And So It Goes by Judy Colella (books for 9th graders .TXT) 📖

EMTs checked you out, they decided you didn’t need hospitalization, so they just brought you home and gave us instructions about how to handle the kind of concussion you have.”

There are different kinds? “Er, what kind do I have, exactly?”

“A grade one, or simple concussion. That wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t also had to deal with the stress of having a school building fall on top of you.”

What was I – the Wicked Weirdo of the East? “Mom, it didn’t fall on top of me. I mean, parts of it got torn off and stuff and one of the ceilings fell in on the other side of the classroom, but all that happened to me was that I got jammed into a small closet with way too many other students. Come to think of it, a few laws of physics may well have been broken in the process.”

“Shasta, please. The point is that you experienced two huge traumas in one day, and according to the medic, your mind and body temporarily shut down.”

Three traumas…no, four. Thinking Gina might have been killed in the tornado, and the repeated if brief appearance of Steven in my life. “Oh.” My brilliant-comeback ability was on a roll, eh?

“You have to rest for the next few days, so no school tomorrow, although to be honest, I’m about certain they won’t be holding classes until they’re sure the parts of the building that survived are stable.”

“Good. I don’t want to go to school in a stable.” I was joking. I was.

“Oh, you poor thing – your mind must be so scrambled by all this!”

Have I mentioned that my mother has an irritating if kinda cute way of taking things I say literally? “Nah, I’m fine. My shoulder hurts, though.”

“Ah, right. Hold on.” She went into the bathroom – I have my own bathroom, which is totally convenient when your mom has a boyfriend – and came back with a glass of water and a pill bottle. “Take one of these. It will help the pain.”

I took the bottle and read the label. “Hydrocodone-acetaminophen. What’s that?”

“Another name for Vicodin, but it’s a very low dosage, so you shouldn’t have any side-effects.”

That didn’t sound good. The word “shouldn’t” never boded well in iffy situations, I’d noticed. “Shouldn’t, but might?”

“That’s one of the reasons you have to stay home, preferably in bed, for the next few days.”

“And what are these possible side-effects, mom?”

“Nothing major – respiratory depression, nausea maybe. I looked it up because I couldn’t remember exactly what the EMT said.”

“So my respiration might become suicidal?”

“At least she still has her sense of humor.” Wade, having magically appeared in the doorway, was doing embarrassing things with his eyebrows again.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Shasta!”

“What?”

“I didn’t see ‘rudeness’ as one of the symptoms or side-effects, so I can only surmise you’re being unpleasant on purpose, young lady.” Her brows had nearly bumped into each other.

Wade came into the room. “It was an honest question.” Smiling, he perched on the edge of the bed near my right foot. “How are you feeling?”

Sitting near either of my feet when I’m not in a good mood could be dangerous, especially if you’re someone I don’t like. Lucky for Wade, the only thing I didn’t like about him were his stupid eyebrows, and since kicking them would have been incredibly stupid, I settled for a weak smile. “Fine.”

“Take your pain medicine.”

“Yes, mom.”

She helped me sit up and I took one of the tablets, which, because I was thinking of the pill as a tablet, got me thinking about Gina. She was a pill, and she had broken her tablet – ha!

Wade gave me a strange look. “What are you grinning about?”

“Nothing. Just thought of something.”

 

[To Be Continued As Soon As I Stop Getting Distracted and Interrupted By My Family and Life In General - Judy Colella]

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Publication Date: 06-21-2015

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