Discharged

330 was discharged from the hospital the other day. She’s now got an eye patch instead of a bandage over where her right eye was, so she looks a lot more like the 330 I knew. Still not exactly the same; she’s lacking the horizontal scar across her face. I think the doctors wanted to look over her more, but she was at the point where a single minute more of physical therapy and she might have tried to strangle someone.

She’s continuing her recover at my apartment. And like any good guest, the first thing she did when she arrived was open the fridge and start working her way through the drinks.

“Are you sure you should be drinking that much?” I asked her.

She waited until after she finished the bottle of wine before she answered. “My liver had a sword stabbed through it and it still seems to be fine; a little bit of alcohol isn’t going to do much more.”

Looking at the scattered empty bottles around the room told me that we both have very different definitions for “a little.” Eventually the alcohol won over and 330 fell asleep on the couch. No drunken stage to offer transition; she went from acting fully aware to knocked out in moments.

Got her a blanket, and then started cleaning up my apartment. Kinda let it fall apart after 330 appeared; I’ve been a bit distracted. I don’t know how I’ll explain all these bloodstains ….

Didn’t make much progress with that cleaning before 330’s screaming interrupted me. Ah yes, how could I forget. 330 has worse dreams then even I do. She was curled into a ball on the couch, hand over her eye patch, mumbling too fast and quiet for me to understand. Then there’d be brief moments where the mumbles would turn into screams, and she’d flail about until her screaming died back down.

During a calmer moment, I sat down next to her and started stroking her hair. The mumbling stopped, and her breathing calmed down.

Stayed like that for some time. Somehow her head eventually ended up navigating to my lap. Once, she woke up during the night. She looked at me for a long time, and then reached her hand toward my face. Said something weird….

“I can’t remember ever being as nice as you….”

She was asleep again before I could answer. Not long after, I fell asleep as well; when I woke up, 330 was already up and cleaning the mess she’d left. She apologized, I said it wasn’t a problem, both of us pretended her freak out last night never happened.

-Lisa