“I'm gonna get you that Icee, and get me one too. I'll be back,” she said, but she had changed her voice to a Dracula tone, and had backed out of the room with her hands out like a zombie. I tried to protest, but she was gone before I could even get a word out of my mouth.
I just sat there in the silence of my room, watching the shadows from the outside walk down the hall. For a moment, life didn't seem real.
The clock on the wall read that it was three-thirty. No normal girl would go out at three-thirty to get an Icee.
She must have been one of the crazy folks.
I laughed slightly, pushing the button to bring my bed up to a sitting position. I sat there, staring into the darkness for a while, not really thinking of anything, because I didn't even feel awake.
After a moment, I reached for the remote, and the pain button. I knew it would knock me out soon, and if I was lucky, maybe before she even got back.
I turned the TV on, and flipped through the channels, but nothing was on but fuzz and infomercials. Not that I watched much TV anymore. Most of it was beautiful people with normal problems. Where was the fun in that?
The girl came back only a few minutes after. I saw her shadow before I saw her, holding two large Icee cups and a grocery bag. She came in the room, smiling as she held up her products.
“Didn't know what you'd like, so I got some different stuff,” she said, coming to the side of my bed.
I watched in near silence as she moved my table over me, and set the things down. Then, she sat down on the other side, where Ava had sat earlier, and started going through the bag.
“Let's see, we've got KitKats, and Snickers, and Doritos, and Pringles, because what kid can live without a can of Pringles,” she said, looking up to flash me a smile.
I was instead staring at her drink. “What did you do to your Icee?” I asked.
The drink was purple, but also red and blue. It looked like a rainbow in a cup.
She picked up her drink, and my eyes followed her as she did. “Don't make fun of my Icee. I like all of the colors, so I figure, why not mix them all together. It really is pretty great,” she said with a shrug, sipping it and then sighing. “Once you try it, you can never be satisfied with one flavor ever again,” she said, shaking her head.
I watched her take out a pack of Sour Punch Straws, and Butterfingers, before the bag was empty and she threw it away.
She came back, sat down and opened the pack of Sour Punch Straws. “They really shouldn't even make any other flavors. The blue is the only ones worth eating,” she said, dipping one in her Icee, and then eating.
She looked up, and I realized I had been staring at her. I quickly averted my eyes to my drink, busying my hands and took one long swig of the cherry ice.
“I don't think you've told me your name yet,” she said, and I only looked up briefly to see she was watching me unashamedly.
“Falon Walker,” I said.
“Julie Michaels,” she said, smiling crookedly.
I nodded, and didn't say anything to it. I still wanted to fall asleep quickly. The pain was substantial, but having a normal conversation was just unusual.
I wondered if she was even looking at my burns. Was she dying to ask, but trying not to be rude? It wouldn't be the first time. Many people before her had done the same, trying to be nice by pretending I was normal.
Most people just wouldn't look at my face when they spoke to me. Like they could pretend I was normal if they didn't see what I looked like.
Julie wasn't avoiding my face though. If anything, I felt natural when she looked at me.
“Aren't you going to eat something?” she asked.
I shook my head, still trying to not look at her too much. “I'm not hungry,” I told her.
She stood up, and came to my side instantly. When the back of her hand touched my forehead, I recoiled. She didn't seem daunted by gesture. She went about checking my fluids and medicine.
“Are you in pain? You have the pump throughout the night,” she was saying, looking at me with concern written across her face.
“I'm fine,” I told her, looking at her.
She relaxed, smiling softly. “Fine isn't an emotion. If you're feeling hot, or strange, you should let me know, so I can get you something for it,” she replied.
“Can you even legally do that?” I asked, squirming.
Julie moved back to the end of the bed, lifting the blankets. I protested, louder than was necessary. She was only checking the blood pressure cuffs that were around my legs.
“Just relax, Falon,” she said, meeting my eyes with a hint of amusement in her light green eyes. “I'm not going to try to rape you or anything,” she replied, holding back a laugh.
I didn't say anything, but it was mostly because I was humiliated.
“To answer your question, yes, I can. I'm in nursing school, so this is like one of my training exercises,” she told me, pulling the blankets back over my legs and sitting down again.
“How old are you?” I asked her. There was a lump in my throat, so my voice sounded more caught than stern like I usually kept it. I sounded like an embarrassed schoolboy.
She smiled, swallowing down her rainbow Icee. “Seventeen as of four days ago. I would have invited you
