- RAYA -
I'm awake way before things start making sense. Rory and my dad are under bright fluorescent lights, white walls around them, a woman in scrubs holding my wrist and checking her watch…
"Auraya, can you hear me?" My dad comes close and grabs my hand, squeezing it, and I can't understand why in the world he would be here. I haven't seen him since like Christmas. We all just have such busy lives that it keeps us from getting together like we should even though we live in the same city. Dad's a bit of a hermit, and I guess I'm too much like him to make more of an effort to reach out.
"I hear you," I mumble and squint, trying to remember, trying to understand why he would be here next to me. "Is it my birthday?"
"No, honey, it's not your birthday," he smiles gently. "You had surgery. Apparently you were in an accident. Do you remember?"
The work of thinking is apparently audible at the moment, because I groan trying to remember. Nothing is immediately coming to me.
