I watched stunned as she made her way down the sidewalk. Not that Leah was wrong, but it still felt sad to see the first friendship I had in college fade away. In so many ways, I owed Leah a great deal. She had been my solid ground when I landed here, my first real friend–well-ever, and without her, that first few months would have been miserable. I hadn’t wanted us to grow apart, but again with the trajectories. I looked down and sighed. She was right, life has lifed us.
I turned toward the dorm.
If I planned on meeting Tyler later, it meant study time now.
Textbook after textbook, paper after paper, I wasn’t sure how my neck would ever stay upright. The difficulty expected here was legendary, it wasn’t a secret, but honestly, I thought I wouldn’t be quite as buried. I wasn’t an average student, I had high intelligence, am a super-fast reader, and a decent writer. College was going to be a cake walk.
Yeah, it wasn’t.
Each professor had high expectations of what your homework for them would look like. Massive amounts of readying, and hours’ worth of “reflections” were the norm these days. Now cramming for finals, trying to remember all that reflecting I had strung together to form required paper lengths was starting to kill me.
Finally, looking up I realized that once again, time had gotten away from me. How was it possible I had been at the library for over five hours?
My phone was on silent, keeping me from being disturbed.
Yep, there it was, the message from Tyler stating he was done with his meeting.
And the next one asking if we were still on.
Finally, the last one stating to just hit him up when I was open.
Dang it.
I typed into the screen and hit send. Packing up my books, I shook my head again at the time. Five hours shouldn’t have moved that quickly.
I’d totally missed dinner. The dining hall had closed almost an hour before. I walked to the student union building to settle for a quick bite from the walk-up café. The sidewalks were empty. Most students were holed away studying for exams. I walked with my head down, making sure I didn’t trip on my own feet. The snow had been cleared, but ice was still a possibility.
Looking up, just before I turned off the path, I saw her. The little girl in the window. My feet went forward, ignoring the turn. My eyes met the ghost's and pulled me towards the house. Each step, I grew closer to the little girl. Each step my body grew colder.
I hadn’t grounded, I hadn’t prepared for this. I stood at the bottom step of the house, preparing to climb the steep stairs to finally see what I could learn from the girl.
My hand gripped the railing and blackness filled my eyes.
I heard voices, and when I tried to focus my eyes, I saw a brown uniform hovering over me. A shiny badge confused me.
“Hey, you need to stay put. You took quiet a fall.” The man’s voice came from the brown uniform, but I still couldn’t understand why he was talking. I pushed weakly with my hand, and it was stopped by another.
“Easy there, we are trying to make sure you are ok. Do you remember what happened?” the second voice came from above my head. I tried to move my neck, but it hurt. I sighed in pain. The sigh made my head pound.
“Ouch.” I muttered under my breath.
The first voice chuckled, “Yeah, I am sure ouch. You hit pretty hard. You’re lucky you don’t need stitches.”
I reached up, trying to touch the side of my head, but my arm didn’t really work. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, like I said, you need to stay put, the ambulance is on the way.”
“What? No, I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance.” I sat up and immediately felt nauseous.
“She’s going to vomit.” The first voice said. How did he know?
They rolled me sideways, carefully, and sure enough I upchucked. My head pounded more. I tried to open my eyes. But even the small exterior lighting of the campus seemed to feel like a knife through my mind. I fought to sit upright.
“Easy now.” The second voice, coaxed, as he assisted my shoulders.
“I don’t want an ambulance. Please?”
“Well you are going to the hospital, one way or another. You have to be checked out.”
The ER lights were so bright, the constant beeping and dinging alarms made me want to cry. Never had my head hurt like this.
They put me in a room separate from most of the noise and dimmed the lights.
Much better.
“How are we feeling?” Someone asked by my ear. Why couldn’t they let me sleep?
I wrinkled my face and tightened my eyes more. “Tired.” I croaked, realizing how dry my throat was.
“I am sure you are. Here, take a few sips of water. We don’t want you to get dehydrated.”
I pulled on the straw as the nurse praised me. “Ok, the doctor will be in to chat with you in just a minute. If you need me, just push this button.” The nurse put a remote thing in my hand, and I nodded my head in hopes she would go away.
I needed to rest. My mind hurt just trying to remember what happened. My thoughts were running through glue. Nothing was clear, and everything hurt. I just wanted to sleep.
“Hi, can you tell me your name?”
I wrinkled my brow, why did people insist on talking to me? “Savanah.”
“And can you
