Full Strength

Thirty Three-Logan🏒

        With a start, I opened my eyes. It was dark. Dark and hot, with the sheets sticking to my skin. My hand was shaking as I wiped sweat from my forehead, the ends of my hair damp. Oxygen appeared to be in short supply as I tried to gulp down fresh air that wasn't there. 

        Next to me, Lillian stirred. "Logan?" she croaked.

        "Hey." I licked my lips, finding them drier than sandpaper.

        "Are you okay?" she asked, sitting up and turning on the lamp. I flinched at the sudden light, my eyes squinted.

        "Yeah, fine," I said, struggling to think through the sudden dizziness and nausea that was sweeping over me. "Just not feeling too great."

        She frowned, gently lifting her hand to my forehead. Her skin felt like it was on fire, and not in the way that normally gave me butterflies. "You're burning up."

        "Probably caught something," I said, although I didn't feel particularly congested. "I should probably go sleep in my room. That way you're less likely to catch it."

       Lillian ignored me, instead crawling to the end of the bed. She flipped over the sheets and began peeling away the layers of bandages and gauze around my leg. I hadn't realized before, but now I felt it: the awful, hot itchiness. I needed to scratch my leg so badly. 

        "Whoa, whoa," she said, grabbing my hand before fingernails could make contact with the bare skin. "Logan, stop. Don't touch."

        "Please? It itches," I begged, practically going crazy.

        She didn't reply as she reached for a tissue from the nightstand. Carefully, she dabbed at the mark that ran from my knee to mid-thigh, where the surgery had been so many months ago. I couldn't see all that well in the dim light, but I thought the tissue came away stained with some sort of fluid.

        "It's infected," she whispered.

        "What?"

        "We've got to get you to the hospital," she said, abruptly standing and turning on lights. "Grab your crutches."

        I did as she asked, saying, "How bad is it?"

        "I'm not sure just by looking," she said, snatching her purse and cramming on shoes. "But I don't like that it's infected all these weeks later."

        Lillian put on a hasty wrapping around my leg, mostly so I wouldn't accidentally cut open the skin. Then she ushered me out of the house, helping me into the car and loading my crutches in the back.

        As she drove, I watched her facial expression. "Is it bad?" I asked quietly.

       "I don't know," she said simply. "I don't like that you feel so sick."

        "It's not so much sick. It's mostly the temperature fluctuations and the nausea," I said. My fever, which had been sky-high, had both put me in sweats and sent chills down my spine in a matter of minutes. My stomach, on the other hand, was threatening to throw up the homemade tacos we'd had for dinner several hours ago.

        Lillian pulled into the hospital parking garage and helped me into a wheelchair. I was no stranger to the emergency room, from years of broken jaws, concussions, and various other injuries. I was given a bracelet and wheeled away to an examination room.

         "Wait, she can't come with me?" I asked, noticing Lillian starting to sit down in the waiting room.

         "Right now it's family only for the emergency room," the nurse said apologetically.

        Through my haziness, I thought that maybe if I said she was my sister, she could come with me. Because going alone did not sound fun. But then I remembered that Lillian was my actual, real-life doctor. If they looked at paperwork or called her later, we'd be busted. So I kept my mouth shut, although keeping my mouth shut also helped me not throw up.

         Bright lights, talking doctors. I could barely think. Finally I got the courage to say feebly, "Excuse me?"

        One of the nurses looked up. "Yes?"

        "I think I'm going to throw up," I said in a quavering voice.

        I was supplied with a trash can, which I instantly filled with vomit. Unfortunately, it didn't help settle my stomach. Miserably, I held the can close to my chest, figuring I would need it again soon. It wasn't five minutes later that I threw up again.

        Someone was unwrapping my bandages. It wasn't reassuring to hear one of the nurses gasp softly under her breath when the cloth came away. Trying to helpful, I said, "Normally it looks bad. Not just when it's infected."

         Looking at the cut, I felt dizzy again. Those weren't shades and hues that belonged in the human body. It was more like Maisy had taken all of her crayons and seeped them into my nervous system. Or maybe my arteries; one of those. Either way, there were definitely all the colors of the rainbow inside me.

         I grasped the front of my hair, which still felt damp with sweat. "Shoot."

        "What is it?" the doctor asked, barely looking up.

        "I think..." Oh, thinking was much too hard. 

        There was beeping, then a rushing of footsteps. "Someone grab his head!" a woman shouted. I closed my eyes, just for a moment.

         Perhaps I have passed out.

A/N: Shorter chapter, I know, but hopefully I get the next update out soon :)