She was resting now. Hours earlier, she'd struggled again against the heart monitor and the IV. She kept telling them she wanted to go home, was tired of being in the hospital. She kept insisting that it was time for her to leave.
Dr. Macafee kept adding days to the chart. This evening, he sits at her bedside calculating how long it may take for the wound in her chest to heal. He'd have released her far earlier for rehabilitation had she not gotten an infection. Hospitals, you'd think they were sanitary. She was better now, resting, her fever back to a startling low 95 degrees. Apparently she ran colder than most.
"I don't know why you keep doing this," he muttered as he checked the rest of her vitals. "If you'd just sleep a little more, eat like we asked, you could go home any day now."
But she was defiant. She refused to eat the amount of food he prescribed and insisted she didn't want reconstructive surgery for the bullet wounds. She asked only that he fix her face. When she went down in the cafeteria that day, apparently the shock to her body forced her forward, her face thwacking the sharp edge of a table. The ragged edge of the old table ripped shreds down the left side of her face and the impact on the floor broke her nose.
He didn't know why she wouldn't let him fix her chest. The two bullets that tore through her heart tissue had been removed, but the exit wounds blew large holes through the front of her chest. The scarring could be helped, he thought.
Sighing, he sat down again, glanced out the window at the setting sun and then turned his face to her. She really was a lovely creature and quite puzzling too. He couldn't explain his fascination with this patient.
Meanwhile....minutes later.....
Noodle walked slowly toward the hospital emergency door. In his left hand, a letter. In the right, a single yellow tulip.
In his mind, one phrase,
"There is always hope."
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