Laying in her hospital bed, Rosalyn groggily started to wake up to the sound of her family. Feeling the usual pounding in her head, she hoped her family would leave if she remained 'sleeping'.
Slightly opening her eyes to see where she was, she saw her parents and sister in a clean room. The unmistakeable smell of disinfectant immediately told her they were in a hospital. She would never forget this smell. It had engraved itself in her mind, during the stay after her coma.
Her sister, Chloe, was sitting on a sofa playing on her phone by the window. Her parents, Claudia and Charles Bell, were huddled with their head together not far from her.
Seeing that there were no other people in the room with them, and having found out where she was, she closed her eyes again. She would pretend to sleep, hoping her family would quickly get tired of waiting, deciding to leave.
With her eyes closed, she tried to remember how she had ended up here. She remembered falling down the slope and Amon trying to keep her awake. Then the child screamed, and Amon had gone to take a look.
She remembered looking up the slope, seeing Amon's silhouette becoming more and more hard to discern in the darkness. Her eyelids had become extremely heavy, and she had no longer been able to keep them open.
The last thing she remembered was hearing Amon and someone else talking, but she hadn't been able to hear what they were talking about.
Then she had woken up here, with her family visiting…
Her parents' voices suddenly broke through her train of thought, as she heard them talking in hushed whispers.
"Haa… Did we really need to come all the way here? Is she not fine already?" her mother complained.
"You know we have to keep up appearances, Claudia. It would not look good if we did not visit even once, when our daughter is in the hospital." her father argued, his voice flat.
He had always been like that, careful of how they would appear to others. No one in the family was allowed to do anything that might sully his reputation, not even his wife.
"Ha! What daughter?! If it were not for-"
Mr. Bell cut her off before she could continue and berated her, "Claudia! Some things should not be said out loud. You know this!" His voice was heavy and the atmosphere in the room changed. The presence of something being left unsaid felt stifling even for Rosalyn in the bed.
Luckily, Chloe's voice cut through from the sofa, bringing with it a whiney undertone.
"Dad, why did you give her such an expensive hospital room? Like, I mean, sister should be fine as long as she has any normal room, right? Like, isn't it even her own fault that she is here?"
"The room was already paid for when we arrived -" Mr. Bell started but was quickly interrupted.
"What?! Like, why would someone pay for her room? Like, does that even make sense?" Chloe's shrill voice burst out, sounding shocked.
"I am not sure who paid for it, the receptionist refused to say" their dad continued in an even tone, ignoring Chloe's shock.
"Hmm… Could it have been Mark? Like, I mean, he seems to have some money…" Chloe probed, sounding unsure.
Rosalyn, herself, was also curious about who had paid her room. Who even knew she was there?
"Mark? Who is that?" Claudia asked.
"What do you mean; who is that? Rosalyn's boyfriend of course!" Chloe responded.
"What?! She has a boyfriend? Why have I not been informed of this?"
"You know how Rosalyn is, mom. Like, she is so secretive all the time and…" Chloe trailed off. She was almost about to tell her parents how Rosalyn had refused to ask Mark to buy her outfit but kept quiet.
She knew her parents had plans to marry Rosalyn off, so her having asked Mark for money would mean her family had indirectly accepted him into the family. After all, they obviously couldn't ask someone unrelated for money. They weren't beggars!!
So, knowing that her parents would be against Mark, she had to keep this bit to herself.
"Haa… This girl always causes so much trouble… Can't she just, for once, act decent and not cause trouble? Either way, who is this Mark?"
"I don't really know, mom… All I know is that he works as, like, a department head in some mid-size company or something. But, like, from what I gathered, it seems like he at least isn't some broke person living paycheck to paycheck."
Thinking back to the large amount she had gotten from him for her outfit, even more than what her parents would have given her, he had to be rich. But there was no way she would say this to her parents.
He seemed to be young and quite successful, and no way should her sister be with someone like that. Her sister's role was to be married off to some old pig or something. Rosalyn shouldn't be allowed to be happy. Having deprived her from having her parents to herself, Rosalyn should suffer at least that much.
"Haa… Not living paycheck to paycheck doesn't mean someone is well off, Chloe. It only means that they are not living above their means," Claudia harrumphed.
"Enough," Charles' voice echoed through the room, silencing the mother-daughter duo. "There is a time and place for everything. And this, here, in public, is not it," he let out a sigh.
"And Chloe, make sure you tell your sister to dump the deadweight before the event this weekend. There are multiple people we need to introduce her to, and it would be done best if she was single."
"Yes," Chloe answered meekly, her voice so low Rosalyn barely heard her.
"Good," he accepted before continuing, "now, let's all leave. We have stayed long enough, and it does not appear Rosalyn will wake up any time soon."
With that, she heard them shuffling around walking a bit, before the sound of the door opening and closing let her know they were gone.
Rosalyn opened her eyes and let out a sigh of relief. Finally, they were gone.