Breakfast is an hour later on the weekends. I manage to keep myself asleep until seven. It's not easy with all the machines beeping and flashing, but maybe I can get used to anything. Or maybe I'm just exhausted. Hospitals are so alien...there's lots of reasons to hate them. The atmosphere itself just saps energy.
I tell all the nurses I’m going home tomorrow. I’m not sure if they believe me, but since the only way to find out is to sneak a look at my chart, I give them the benefit of the doubt.
A couple of the visitors ask me why I don't have any, but I say that I don’t need someone to sit and entertain me. I don’t need anything except a good long night out dancing…but I hope that I’ll get it soon. If we’re moving to a little tiny town, I can find a new club and get a fresh start. I daydream about it all morning. New school, new friends…okay, they’re not exactly daydreams since I’m so scared of so many things—being behind on classes, not making friends, getting into more trouble—but I’m not expecting vampires around. I’m scared of the things a normal girl is scared of. I’ve done fine all week talking like the other world doesn’t exist. I'm ready to go out and do it in the world. I'm all about secrecy now.
I spend the morning baking peanut butter cookies with Tasha. The nurses really want us out of our rooms doing projects—and I’m sucking up for them today—Jennie is here again, and all of us can still leave the hospital meal trays; ergo, baking project. First we gorge ourselves on dough. Then we gorge ourselves on cookies. It’s fun.
Maybe sane Buffy is philosophical Buffy. I like cookie dough. Besides the fact that it’s sugar, and sometimes you can put chocolate in it—I like the way it’s great when it’s not done yet. And I like the way that the finished cookies taste even better than you’d ever expect just from tasting the dough, but when you’re eating dough, it seems like the best thing ever made.
Tasha’s family leaves promptly at three thirty in the afternoon. She goes with them. I tell her not to come back, but to give me her address. I can’t give her mine since I’ll be moving soon, but I promise to write. I wonder if I can keep that promise. The old, pre-Calling Buffy wouldn’t have even said she would (or have wanted to be friends with Tasha anyway), but the new, Buffy-who’s-keeping-her-Calling silent…we’ll see. I still think I like this new Buffy better, even though I'm trying to act like old Buffy for the world.
The old Buffy would have no qualms about using her Slayer hearing to eavesdrop on the doctor talking to Tasha's family. The new Buffy is genuinely concerned about her new friend.
Enough philosophy! Whichever person I am, I'm standing outside the door pretending to examine the nurse's "assertiveness" chart and listening with both ears.
Tasha had an averse reaction to her ADHD medication. She's on a new medication, and she's sleeping soundly again and having no wild mood swings. They wanted to have her under observation while switching the meds, but everything's fine and she can go home.
ADHD medication. I wonder for a moment what that stands for, but--doing a quick scan of all the posters around here--I find one with "Basic Facts about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder." Symptoms: Inability to Focus; Concentrating on Everything At Once; Compulsive Inappropriate Jokes." Hmmm...sounds a little like Dawn. I chuckle. Not really, but there's one more thing to store for when she gets too annoying. I read on. More boys have this disorder than girls, and more kids get the label than really have the illness. Usual treatments: medication, time.
That doesn't sound so bad.
I'm just glad Tasha isn't crazy. I run to the opposite end of the hall, look out the window, and wave goodbye. She blows me a kiss. She's all cuddled up in the backseat with Jennie. She doesn't even look hyperactive.
My new roommate arrives almost as soon as Tasha is out the door. I pout a little bit and take down a few of the pictures I’d put up on the other side of the room when I thought I’d have it to myself now, and greet the new girl. Tasha didn’t turn out to be crazy…
This one maintains she isn’t crazy; she says she just has a physical problem, and she makes the nurses take her blood pressure every half hour or so. Her name is Ellen, and I can’t get her to stop talking. It’s just as well; there are less chances for me to talk about things I shouldn't when I can’t get a word in edgewise.
I leave her to settle in and take every bit of nervous energy I have out on the exercise bike. Since nurse Shellie can't kick me off, the bike looks distinctly worse for wear when I finally get tired.
Another vampire blows through the hallway after supper. It's a teenaged guy, not in vamp face this time, but dressed last century's clothes and sniffing his way along. I swear under my breath. I can't tell anyone what I've seen, and I can't let anyone see me do what I need to do, but if I don't stake that vampire, it'll snack on one of the innocents here. Maybe one of my friends. What are hospitals like without Slayers to protect them—is that where the unexplained deaths come from? And why can't someone figure out how to uninvite the vampires?
In other words, why do I have to carry the weight of the world? Especially as a secret?
I stalk the vampire into group room two. Good...no one around. Bad...no windows. I try to think of something to say to distract it as I'm rummaging through the art drawers for wooden paintbrushes. The handles are all plastic. Cheap art suppliers!
He tries to get around me, saying that he's just sneaking in after hours to reassure his girlfriend.
"Is that what you call it?" I say. I can't think of anything clever. This place is definitely getting to me.
"What?"
"'Reassure,' not 'bite'?" Lame, Buffy, lame. I knock over the entire art table to retrieve a tongue depressor some sloppy nurse dropped in the middle of group last week.
"What are you talking about?"
I aim the tongue depressor at the heart. Then I stop. We've edged out of the group room back under the common room windows, and he's standing in the sunset. Vampires can tolerate late sunset, I think, but the sun isn't really down yet, and it's bathing him in orange light. He's not sniffing anymore. He just looks mad. Most of the other patients and all of the nurses are in the common room now. Everyone's staring at me.
I try to get behind the knocked-over table. Slayer combat reflexes kick in, and I'm on the outside watching my body. Three nurses hold me down. I thrash; I leave several good bruises (including one genuine shiner for Shellie), but someone jabs a needle into my arm and the world goes black.
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