates through my left shoulder.  But at least there’s no cast.  No cast means no break. I hope.

I continue feeling my way around my body, raising my head and glancing down a couple of times to make sure I’m not sporting any other apparatus.  It seems I’m not.  And I’m not missing any “parts” either, which is comforting.

Content that I’m all in one piece, I relax my aching head onto the pillow.  Even with my eyes closed, I still know the instant the nurse comes into the room.  Although she makes no sound in her rubber-soled shoes, her solid form seems to somehow change the acoustics of the room, dulling the muted beeps and blips coming from somewhere outside my door.

I turn my head to look at her.  The fifty-ish, steely-haired nurse raises her eyebrows and gives me an upbeat
Oh!
of surprise.  “You’re awake.”

I nod.

She approaches the bed and starts checking lines and moving my blankets.  “Do you know where you are?”

“The hospital,” I croak.

Intelligent blue eyes meet mine.  “Need a drink of water before we talk?”

I nod again.  She winks at me and turns to exit the room.  Less than two minutes later, she returns carrying a clear plastic cup with black measurement lines up one side.  It’s nearly full of pellets of ice and cool, refreshing water. 

I resist the urge to smack my lips as she lowers it toward my face.  She guides the straw to my mouth and I clamp down on it like a life preserver.  I drink over half the glass before I let her take the cup.

She smiles at me and I smile back.  “Better?”

“Much.  Thank you.”

“So, let’s start with the basics.  What’s your name?”

“Willow Masters.”

“And do you know why you’re here, Willow?”

“I think I had a car accident.  I remember seeing the lights and then hearing metal crunching, but nothing much beyond that.”

“Well, I’d say that’s plenty.  Sometimes it’s better not to know too much detail.”  She pats my arm reassuringly as she leans against the edge of my bed.  “Are you hurting?”

I take a moment before I answer her.  Although my shoulder aches a little and my head is still throbbing, I wouldn’t say that I’m really
in pain.

“No, not really.”

“You’re gonna be sore for a while.  Best to just rest as much as you can.  But if you feel like getting up to go to the bathroom, hit your call bell.”  She reaches for a box dangling from a cord that’s wrapped around the thick, plastic rails of my bed. She taps the red button with her index finger.  “We’ll come and help you the first time you get up.  You might be a little lightheaded, so we want to be extra careful.  Other than that, except for your shoulder, we want you to move around as much as you can.  It’ll keep those muscles and joints from getting stiff and your soreness from worsening, okay?”

I nod yet again.  “How long have I been here?”

The nurse glances at her watch. “Oh, about five hours now.  Not too long.”

I nod for the millionth time it seems. I feel like some sort of broken bobblehead doll, but I can’t seem to drum up much in the way of conversational skills.  I don’t know why, but I have the strangest feeling that doom is hovering just outside.  Maybe just outside my consciousness.

“Can I get up now?” I ask, noting how full my bladder feels.  I’d hate for her to leave and then have to come right back when I buzz for her.  “I’ll save you a trip.”

“Sure,” she says, straightening and reaching for my wires again.  She unhooks the tubes to the blood pressure cuff that encircles my right arm and then she unplugs the machine that’s delivering something into the IV that’s in my arm.  When I’m mobile-friendly, she flings back my covers and looks at me expectantly.  “Do you want me to help you sit up or can you manage?  I don’t do well with only one arm, I can tell you that right now.”  She smiles again, this time a self-deprecating one.  I decide in that instant that I like this woman.  “I’m Mary, by the way.  I’m the one you can blame for aggravating you for the next few hours.” 

By the time I return to bed from my short trip to the bathroom, my head hurts worse, my shoulder aches and I’m exhausted.  Mary gets me settled and pulls my bedside table up close, setting my glass of water near the edge. 

“How you feeling now?”  I think she noticed my frown of discomfort.

“I’m okay.  Maybe I’ll just lie here a few minutes and rest.”

“Call if you need anything, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiles and walks away in her ninja-nurse way, leaving me to close my eyes and try to get comfortable.  The next time I hear someone come into the room, they’re not nearly so quiet.  And, when I open my eyes, not nearly so welcome.

Hovering just inside the doorway, like she stopped dead in her tracks when I opened my eyes, is my mother.  Her hand is covering her mouth and her eyes are watering.  I know what’s coming.

“Oh my word, Willow!  Are you okay?”

I can already hear code orange level alarm in her voice.  I need to diffuse this quickly before she goes off the deep end.

“I’m fine, Mom,” I assure her as she rushes to my side.  Her black hair is the exact same chin-length bob it has been for ten years and her makeup looks like she just put it on.  As always, she is perfectly coiffed, far too put together to have a daughter with “issues.”

“What happened?”

“I was turning into the parking lot and didn’t make it across the street fast enough, I suppose.”

Her eyes search mine.  “It was an accident?” she asks, uncertainty in her expression despite my explanation. 

I sigh.  “Yes, mother. It was an accident.”

She turns her head slightly.  “Don’t say it like that. I
have to
ask.”

“No, you don’t. I just explained exactly what happened.  There’s no reason for you to think it was anything
but
an accident.”

“Willow, I’m your mother.  It’s impossible for me to forget that you’re ill.  Especially when I learn that you’ve stopped taking your medication.”  She watches me closely as she drops that little bomb.  How did she know?

I know the answer.  And it infuriates me. 

Sage.

“Mom, I’m fine. I feel fine, I’ve been doing fine. I’m
fine
.  This was just an accident.”

I try to keep a lid on my growing impatience.

“You wouldn’t tell me if things weren’t fine,” she accuses.

“Probably not, but that’s not the case here. I really
am
fine.  I have been for a while now.  I am just as healthy and normal as everybody else.  I just had to grow up.  People mature and change, Mom.  And one day you’re going to have to accept that I have.”

“But your sister told me about that man.  It sounds so much like—”

My temper rises.  “Mom, stop.  Stop right there.  Sage has no business telling you stuff like that. It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.  She’s just as prone to overreacting as you are.”

“She’s just concerned about you, Willow.”

“No, she’s not. It was her stupid prying that even got me into this mess!”

“What mess?”  I can see that my mother’s agitation is rising in direct correlation to mine, so I purposely take a deep breath and back track.

“It was just a misunderstanding, Mom. I told you that.  Nothing to worry about. I’m just tired and cranky, and my head hurts.”

“Let me get the nurse,” she says, moving toward the door.

“No, no need.  She was just in here.  She said I needed rest.  That’s all.”

I hope my pointed remark makes its way through my mother’s thick skull.

“Would you like me to leave then?”  She looks wounded, which only makes me feel that much worse about this whole thing. I’m sure on some level she means well.  It’s just that she’s always been more worried about appearances than anything else and it’s hard for me to let that go.

“No, but I doubt I’ll be able to rest knowing that you’re here when you should be asleep.  Why don’t you get some rest, too, and I’ll just see you in the morning?”  I try to be as gentle as I can, conjuring a smile for added effect.

“I really don’t mind staying…”

“I know you don’t, Mom, but I’d feel better if you got some sleep after coming all this way.”  My parents live over two hours from Tucker, and she was probably already zonked when the accident happened, which means this is far past her bedtime.

“If you’re sure...”

“I’m positive.  Where are you staying?” I ask.

“Well, I thought I’d stay with you and your sister.”

Oh shit!

Two things happen as my mother speaks.  Number one, I realize that she has no idea that Sage is gone.  Number two, I remember why I have this dark-cloud feeling hanging over my head.

Sage.

She’s coming home in two days.

And my world will come crashing down around me.