I made a Facebook status sometime last week that detailed the fact that my Focus, my beloved Murfee, had more or less eaten too many cookies, rolled down the back hill, and was subsequently hit by a train as it passed by the house.
That should give you an accurate picture of how my semester has been going. Between two education seminars, four classes, a minimum of 20 hours community service (which, honestly, is actually 45, due to where I'm living), and three labs a week, I'm impressed that I'm still upright, mildly functioning, and haven't given myself a massive heart attack due to my caffeine consumption. I am, however, out of my meals provided by the Colleges courtesy of my meal plan, which isn't a big deal as I have a house with a kitchen, and thank sweet baby J that I have a coffee maker otherwise life would be more difficult than it already is on some days.
There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel. That light is next semester's schedule - which I've already registered for - and it is glorious. No class on Mondays and I'm done on Fridays by 10:00 am. Essentially a four-day weekend my senior spring. Which brings me back to this happy fact:
I registered for my last semester of undergraduate classes.
Which prompted a whole string of thoughts, most of them involving four-letter words and something that sounded very similar to I don't give a shit what this semester turns out like as long as I pass everything with the minimum grade required to have it count for my major.
It's kind of sad, really, as I started off the semester really hoping that I'd be able to pull of a solid 3.0. At this point in my life, the more realistic goal, however hard it is to swallow, is that I'll be very lucky if the hard work that I'm putting in this semester results in the minimum grade required to have all this shit count for my degree. It's not like I'm slacking, but having three chemistry courses all over 300 level is, well, not only time-consuming but soul-sucking in a way that you haven't really got a concept of until you actually get there.
I'll be amazed if I have any sanity left at the end of the semester. That's when I'm assuring myself that I'll be able to sleep, while my sister assures me that I can sleep when I'm dead. That's true, too, but I'm hoping to hold out on that for another couple of years, at the very least.
In other news, I was at a Ben Folds concert this past weekend and it was absolutely epic. Truly one of the highlights of my senior year and I'm really glad that I went. He's an amazing musician - and a piano player that words can't adequately describe - and it was an awesome experience.
The fact that my 22nd birthday is coming up in 11 days hasn't really registered, either, because it's not like I'm going to spend it relaxing. I'm most likely going to spend all of Black Friday - my birthday - working on my curriculum project: lesson plans, assessment criteria, rubrics, the whole nine yards and whatnot. It's going to be painful on multiple levels, but it absolutely has to get done because there's only so many weeks of class left.
It's not supposed to go this fast.
So, now that I need to prepare myself for my analytical class (don't get me started), I'm going to spend the next few hours of my life trying not to freak out about the fact that I flat-out forgot I have a lab write-up (thankfully not a formal) due today and the mother of all formal labs due tomorrow. (But maybe we can convince her to change that to Wednesday.) Couple that with an exam tomorrow evening, auditions for the winter and spring shows on Wednesday (with a prepared monologue, too) and this week is going to be fairly busy, culminating in another exam next Sunday and a project for Econ on the Tuesday before break. With all of that is who-knows-what coming down the pipes in the education courses and, really, people are wondering why I drink the amount of caffeine that I do? How else do you expect me to get through a week where my hours of work have bypassed the hours in a week?
But that's more or less what I've been dealing with for three months.
So damn difficult to think through that it's almost over. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Here's hoping it's not an oncoming train.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Things to Know XXII
- It's possible to lock yourself out of your room four times in one day.
- The first time is due to operator error and the last three are due to a malfunctioning doorknob.
- At least, that's the story I'm telling.
- My room is a damn hotbox.
- For some reason, Mother Nature has decided to have a hot flash, and she's taking it out on the rest of us.
- I sleep better in cold than hot.
- There's a spider bite the size of a fifty-cent piece on my left calf.
- I might, for the first time since high school, get an A on a chemistry exam tomorrow night.
- Having your shit together academically is actually quite nice.
- My calf itches. For obvious reasons.
- No, I'm not really sure where I picked that thing up and I'm hoping it's gone by tomorrow night. It's damn annoying.
- I haven't checked my campus mailbox in days. There shouldn't be anything in there, as Netflix hasn't had time to go and come yet.
- I brushed my teeth and then cracked open a beer. Yes, I know this doesn't make sense.
- Mondays are a little rough.
- From the amount of flashcards for my analytical exam on Friday, you'd think it was a history exam instead.
- I color-code things.
- Most of my classmates and I marvel at the soccer player who shaved his mustache because they finally lost.
- It was a little startling to see him without facial hair, honestly.
- Not that we didn't take the mick out of him about it in the first place, but hey.
- I wonder if I can stick this back in the fridge for later.
- Considering my day starts tomorrow at 6:40, I'm crawling into bed now.
- The first time is due to operator error and the last three are due to a malfunctioning doorknob.
- At least, that's the story I'm telling.
- My room is a damn hotbox.
- For some reason, Mother Nature has decided to have a hot flash, and she's taking it out on the rest of us.
- I sleep better in cold than hot.
- There's a spider bite the size of a fifty-cent piece on my left calf.
- I might, for the first time since high school, get an A on a chemistry exam tomorrow night.
- Having your shit together academically is actually quite nice.
- My calf itches. For obvious reasons.
- No, I'm not really sure where I picked that thing up and I'm hoping it's gone by tomorrow night. It's damn annoying.
- I haven't checked my campus mailbox in days. There shouldn't be anything in there, as Netflix hasn't had time to go and come yet.
- I brushed my teeth and then cracked open a beer. Yes, I know this doesn't make sense.
- Mondays are a little rough.
- From the amount of flashcards for my analytical exam on Friday, you'd think it was a history exam instead.
- I color-code things.
- Most of my classmates and I marvel at the soccer player who shaved his mustache because they finally lost.
- It was a little startling to see him without facial hair, honestly.
- Not that we didn't take the mick out of him about it in the first place, but hey.
- I wonder if I can stick this back in the fridge for later.
- Considering my day starts tomorrow at 6:40, I'm crawling into bed now.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Since When?
Hi. It's been a while, hasn't it?
At this point I hope there's nothing swimming in my coffee mug that's been sitting on the floor since I left for soccer roughly six hours and twenty minutes ago. The coffee mug that takes all four cups from my coffee maker in one go with room to spare. It's the equivalent of heaven for this chick.
One assumption you could make as to my absence from my lovely blog - and my lovely blog reader, which keeps up me to date on what the rest of you happy people are doing - is that I've been busy with my last first semester of undergrad. Yeah, you read that right. I'm a senior. Believe me, it's still terrifying to me, and it's been a month since I've moved back to campus, and we're going to be starting week five already, which is another jaw-dropper. As a result there hasn't been much Murphy, and I apologize for that. However, trying to keep Murfee (my Focus) occupied and on task has been an uphill battle some days. Specifically the ones where I get out of lab and all I want to do is crawl into my dorm bed (which, if you haven't seen my Twitter, I BIG PUFFY HEART) and sleep for at least six hours. But I can't do that. It would be unproductive and one thing that I've managed to be is productive.
With some extra incentive, too.
I started playing soccer again.
The above statement gets it's own line because, for any of you that don't know, I had to stop playing soccer little over two years ago because of my health issues. I wasn't able to keep the fitness level required to be an official Heron, and it was a big step to realize that, and an even bigger step to realize that wasn't a path I could easily follow anymore. A path that was more hassle than it was worth, despite my love for the game. Two years later this feels like a second chance at doing what has been my first true love. I get to put my spandex on for a reason other than wearing it to bed, strap on some shin guards, and buy new goalkeeping gloves because my other ones have literally been shredded.
Soccer is keeping me sane. It's relaxing. Not as relaxing as knitting, which my dad brought my knitting needles to me today, so I'll spend some time unwinding with that before I go to bed. I have a second chance to do what I love.
And it's my senior year. There are a finite number of "tomorrows" for me.
Now, I could take another post to do one of my favorite "features" but that would take a little more time and, frankly, two posts directly after one another is a little odd. So, think of this as a shortened Things to Know. Kind of like an unexpected present.
- "Holy F--k that's a big spider!" (While in a car in the middle of campus)
- "Are you inebriated?" "No, I'm a chemistry major."
- I apparently can't communicate in written form to save my life. Or my lab report grade in analytical.
- To the professor that said students spend less than 10 hours per week on their work outside of class - I spend 10 1/2 hours a week in lab.
- I make a trip to Coldstone once a week. This seems to be an okay arrangement with my brain and my hips.
- I finally put up all my posters, cork-board, and Vera photo thingy last week.
- It's the beginning of week five, if you need a reference for the previous.
- I found my bedroom floor Wednesday, because I thought my mother was going to actually come in the house when she came up.
- It's five weeks in my senior year of college.
- Where the hell did the time go?
- I have a houseplant named Henry, and have named the majority of his babies after the subsequent English monarchs.
- Not one of the posters hanging on my walls is hung straight.
- My Focus is a slippery little bugger that likes to play on the train tracks out behind the house.
- Speaking of which, one of these days, when the damn train goes through, the hill and the house are going to slide into the freakin' lake.
- The prospect of graduating and going on to grad schools scares the shit out of me.
- While the previous is true, I think I'm ready for it.
- Why do men feel the need to sit with their hand in their pants? Or is this something only collegiate-age men do, because it's kind of awkward.
- My biochem partner for the first week fidgeted more than my niece when she has to potty.
- I carry on conversations with my houseplant like he should be answering me back. But you're supposed to talk to your plants, right? It helps them grow, right?
- I feel like I've been given a second chance at soccer, and I'm going to take it. Every minute of it.
- My mother and sister have been canning fiends lately. The result is that I have a jars of raspberry jam, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa currently in my possession.
- You'd have thought I was asking for the universe on a silver platter when I asked if I could have a jar of sauce.
- But yes, it's that damn good.
- I bought new colored pens from the bookstore on Friday and thought I'd died and gone to heaven during biochem.
- I have a love of office supplies.
- I finally hooked up the cable on Wednesday, just so I could watch Harry's Law.
- The fire marshal catches a glimpse of the tangled mess of wires that's everything on the one side of the room in a power strip, he'll probably have a heart attack.
- I could care less. Mostly because I'm a senior.
- And hell hath no fury like a Louise without her automated coffee pot.
At this point I hope there's nothing swimming in my coffee mug that's been sitting on the floor since I left for soccer roughly six hours and twenty minutes ago. The coffee mug that takes all four cups from my coffee maker in one go with room to spare. It's the equivalent of heaven for this chick.
One assumption you could make as to my absence from my lovely blog - and my lovely blog reader, which keeps up me to date on what the rest of you happy people are doing - is that I've been busy with my last first semester of undergrad. Yeah, you read that right. I'm a senior. Believe me, it's still terrifying to me, and it's been a month since I've moved back to campus, and we're going to be starting week five already, which is another jaw-dropper. As a result there hasn't been much Murphy, and I apologize for that. However, trying to keep Murfee (my Focus) occupied and on task has been an uphill battle some days. Specifically the ones where I get out of lab and all I want to do is crawl into my dorm bed (which, if you haven't seen my Twitter, I BIG PUFFY HEART) and sleep for at least six hours. But I can't do that. It would be unproductive and one thing that I've managed to be is productive.
With some extra incentive, too.
I started playing soccer again.
The above statement gets it's own line because, for any of you that don't know, I had to stop playing soccer little over two years ago because of my health issues. I wasn't able to keep the fitness level required to be an official Heron, and it was a big step to realize that, and an even bigger step to realize that wasn't a path I could easily follow anymore. A path that was more hassle than it was worth, despite my love for the game. Two years later this feels like a second chance at doing what has been my first true love. I get to put my spandex on for a reason other than wearing it to bed, strap on some shin guards, and buy new goalkeeping gloves because my other ones have literally been shredded.
Soccer is keeping me sane. It's relaxing. Not as relaxing as knitting, which my dad brought my knitting needles to me today, so I'll spend some time unwinding with that before I go to bed. I have a second chance to do what I love.
And it's my senior year. There are a finite number of "tomorrows" for me.
Now, I could take another post to do one of my favorite "features" but that would take a little more time and, frankly, two posts directly after one another is a little odd. So, think of this as a shortened Things to Know. Kind of like an unexpected present.
- "Holy F--k that's a big spider!" (While in a car in the middle of campus)
- "Are you inebriated?" "No, I'm a chemistry major."
- I apparently can't communicate in written form to save my life. Or my lab report grade in analytical.
- To the professor that said students spend less than 10 hours per week on their work outside of class - I spend 10 1/2 hours a week in lab.
- I make a trip to Coldstone once a week. This seems to be an okay arrangement with my brain and my hips.
- I finally put up all my posters, cork-board, and Vera photo thingy last week.
- It's the beginning of week five, if you need a reference for the previous.
- I found my bedroom floor Wednesday, because I thought my mother was going to actually come in the house when she came up.
- It's five weeks in my senior year of college.
- Where the hell did the time go?
- I have a houseplant named Henry, and have named the majority of his babies after the subsequent English monarchs.
- Not one of the posters hanging on my walls is hung straight.
- My Focus is a slippery little bugger that likes to play on the train tracks out behind the house.
- Speaking of which, one of these days, when the damn train goes through, the hill and the house are going to slide into the freakin' lake.
- The prospect of graduating and going on to grad schools scares the shit out of me.
- While the previous is true, I think I'm ready for it.
- Why do men feel the need to sit with their hand in their pants? Or is this something only collegiate-age men do, because it's kind of awkward.
- My biochem partner for the first week fidgeted more than my niece when she has to potty.
- I carry on conversations with my houseplant like he should be answering me back. But you're supposed to talk to your plants, right? It helps them grow, right?
- I feel like I've been given a second chance at soccer, and I'm going to take it. Every minute of it.
- My mother and sister have been canning fiends lately. The result is that I have a jars of raspberry jam, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa currently in my possession.
- You'd have thought I was asking for the universe on a silver platter when I asked if I could have a jar of sauce.
- But yes, it's that damn good.
- I bought new colored pens from the bookstore on Friday and thought I'd died and gone to heaven during biochem.
- I have a love of office supplies.
- I finally hooked up the cable on Wednesday, just so I could watch Harry's Law.
- The fire marshal catches a glimpse of the tangled mess of wires that's everything on the one side of the room in a power strip, he'll probably have a heart attack.
- I could care less. Mostly because I'm a senior.
- And hell hath no fury like a Louise without her automated coffee pot.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Late-Night Coffee Dregs
I'm well aware of what time it is and also aware of the fact that it's probably not a good idea to be consuming coffee at this hour, but I'm not about to let a good cup go to waste. Also, most of you know I do my best ruminations at roughly this time of night, usually when I'm trying to do something else that requires more focus and attention than I particularly want to give it. (It's lab reports this time, not education seminars, for once.)
The last you heard from me was a few weeks ago. I posted this pretty cool video about a flash mob - that I was part of - and said that I'd be back to talk about life in general.
First thing you should know is that I'm not living in a closet this year. I have enough space to have my moon chair and enough sunlight that Henry actually gets to live with me this year, rather than have to relocate back to the kitchen table at home because he's slowly dying of sun deprivation. As it is, he's continually growing and making my fellow floormates with their own plants rather jealous of the fact that he's huge.
Actually, they're really rather impressed that he's still alive. Most of them apparently don't make it past first semester of first year.
Of course Practical Magic is playing in the background and the most pressing thing I have left to do is my analytical chemistry lab report which involves the use of Excel, and we all know that I'm positively Excel stupid. I'll freely and readily admit that I am absolute shit when it comes to using that program.
The long and short of it right now is that the front of my week is more loaded than the back of my week. Monday and Tuesday see me going from very early in the morning until roughly five in the afternoon, and Wednesday is much the same, only with a later start. My saving grace is that I have only one class on Thursday, and Friday just has three. I'm lucky in that regard. That's the way I planned it.
It's not easy. But it's college. It's not supposed to be. However, the homework is getting done, turned in on time, and I'm doing really well with things. I was able to explain a physical chemistry problem to one of my friends (who's also in my class) and was really proud of myself that I could do it. I'm actually looking forward to that first exam in that class, because I think it will be the first time I get a B or higher on a chemistry exam. If that happens, I'm sending it home to mom and dad to be put on the fridge because, well, I'll be that proud of it. And they'll be proud of me for getting it.
But that's later this month. There's quite a few things between then and now. Including lab reports. I'm not getting any younger, and it's not getting an earlier (technically, it is, but that's really semantics at this point) so I'm going to go sit on my bed and work on my carbon-copy sheets and hope for the best when it comes to Excel. I think I'm going to need it.
The last you heard from me was a few weeks ago. I posted this pretty cool video about a flash mob - that I was part of - and said that I'd be back to talk about life in general.
First thing you should know is that I'm not living in a closet this year. I have enough space to have my moon chair and enough sunlight that Henry actually gets to live with me this year, rather than have to relocate back to the kitchen table at home because he's slowly dying of sun deprivation. As it is, he's continually growing and making my fellow floormates with their own plants rather jealous of the fact that he's huge.
Actually, they're really rather impressed that he's still alive. Most of them apparently don't make it past first semester of first year.
Of course Practical Magic is playing in the background and the most pressing thing I have left to do is my analytical chemistry lab report which involves the use of Excel, and we all know that I'm positively Excel stupid. I'll freely and readily admit that I am absolute shit when it comes to using that program.
The long and short of it right now is that the front of my week is more loaded than the back of my week. Monday and Tuesday see me going from very early in the morning until roughly five in the afternoon, and Wednesday is much the same, only with a later start. My saving grace is that I have only one class on Thursday, and Friday just has three. I'm lucky in that regard. That's the way I planned it.
It's not easy. But it's college. It's not supposed to be. However, the homework is getting done, turned in on time, and I'm doing really well with things. I was able to explain a physical chemistry problem to one of my friends (who's also in my class) and was really proud of myself that I could do it. I'm actually looking forward to that first exam in that class, because I think it will be the first time I get a B or higher on a chemistry exam. If that happens, I'm sending it home to mom and dad to be put on the fridge because, well, I'll be that proud of it. And they'll be proud of me for getting it.
But that's later this month. There's quite a few things between then and now. Including lab reports. I'm not getting any younger, and it's not getting an earlier (technically, it is, but that's really semantics at this point) so I'm going to go sit on my bed and work on my carbon-copy sheets and hope for the best when it comes to Excel. I think I'm going to need it.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
MIA
Where the hell have I been the past month and a half, right? Finishing up the summer, working, being an Orientation Mentor (helping new students arrive, orient themselves, and generally get the lay of the land before things kicked off officially yesterday).
There's a bit that's happened between then and now, and as it's the start of my senior year of college (WTF did that happen?) and I'm currently using my biochemistry textbook as a booster seat in my desk chair (yeah, I'm good like that), there's probably a lot you've been wondering about your crazy Sagittarius. Rest assured, you'll get some introspection into my ever-scary mind before too long. At this moment, however, I need to pack up my lovely laptop and head to lab (who has lab the first week? Seriously...) but I'll leave you with this. This being the flashmob I was a part of during Orientation. Yes, the words I and flashmob were in the same sentence by design. Scary, huh?
Anyway, check it out, have a laugh, and generally get ready to crash your way through the first half of my collegiate undergrad experience.
Note: This song has a Pavlovian effect on all Orientation staff, myself included. Just sayin'.
There's a bit that's happened between then and now, and as it's the start of my senior year of college (WTF did that happen?) and I'm currently using my biochemistry textbook as a booster seat in my desk chair (yeah, I'm good like that), there's probably a lot you've been wondering about your crazy Sagittarius. Rest assured, you'll get some introspection into my ever-scary mind before too long. At this moment, however, I need to pack up my lovely laptop and head to lab (who has lab the first week? Seriously...) but I'll leave you with this. This being the flashmob I was a part of during Orientation. Yes, the words I and flashmob were in the same sentence by design. Scary, huh?
Anyway, check it out, have a laugh, and generally get ready to crash your way through the first half of my collegiate undergrad experience.
Note: This song has a Pavlovian effect on all Orientation staff, myself included. Just sayin'.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Murphy and Me XXXX
[Quadruple X....Must be really good porn. Or Louise is having fun with Roman Numerals. Which, FYI, I had to look at the wikipedia page on them to know where the hell I have to go next. Methinks we might not have that many sections left. It's hard to believe there's been forty.
Anyway. Happy Thursday, Heather Ann. Hope this brightens your week.]
Don't ask me how, but instead of perpetually behind in four out of five classes (education seminar included; physics decided as a lost cause) I was now two weeks ahead in my education seminar and crawling (tooth and nail) from under the pile of history reading I'd heaped on myself. The easy thing would be to ask Murph, as he'd already taken the class. But that would be the easy way out and maybe against academic policy. Not that I'd bothered to read the eighty-something page packet the Committee on Standards stuffs in our campus boxes every year.
This was my own damn fault and I was going to get through it. Even if it killed me. Might not kill me, but would make me more batshit crazy than I already was.
So, on a Saturday night (in much the same fashion as Friday night had been spent) that's why I was slogging through page after page of Early Modern Europe with a heaping helping of The Restoration for dessert. Practical Magic was in the DVD player; as books and papers were spread all over my bed, I'd taken up residence in the moon chair, shivering. The heater, which wasn't doing a hell of a lot to begin with, seemed to have died completely. Buildings and Grounds hadn't gotten up here yet and Jo had already confirmed it was warmer in the hall than my corner single.
One answer was to curl in the same bed as my porta-furnace, but Murph hadn't looked too good earlier. However, there was always his closet and I know the boy owned flannel. Could check up on him while I was down there, too.
Check on boyfriend first, raid closet second, and take a mental health study break from the very screwed-up early days of the English monarchy.
That was my plan.
Since the weather had turned nasty wandering around in socks wasn't a bright idea. Once slippers were on, it was down to the third floor. It was warmer immediately outside my freezer of a room. Didn't wait long for Dev to open the door.
"Hey, Ol." Dev looked rather startled, truthfully.
"Hi. Can I come in?"
He looked behind him, at Murph. "He's not feelin' so hot."
I blinked.
"He's thrown up, like, four times."
And this was supposed to deter me how? "Okay."
Dev looked at me, cocked his head to the side and said, "Yeah, right, must not have been in my right mind to think you wouldn't want to see him after he's hurled multiple times."
"I'm not a sympathy puker." He let me in the room.
"Thank God neither am I." Dev shut the door quietly and peeked into the trashcan. "Murph? Murph, Ollie's here."
Murph had his comforter all the way to his chin, hair sticking up in every direction, face roughly the same color as paper. Long story short: he looked like utter shit. Adorable shit, but still. Shit.
I dragged his desk chair over to curl up in it so we were close to being eye to eye. "Hi."
He blinked. It was a look very similar to what I had worn while trying not to hurl. Carefully, one of my hands snuck under the blankets to find his and tangle our fingers together. "Think you got whatever I had?"
Murph's thumb spelled no on the back of my hand.
"Just general crappiness?"
He blinked at me again.
"You feel okay, Dev?"
Dev popped an earbud out. "What?"
"You feel okay?"
He gave a half shrug. "Yeah. Tired. But pages of econ spreadsheets do that. Liam and Colby were fine today and yesterday."
"Yesterday?"
"When I got back yesterday in the afternoon, Murph was already in bed with the trashcan." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"Cheatin' on me with the trashcan?" I pushed Murph's bangs off his sweaty forehead, smiling when he snorted. "I mean, it's an attractive trashcan." He chuckled.
"Why are your hands so cold?" It was the first Murph had spoken and he sounded like he'd been gnawing gravel.
"I don't really have any heat in my room, which is why I'm going to raid your closet for a flannel before I go back upstairs." When stated matter-of-factly it didn't sound quite so bad.
"You have no heat?" Murph croaked, shifting uncomfortably.
"It's not that I don't have any, it's just that I don't have a lot..."
"Have you called B and G?" Dev asked, giving the hold on gesture to the computer. He must have been video chatting with someone.
"Yeah. They said maybe tomorrow." Which they said on Thursday. Not that the boys needed to know. They were already a bit outraged. "It's fine, it's just a little chilly." More like freeze your ass off, but, again, they didn't need to know.
Murph looked ready to suggest I stay with him, winced, and squeezed my fingers.
"What?"
"My belly hurts."
I leaned forward and kissed his forehead, apprehensive about the head coming off him. Usually the only way for me to sleep in the same bed as Murph was, basically, for us to spoon. Either him around me or him with his head on my chest. That worked best. Unfortunately, neither of those put him in the right spot if he needed the trashcan in a hurry. Which, from the bleary look of understanding in his hazel eyes, he knew.
"I'm sorry." Firsthand experience speaking - belly pain sucked. "I've got pills to take care of that."
Murph snorted again. "Might skip that, thanks."
Yeah, might not be the best idea out there. Not that I'd do it - I just wanted to make him smile. Mission accomplished on that front.
His eyelids were drooping.
"I'll stop by before I go to bed." He nodded; I kissed his forehead, then his nose before extracting my hand from his. He was half asleep when I put the desk chair back and gently snoring by the time I'd rummaged through the closet to find a flannel shirt. It was almost the size of a tarp, heavy, no doubt warm, and smelled of Murph.
"I'll be back in half an hour," I said to Dev. He gave me a thumbs up and went back to the man on the screen.
My corner single was positively frigid. Murph's flannel shirt went on over a cami and some leggings, the tails hanging halfway down my thighs. With the bed cleaned off in record time, I grabbed Edgar and headed back downstairs. Dev opened the fishbowl; only his desk lamp was on. Murph was out. It took some reaching, but Edgar soon sat next to Smokey, unblinking eyes on Murph.
"'Night, Dev."
"'Night, Ol."
Despite the fact that I sleep better when I'm cold and have to burrow, it took a long time for me to fall asleep. A very long time.
One minute sound asleep, the next moment wide awake and wondering what the hell had woke me up.
Bang, bang "Olivia! Ollie, wake up!" Thump thump bang.
Sounded an awful lot like Dev. A panicked Devan beating on my door. I scrambled out of bed and jerked the door open, almost mowing over my own toes. Dev stood in the hall looking four-kinds of panicked and wearing just a pair of a boxers.
"Wha - "
"Murphy won't wake up."
Oh, dear God, what?
"Murph - His phone - And he didn't when he does - And Liam kept calling - "
Dev's panic was not helping my skyrocketing blood pressure. Not at all. No clue what I was supposed to be doing at the moment, but putting on pants seemed like the right kind of start. I was listening to Dev babble, almost hyperventilate, and generally freak out, and was trying to breathe while putting on jeans.
Something wasn't right with this picture.
Murphy won't wake up.
I grabbed my Vera, stuffed my feet into my sneakers, and sprinted after Dev trying to understand what exactly was going on. We burst into the fishbowl to see Liam slapping at Murph's pale cheeks. "Murphy! Murphy!" There was a pleading in Liam's voice that I'd never heard before.
I leaned against Dev's bed as he pulled jeans and a t-shirt on. Murph wasn't moving - didn't even look like he was breathing. "Did somebody call an ambulance?" Rubbed a hand over my chest, feeling like I was going to have a heart attack and concentrated on breathing.
"They're on their way. I'm gonna go meet 'em at the door downstairs." Dev was gone, the door closing slowly behind him.
Liam ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe - Maybe you can - "
He didn't have to get it all out before I was staggering across the room and behind to hold Murph's face in my hands. The heat coming off him was unbelievable. Almost frightening.
"Murphy," I said, lightly tapping his nose. "Mur - " My voice broke. "Murphy. Murphy wake up."
Nothing.
The paramedics barged in then; I stepped back until the desk rammed into my kidneys, grabbing at Liam's wrist with epileptic fingers.
"What's his name?" One of the paramedics - Toby - asked.
"Murphy. Murphy McRiley." Liam was surprisingly calm at this point. Jittery, but more calm than me or Dev who stood by his wardrobe chewing his fingernails.
"You look like family," Toby said while his partner pushed aside comforter and sheets to get to Murph. God, he was so pale. "How old is he? Allergies?"
"We're twenty and he's allergic to penicillin." Liam shuddered, trying to tune out the other paramedic giving stats into his radio. They didn't sound good. Not that I would know what the hell good or bad stats would be no matter how many episodes of ER I'd watched when I was thirteen.
"When did Murphy start to feel sick?"
Liam looked at me and I stuttered out, "He - He was fine Wednesday night. Said he was a little tired after our date." Pushed hair out of my face with trembling fingers. "It's getting to be the end of the semester. We're all tired."
"Did anything hurt? Was it just a head cold?"
The questions were almost overwhelming, especially when Toby's partner did something to make Murph jerk in pain, even unconscious. There was some talking amongst them, the phrase "Really needs a hospital" surfaced and they manhandled Murph - in his boxers - onto a backboard and then onto the stretcher waiting in the hall.
Liam threw on his coat and pressed a set of keys into my hand. "Have Dev drive. I'm going with my brother." He jogged after the paramedics and I practically threw the keys at Dev. There was no way in hell I was with it enough to drive. Not that Dev looked much better, but he wasn't shaking half as bad.
Couldn't tell you if we turned out all the lights in the fishbowl, or if it was snowing or raining, or how many red lights we hit between St. Claire and the hospital. It was cold, mostly because my peacoat was in Jackson and partly because I had no idea what was wrong with my boyfriend but we were headed back to the freakin' ER.
Dev got us there in one piece, somehow, and we entered the ER waiting room to a pacing Liam.
"What's - Did he wake up?"
Liam shook his head. "They're doing X-Rays or a scan or something to figure out what the hell's goin' on." He blew out a loud breath. "I called Colby and Ma and Dad are on their way. They were my next call after the ambulance." He sat heavily in a hard leather and wood chair. The kind that seemed to be in every ER on the face of the earth.
I fell into the chair next to him. "How did you know? That something was wrong, I mean."
He shrugged. "I dunno. Call it that mystical twin thing - I couldn't sleep. Knew Murph wasn't feelin' well and needed to talk to him."
Dev leaned against the soda machine on the other side of the room. "The phone kept ringing. And ringing. Murph always picks up. Even if he's passed out drunk he answers the damn phone." He swallowed. "I got up. Tried to wake him up and he wouldn't. I called Liam, told him I couldn't get Murph up. He came over, we dialed Campus Safety - I did - and he called an ambulance. We weren't waiting for Campus EMS to show up."
"Then you got me up?" Pulled my legs up and rested my cheek on my knee. "I thought he had what I had."
Liam put an arm around my shoulders. The three of us were the only ones there, muted CNN on the TV, and so quiet you could practically hear the gears in the damn wall clock.
Well, it was quiet until Colby came tearing through the halls like his ass was on fire.
"Colby?" Liam rose to his feet only to be caught up in the manliest hug I'd ever seen. When he got a hold of me it was like he was trying to break ribs. Dev didn't escape, either.
"Any word?"
"They're doin' tests."
I alternated between pushing up the sleeves on my borrowed shirt and pulling them over my knuckles. My hair was still a just-asleep mess and somehow - some-friggin'-how - I hadn't devolved into tears over the fact that my boyfriend hadn't woken up.
Maybe I should be thankful my stomach hadn't tried to make an escape.
ER's suck. Majorly.
"Ollie?" Colby was crouched in front of me. "Is there anybody you need to call?"
"Uh..." Where was my mind? Definitely not here.
"Sasha?"
Yeah. Sasha probably. I checked my pockets for my phone. "Uh...Can I...?"
"Here. Use mine." Dev handed me his BlackBerry. Sasha's number was already ringing.
"How do you - " The line picked up on the other end.
"Hello?" Cara. A very sleepy Cara.
"Hey - It's, it's Ollie."
"Ollie? What's wrong, Ol? Why aren't you callin' from your phone?"
I was having a harder time keeping it together talking to Cara than being in the waiting room with the boys. "I'm at the ER. Murph's - Murphy's sick. Really sick."
"Oh, honey." There was some shuffling. "We'll be right there."
"Oh, no, you don't - " God, everything was just spiraling.
"Olivia. We'll be right there. And tell Devan I wanna know why his phone number is on my girlfriend's cell." With that she hung up.
Dear God, could this night get any worse?
"McRiley?"
The four of us looked toward the desk to see a man in scrubs and a hair net. Liam stood, wiped his palms on his jeans and said, "Yeah?"
The doc did a double take.
"Murphy's my twin," he said with a small smile. "What's wrong with him?"
"It seems to be Murphy's appendix that's giving him problems. At the very least it's painfully inflamed, at the worst, it's exploded. This is a fairly routine surgery we're talking and we need you to sign some paperwork."
He'd gotten steadily paler but nodded, "Of course." Liam followed the doc to the counter to sign away.
"His appendix," Dev breathed.
Abdominal surgery. Deja vu.
Liam came back and sat wearily, rubbing at his face. "My brother's having emergency surgery to remove his appendix."
"You need to call your parents?"
"They're on the way." He chuckled dryly. "Da's probably doin' ninety on the thruway."
"Oh, God," I murmured, realizing that tonight, in the ER waiting room, I was going to meet my boyfriend's parents for the first time. Sleep-rumpled and in their son's flannel shirt, too.
Now I was really going to puke.
"Ollie!"
Sasha came through the doors like a force of nature to hug me, Cara not far behind her. This time I wiped at my eyes when we parted, me stretched awkwardly in the chair.
"Hey, you guys didn't have to come - "
"Olivia." Cara squeezed herself onto the chair with me and threw her arms around my shoulders. "You, my dear, are my girlfriend's best friend. Her sister. When you hurt, she hurts. When you're stressed, she's stressed. So, damn straight, hun, we're going to be waiting with you until that boy wakes up." She leaned close to my ear. "And he's gonna look at you and think damn, I worried that beautiful girl, but she's still here. It don't matter that you haven't said those words yet. You bein' here says it all." She kissed my temple and stood, hands on her hips and staring hard at Dev, all Southern business. "Devan."
"Miz Cara," he said, pocketing his BlackBerry.
Sasha had once called Cara her sweet-tea drinkin', peach-lovin' Southern shrew (even though the girl was only from Virginia) and as she was staring at Dev she was every inch of a strong-willed Southern woman.
Hell, I wasn't in the receiving end of that look and I was a little worried.
"Playing a go-between between best friend and boyfriend of the birthday girl is a bit hectic." He shrugged. "That's why we swapped numbers."
If I had a desk, I'd have whacked my head off the damn thing. "So, my boyfriend and my best friend were conspiring for my birthday?"
"And we're really good at it, too." Sasha grinned. While Cara had at least put on sweats, Sasha was rocking shorts and Uggs. I think I was too fried to really comprehend, otherwise she wouldn't have heard the end of it.
"Okay." Drew my legs up again, wrapping my arms around my shins. "I don't wanna know until Murph is well enough to enjoy it with us."
"Duh," Sasha muttered. "You had any coffee today?"
"A long time ago." A really long time ago, truthfully. My head thunked back against the wall. "Could really use another cup. Or four."
"Last thing you need is coffee," Colby muttered.
"Yeah, but she's not the one who parked in the wrong parking lot and ran through the friggin' hospital like he was a track star," Liam shot back.
We chuckled. Colby turned a fascinating shade of red.
"Anybody know what time it is?" Simple question, really.
Sasha grinned.
How an inquiry as innocent as the time turned into an off-key chorus of Happy Birthday, I've no idea. It happened anyway. It was my turn to be a funny shade of red, smiling tiredly.
"Thanks, guys." I'd been twenty for almost an hour. Twenty's not that much different than nineteen. Didn't feel any different, anyway.
We settled in, talking and glancing at CNN and that's maybe when I dozed off for a bit. I jerked awake and rubbed at my eyes. Liam was in the chair next to me, elbows on his thighs and fixated on the screen.
"Where'd everybody go?" There was one hell of a crick in my neck.
"Wandered down to find some coffee. I think." He took a deep breath. "My parents should be here soon."
Oh, shit. This was far from the ideal situation to meet the boyfriend's parents. We all knew it. Which was why it was just me and Liam waiting for Mr. and Mrs. McRiley.
"This wasn't how I imagined meeting them." Really, it was anything but ideal. "Middle of the night, in the hospital." Overwhelming. Just, overwhelming. "I don't even know their names."
"Dermott and Maggie."
"Irish."
He chuckled. "Very."
"Maggie?"
"Margaret." Liam smiled. "You'll be fine."
Great. Another McRiley that could read me like a freakin' book. And he didn't even have to look at me to do it.
"Do you know we're named after our grandfathers?"
Where the hell had that come from? "No."
He settled back, sprawling as best he could. "Yeah. Ma was an O'Hare before she married Da and her father's name was Allen. Ma took the Roarke that was his middle name for Murphy's. Grandpa McRiley's middle was Connor."
"That's cool." And nothing like that had happened in my family. Izzy shared a middle name with our mother - Marie - and there was rumor that one of my mom's ancestors, a Boyd, was named Mae. Which trickled down through the years to be my middle name. "Someone on my mother's side was Mae."
"Your middle name?"
"Yeah. Olivia Mae."
"You haven't told Murph that, have you?"
I shook my head. "I'm not too wild about my middle name, honestly." Partly because it was so damn short and partly because people said it no problem and then butchered my last name because they weren't paying attention.
The joy of being Polish.
"Karizslowski is Polish, right?" He was then on the receiving end of a ya think? look. "Are your parents immigrants?"
That's where he was going. "Oh, no. No, my mother's family has been here for a couple generations. My father's parents came from Poland between the wars and he was the second child born here. His older sisters were born in Poland."
"Big family?"
I shrugged. "Lots of cousins. Cousins with siblings." My family was, more or less, frickin' huge. "There's a lot of us here in central New York, but some in New England and a few in West Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan."
"Most of our family is still in Ireland." His head thumped lightly against the wall. "Has Murph told you about our parents?"
"A little." Wadded myself in the chair sideways to look at Liam. "Your dad's a glassblower - and you haven't been allowed in the studio since you were twelve."
His head snapped around to look at me, eyes wide. "He told you that?"
"Yeah. And your mom works in insurance." Butterflies started in my belly. "What - What do...What are they going to think of me?"
Liam straightened, turning toward me. Blinked. "They are....They've been wanting to meet you since Murph told them he had a girlfriend. He emailed Ma some pictures of you from Halloween."
Which, okay, I'd done the same to my mother in our weekly, bi-weekly emails.
"Honestly, they can't wait to meet you." He swallowed. "It shouldn't be me introducing you. It should be Murphy."
"We can't control that." Not right now at least.
"I know."
Yeah. Not the ideal situation. From the borrowed shirt to the ER to the elephant in the room of not having Murphy here - this was crazy to a whole new level.
We lapsed into silence, uncomfortable and stretched, content to wait. Or, rather, wait and fidget in my case.
The doors to the parking lot slid open.
"William? Oh, William - "
Liam stood, automatically moving to hug his mother while I tried to continue to breathe. Wobbling upright, I hovered in the background, content to watch. Both boys looked like their father, only Dermott wasn't as filled out - probably because he wasn't a football player - and, unlike his boys, Dermott had red hair. Or what used to red, as he was slanting toward gray in places. Maggie was thin and not a whole lot taller than me. She had the dark hair her boys did and Murph's hazel eyes.
Hazel eyes that looked around her son to me. Through me.
"Liam..." Dermott said quietly.
"Sorry, Da," he said, reaching back and snagging my borrowed shirt sleeve. "This is Olivia - Ollie - Murphy's girlfriend."
Maggie smiled. "Hi, Ollie. I've seen pictures..." She trailed off. "Nice to finally meet you, only I wish the circumstances were better." There was a lilt to her voice that two decades in the States couldn't wipe completely. "I'm Maggie."
There was such a kindness in her eyes, such an understanding....Between physics, orgo, Murph in the ER, and turning twenty, everything was suddenly too much.
I burst into quiet tears right then and there.
"Oh, love," Maggie said, gathering me into her arms. "It's a bit overwhelmin'."
Didn't matter it wasn't my own mother, Maggie was still a mom and I needed a mom's shoulder to cry on right now. Which I did. Soaking up the warmth Maggie provided. This would be damn mortifying if it didn't feel so good. And if I didn't need it so badly.
"Sorry," I mumbled, pulling back and wiping my cheeks.
"There's nothing to be sorry for, Ollie." She rubbed my arms lightly. "And you made a very pretty pirate on Halloween."
Cue flaming cheeks. "Thank you." Gathering what composure I had left, I turned to Dermott. "Hi, Mr. McRiley." He shook my hand, looking closely at my tear-red eyes and then, much to my horror, my shirt. If he recognized it, he didn't say. Which was one of the better things to happen tonight.
"Nice to meet you." Dermott's accent was thicker than Maggie's. He smiled slyly, and that's when I really saw Murph in his father. "Cold down here lately?"
Not what I was expecting and, honestly, a hell of a lot better. "Yeah. It hasn't been too bad, but, um, I don't have any heat."
We sat, Liam and I, between Dermott and Maggie. The rest of our motley crew returned, and Maggie hugged Dev and Colby; I introduced Cara and Sasha. And then we sat. And looked at each other.
In silence.
Oh, Lord.
The drunks and mishaps started rolling in around three. Girls who had been out partying, frat boys worried about their passed-out brothers, and city kids who didn't have enough sense to read the warnings on the Jackass DVD's. We made small talk - or rather, Cara, Liam, and Maggie did as Dev, Colby, Dermott, and I kind of sucked at it - and around four-thirty a doc came out.
"McRiley?"
Maggie, Dermott, and Liam went to speak with him. Sasha sat next to me, holding my hand tightly in hers. Dermott and Maggie followed the doctor through the door and Liam came back to us, hands in his pockets.
"His appendix had exploded." There was a collective flinch. "Yeah. They removed what was left of it and cleaned out the infection. He's on antibiotics, painkillers, and should come out of anesthesia sometime soon. Might not come out of it for long, and he might just go right back to sleep. He's gonna feel like shit when he does wake up." He took a deep breath. "They've moved him to a room on the second floor. He, uh, he's gonna be just fine. Eventually."
I uncurled and hugged a shaking Liam. Now that he knew his brother was going to be fine he was more or less losing it. All the control he'd had since the whole fiasco had started - in the fishbowl and then waiting until his parents arrived, then with his parents - he didn't have to be calm and composed anymore. Now he could worry.
"They have visiting hours tomorrow, right?" Cara asked, prodding a half-asleep Sasha. "We should come back tomorrow."
Colby rubbed his eyes. "That sounds like a plan."
"You want a ride to your car?"
"Please."
They gave one last round of hugs and paraded out the ER doors while Liam led Dev and I through the hospital to an elevator. We passed the time waiting outside Murph's room (once we found it - we had to circle the floor twice until a passing nurse took pity on us) by playing the Movie Game - Start with a movie or an actor and then get another film or actor from the first one. So, start with George Clooney and get Ocean's 11, then say Brad Pitt, who was also in Fight Club. Edward Norton then gets you to The Italian Job. Donald Sutherland gets you to Pride and Prejudice and Kiera Knightley leads to Pirates of the Caribbean. That sort of thing.
Liam was a little scared at how long Dev and I could go without needing to start again.
Maggie poked her head out the door. "He's awake. A little disoriented and tired, but awake."
Dev shoved Liam into the room first then we waited a little more until Dermott waved us in.
Murph was still too pale to be healthy and hooked to both a heart monitor and an IV. Liam pulled gently by my sleeve all the way to the side of the bed and I slipped my hand under Murph's. He was definitely more drugged than our previous ER trip. Still, he gave me a ghost of his regular smile and whispered, "Hi."
"Hi, Murph."
He swallowed hard, like his throat was dry. "Ha - Happy Birthday, Ol."
And then, right there in front of his parents, I leaned over and kissed his nose. Just to see him smile.
Happy Birthday indeed.
Anyway. Happy Thursday, Heather Ann. Hope this brightens your week.]
Don't ask me how, but instead of perpetually behind in four out of five classes (education seminar included; physics decided as a lost cause) I was now two weeks ahead in my education seminar and crawling (tooth and nail) from under the pile of history reading I'd heaped on myself. The easy thing would be to ask Murph, as he'd already taken the class. But that would be the easy way out and maybe against academic policy. Not that I'd bothered to read the eighty-something page packet the Committee on Standards stuffs in our campus boxes every year.
This was my own damn fault and I was going to get through it. Even if it killed me. Might not kill me, but would make me more batshit crazy than I already was.
So, on a Saturday night (in much the same fashion as Friday night had been spent) that's why I was slogging through page after page of Early Modern Europe with a heaping helping of The Restoration for dessert. Practical Magic was in the DVD player; as books and papers were spread all over my bed, I'd taken up residence in the moon chair, shivering. The heater, which wasn't doing a hell of a lot to begin with, seemed to have died completely. Buildings and Grounds hadn't gotten up here yet and Jo had already confirmed it was warmer in the hall than my corner single.
One answer was to curl in the same bed as my porta-furnace, but Murph hadn't looked too good earlier. However, there was always his closet and I know the boy owned flannel. Could check up on him while I was down there, too.
Check on boyfriend first, raid closet second, and take a mental health study break from the very screwed-up early days of the English monarchy.
That was my plan.
Since the weather had turned nasty wandering around in socks wasn't a bright idea. Once slippers were on, it was down to the third floor. It was warmer immediately outside my freezer of a room. Didn't wait long for Dev to open the door.
"Hey, Ol." Dev looked rather startled, truthfully.
"Hi. Can I come in?"
He looked behind him, at Murph. "He's not feelin' so hot."
I blinked.
"He's thrown up, like, four times."
And this was supposed to deter me how? "Okay."
Dev looked at me, cocked his head to the side and said, "Yeah, right, must not have been in my right mind to think you wouldn't want to see him after he's hurled multiple times."
"I'm not a sympathy puker." He let me in the room.
"Thank God neither am I." Dev shut the door quietly and peeked into the trashcan. "Murph? Murph, Ollie's here."
Murph had his comforter all the way to his chin, hair sticking up in every direction, face roughly the same color as paper. Long story short: he looked like utter shit. Adorable shit, but still. Shit.
I dragged his desk chair over to curl up in it so we were close to being eye to eye. "Hi."
He blinked. It was a look very similar to what I had worn while trying not to hurl. Carefully, one of my hands snuck under the blankets to find his and tangle our fingers together. "Think you got whatever I had?"
Murph's thumb spelled no on the back of my hand.
"Just general crappiness?"
He blinked at me again.
"You feel okay, Dev?"
Dev popped an earbud out. "What?"
"You feel okay?"
He gave a half shrug. "Yeah. Tired. But pages of econ spreadsheets do that. Liam and Colby were fine today and yesterday."
"Yesterday?"
"When I got back yesterday in the afternoon, Murph was already in bed with the trashcan." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"Cheatin' on me with the trashcan?" I pushed Murph's bangs off his sweaty forehead, smiling when he snorted. "I mean, it's an attractive trashcan." He chuckled.
"Why are your hands so cold?" It was the first Murph had spoken and he sounded like he'd been gnawing gravel.
"I don't really have any heat in my room, which is why I'm going to raid your closet for a flannel before I go back upstairs." When stated matter-of-factly it didn't sound quite so bad.
"You have no heat?" Murph croaked, shifting uncomfortably.
"It's not that I don't have any, it's just that I don't have a lot..."
"Have you called B and G?" Dev asked, giving the hold on gesture to the computer. He must have been video chatting with someone.
"Yeah. They said maybe tomorrow." Which they said on Thursday. Not that the boys needed to know. They were already a bit outraged. "It's fine, it's just a little chilly." More like freeze your ass off, but, again, they didn't need to know.
Murph looked ready to suggest I stay with him, winced, and squeezed my fingers.
"What?"
"My belly hurts."
I leaned forward and kissed his forehead, apprehensive about the head coming off him. Usually the only way for me to sleep in the same bed as Murph was, basically, for us to spoon. Either him around me or him with his head on my chest. That worked best. Unfortunately, neither of those put him in the right spot if he needed the trashcan in a hurry. Which, from the bleary look of understanding in his hazel eyes, he knew.
"I'm sorry." Firsthand experience speaking - belly pain sucked. "I've got pills to take care of that."
Murph snorted again. "Might skip that, thanks."
Yeah, might not be the best idea out there. Not that I'd do it - I just wanted to make him smile. Mission accomplished on that front.
His eyelids were drooping.
"I'll stop by before I go to bed." He nodded; I kissed his forehead, then his nose before extracting my hand from his. He was half asleep when I put the desk chair back and gently snoring by the time I'd rummaged through the closet to find a flannel shirt. It was almost the size of a tarp, heavy, no doubt warm, and smelled of Murph.
"I'll be back in half an hour," I said to Dev. He gave me a thumbs up and went back to the man on the screen.
My corner single was positively frigid. Murph's flannel shirt went on over a cami and some leggings, the tails hanging halfway down my thighs. With the bed cleaned off in record time, I grabbed Edgar and headed back downstairs. Dev opened the fishbowl; only his desk lamp was on. Murph was out. It took some reaching, but Edgar soon sat next to Smokey, unblinking eyes on Murph.
"'Night, Dev."
"'Night, Ol."
Despite the fact that I sleep better when I'm cold and have to burrow, it took a long time for me to fall asleep. A very long time.
One minute sound asleep, the next moment wide awake and wondering what the hell had woke me up.
Bang, bang "Olivia! Ollie, wake up!" Thump thump bang.
Sounded an awful lot like Dev. A panicked Devan beating on my door. I scrambled out of bed and jerked the door open, almost mowing over my own toes. Dev stood in the hall looking four-kinds of panicked and wearing just a pair of a boxers.
"Wha - "
"Murphy won't wake up."
Oh, dear God, what?
"Murph - His phone - And he didn't when he does - And Liam kept calling - "
Dev's panic was not helping my skyrocketing blood pressure. Not at all. No clue what I was supposed to be doing at the moment, but putting on pants seemed like the right kind of start. I was listening to Dev babble, almost hyperventilate, and generally freak out, and was trying to breathe while putting on jeans.
Something wasn't right with this picture.
Murphy won't wake up.
I grabbed my Vera, stuffed my feet into my sneakers, and sprinted after Dev trying to understand what exactly was going on. We burst into the fishbowl to see Liam slapping at Murph's pale cheeks. "Murphy! Murphy!" There was a pleading in Liam's voice that I'd never heard before.
I leaned against Dev's bed as he pulled jeans and a t-shirt on. Murph wasn't moving - didn't even look like he was breathing. "Did somebody call an ambulance?" Rubbed a hand over my chest, feeling like I was going to have a heart attack and concentrated on breathing.
"They're on their way. I'm gonna go meet 'em at the door downstairs." Dev was gone, the door closing slowly behind him.
Liam ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe - Maybe you can - "
He didn't have to get it all out before I was staggering across the room and behind to hold Murph's face in my hands. The heat coming off him was unbelievable. Almost frightening.
"Murphy," I said, lightly tapping his nose. "Mur - " My voice broke. "Murphy. Murphy wake up."
Nothing.
The paramedics barged in then; I stepped back until the desk rammed into my kidneys, grabbing at Liam's wrist with epileptic fingers.
"What's his name?" One of the paramedics - Toby - asked.
"Murphy. Murphy McRiley." Liam was surprisingly calm at this point. Jittery, but more calm than me or Dev who stood by his wardrobe chewing his fingernails.
"You look like family," Toby said while his partner pushed aside comforter and sheets to get to Murph. God, he was so pale. "How old is he? Allergies?"
"We're twenty and he's allergic to penicillin." Liam shuddered, trying to tune out the other paramedic giving stats into his radio. They didn't sound good. Not that I would know what the hell good or bad stats would be no matter how many episodes of ER I'd watched when I was thirteen.
"When did Murphy start to feel sick?"
Liam looked at me and I stuttered out, "He - He was fine Wednesday night. Said he was a little tired after our date." Pushed hair out of my face with trembling fingers. "It's getting to be the end of the semester. We're all tired."
"Did anything hurt? Was it just a head cold?"
The questions were almost overwhelming, especially when Toby's partner did something to make Murph jerk in pain, even unconscious. There was some talking amongst them, the phrase "Really needs a hospital" surfaced and they manhandled Murph - in his boxers - onto a backboard and then onto the stretcher waiting in the hall.
Liam threw on his coat and pressed a set of keys into my hand. "Have Dev drive. I'm going with my brother." He jogged after the paramedics and I practically threw the keys at Dev. There was no way in hell I was with it enough to drive. Not that Dev looked much better, but he wasn't shaking half as bad.
Couldn't tell you if we turned out all the lights in the fishbowl, or if it was snowing or raining, or how many red lights we hit between St. Claire and the hospital. It was cold, mostly because my peacoat was in Jackson and partly because I had no idea what was wrong with my boyfriend but we were headed back to the freakin' ER.
Dev got us there in one piece, somehow, and we entered the ER waiting room to a pacing Liam.
"What's - Did he wake up?"
Liam shook his head. "They're doing X-Rays or a scan or something to figure out what the hell's goin' on." He blew out a loud breath. "I called Colby and Ma and Dad are on their way. They were my next call after the ambulance." He sat heavily in a hard leather and wood chair. The kind that seemed to be in every ER on the face of the earth.
I fell into the chair next to him. "How did you know? That something was wrong, I mean."
He shrugged. "I dunno. Call it that mystical twin thing - I couldn't sleep. Knew Murph wasn't feelin' well and needed to talk to him."
Dev leaned against the soda machine on the other side of the room. "The phone kept ringing. And ringing. Murph always picks up. Even if he's passed out drunk he answers the damn phone." He swallowed. "I got up. Tried to wake him up and he wouldn't. I called Liam, told him I couldn't get Murph up. He came over, we dialed Campus Safety - I did - and he called an ambulance. We weren't waiting for Campus EMS to show up."
"Then you got me up?" Pulled my legs up and rested my cheek on my knee. "I thought he had what I had."
Liam put an arm around my shoulders. The three of us were the only ones there, muted CNN on the TV, and so quiet you could practically hear the gears in the damn wall clock.
Well, it was quiet until Colby came tearing through the halls like his ass was on fire.
"Colby?" Liam rose to his feet only to be caught up in the manliest hug I'd ever seen. When he got a hold of me it was like he was trying to break ribs. Dev didn't escape, either.
"Any word?"
"They're doin' tests."
I alternated between pushing up the sleeves on my borrowed shirt and pulling them over my knuckles. My hair was still a just-asleep mess and somehow - some-friggin'-how - I hadn't devolved into tears over the fact that my boyfriend hadn't woken up.
Maybe I should be thankful my stomach hadn't tried to make an escape.
ER's suck. Majorly.
"Ollie?" Colby was crouched in front of me. "Is there anybody you need to call?"
"Uh..." Where was my mind? Definitely not here.
"Sasha?"
Yeah. Sasha probably. I checked my pockets for my phone. "Uh...Can I...?"
"Here. Use mine." Dev handed me his BlackBerry. Sasha's number was already ringing.
"How do you - " The line picked up on the other end.
"Hello?" Cara. A very sleepy Cara.
"Hey - It's, it's Ollie."
"Ollie? What's wrong, Ol? Why aren't you callin' from your phone?"
I was having a harder time keeping it together talking to Cara than being in the waiting room with the boys. "I'm at the ER. Murph's - Murphy's sick. Really sick."
"Oh, honey." There was some shuffling. "We'll be right there."
"Oh, no, you don't - " God, everything was just spiraling.
"Olivia. We'll be right there. And tell Devan I wanna know why his phone number is on my girlfriend's cell." With that she hung up.
Dear God, could this night get any worse?
"McRiley?"
The four of us looked toward the desk to see a man in scrubs and a hair net. Liam stood, wiped his palms on his jeans and said, "Yeah?"
The doc did a double take.
"Murphy's my twin," he said with a small smile. "What's wrong with him?"
"It seems to be Murphy's appendix that's giving him problems. At the very least it's painfully inflamed, at the worst, it's exploded. This is a fairly routine surgery we're talking and we need you to sign some paperwork."
He'd gotten steadily paler but nodded, "Of course." Liam followed the doc to the counter to sign away.
"His appendix," Dev breathed.
Abdominal surgery. Deja vu.
Liam came back and sat wearily, rubbing at his face. "My brother's having emergency surgery to remove his appendix."
"You need to call your parents?"
"They're on the way." He chuckled dryly. "Da's probably doin' ninety on the thruway."
"Oh, God," I murmured, realizing that tonight, in the ER waiting room, I was going to meet my boyfriend's parents for the first time. Sleep-rumpled and in their son's flannel shirt, too.
Now I was really going to puke.
"Ollie!"
Sasha came through the doors like a force of nature to hug me, Cara not far behind her. This time I wiped at my eyes when we parted, me stretched awkwardly in the chair.
"Hey, you guys didn't have to come - "
"Olivia." Cara squeezed herself onto the chair with me and threw her arms around my shoulders. "You, my dear, are my girlfriend's best friend. Her sister. When you hurt, she hurts. When you're stressed, she's stressed. So, damn straight, hun, we're going to be waiting with you until that boy wakes up." She leaned close to my ear. "And he's gonna look at you and think damn, I worried that beautiful girl, but she's still here. It don't matter that you haven't said those words yet. You bein' here says it all." She kissed my temple and stood, hands on her hips and staring hard at Dev, all Southern business. "Devan."
"Miz Cara," he said, pocketing his BlackBerry.
Sasha had once called Cara her sweet-tea drinkin', peach-lovin' Southern shrew (even though the girl was only from Virginia) and as she was staring at Dev she was every inch of a strong-willed Southern woman.
Hell, I wasn't in the receiving end of that look and I was a little worried.
"Playing a go-between between best friend and boyfriend of the birthday girl is a bit hectic." He shrugged. "That's why we swapped numbers."
If I had a desk, I'd have whacked my head off the damn thing. "So, my boyfriend and my best friend were conspiring for my birthday?"
"And we're really good at it, too." Sasha grinned. While Cara had at least put on sweats, Sasha was rocking shorts and Uggs. I think I was too fried to really comprehend, otherwise she wouldn't have heard the end of it.
"Okay." Drew my legs up again, wrapping my arms around my shins. "I don't wanna know until Murph is well enough to enjoy it with us."
"Duh," Sasha muttered. "You had any coffee today?"
"A long time ago." A really long time ago, truthfully. My head thunked back against the wall. "Could really use another cup. Or four."
"Last thing you need is coffee," Colby muttered.
"Yeah, but she's not the one who parked in the wrong parking lot and ran through the friggin' hospital like he was a track star," Liam shot back.
We chuckled. Colby turned a fascinating shade of red.
"Anybody know what time it is?" Simple question, really.
Sasha grinned.
How an inquiry as innocent as the time turned into an off-key chorus of Happy Birthday, I've no idea. It happened anyway. It was my turn to be a funny shade of red, smiling tiredly.
"Thanks, guys." I'd been twenty for almost an hour. Twenty's not that much different than nineteen. Didn't feel any different, anyway.
We settled in, talking and glancing at CNN and that's maybe when I dozed off for a bit. I jerked awake and rubbed at my eyes. Liam was in the chair next to me, elbows on his thighs and fixated on the screen.
"Where'd everybody go?" There was one hell of a crick in my neck.
"Wandered down to find some coffee. I think." He took a deep breath. "My parents should be here soon."
Oh, shit. This was far from the ideal situation to meet the boyfriend's parents. We all knew it. Which was why it was just me and Liam waiting for Mr. and Mrs. McRiley.
"This wasn't how I imagined meeting them." Really, it was anything but ideal. "Middle of the night, in the hospital." Overwhelming. Just, overwhelming. "I don't even know their names."
"Dermott and Maggie."
"Irish."
He chuckled. "Very."
"Maggie?"
"Margaret." Liam smiled. "You'll be fine."
Great. Another McRiley that could read me like a freakin' book. And he didn't even have to look at me to do it.
"Do you know we're named after our grandfathers?"
Where the hell had that come from? "No."
He settled back, sprawling as best he could. "Yeah. Ma was an O'Hare before she married Da and her father's name was Allen. Ma took the Roarke that was his middle name for Murphy's. Grandpa McRiley's middle was Connor."
"That's cool." And nothing like that had happened in my family. Izzy shared a middle name with our mother - Marie - and there was rumor that one of my mom's ancestors, a Boyd, was named Mae. Which trickled down through the years to be my middle name. "Someone on my mother's side was Mae."
"Your middle name?"
"Yeah. Olivia Mae."
"You haven't told Murph that, have you?"
I shook my head. "I'm not too wild about my middle name, honestly." Partly because it was so damn short and partly because people said it no problem and then butchered my last name because they weren't paying attention.
The joy of being Polish.
"Karizslowski is Polish, right?" He was then on the receiving end of a ya think? look. "Are your parents immigrants?"
That's where he was going. "Oh, no. No, my mother's family has been here for a couple generations. My father's parents came from Poland between the wars and he was the second child born here. His older sisters were born in Poland."
"Big family?"
I shrugged. "Lots of cousins. Cousins with siblings." My family was, more or less, frickin' huge. "There's a lot of us here in central New York, but some in New England and a few in West Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan."
"Most of our family is still in Ireland." His head thumped lightly against the wall. "Has Murph told you about our parents?"
"A little." Wadded myself in the chair sideways to look at Liam. "Your dad's a glassblower - and you haven't been allowed in the studio since you were twelve."
His head snapped around to look at me, eyes wide. "He told you that?"
"Yeah. And your mom works in insurance." Butterflies started in my belly. "What - What do...What are they going to think of me?"
Liam straightened, turning toward me. Blinked. "They are....They've been wanting to meet you since Murph told them he had a girlfriend. He emailed Ma some pictures of you from Halloween."
Which, okay, I'd done the same to my mother in our weekly, bi-weekly emails.
"Honestly, they can't wait to meet you." He swallowed. "It shouldn't be me introducing you. It should be Murphy."
"We can't control that." Not right now at least.
"I know."
Yeah. Not the ideal situation. From the borrowed shirt to the ER to the elephant in the room of not having Murphy here - this was crazy to a whole new level.
We lapsed into silence, uncomfortable and stretched, content to wait. Or, rather, wait and fidget in my case.
The doors to the parking lot slid open.
"William? Oh, William - "
Liam stood, automatically moving to hug his mother while I tried to continue to breathe. Wobbling upright, I hovered in the background, content to watch. Both boys looked like their father, only Dermott wasn't as filled out - probably because he wasn't a football player - and, unlike his boys, Dermott had red hair. Or what used to red, as he was slanting toward gray in places. Maggie was thin and not a whole lot taller than me. She had the dark hair her boys did and Murph's hazel eyes.
Hazel eyes that looked around her son to me. Through me.
"Liam..." Dermott said quietly.
"Sorry, Da," he said, reaching back and snagging my borrowed shirt sleeve. "This is Olivia - Ollie - Murphy's girlfriend."
Maggie smiled. "Hi, Ollie. I've seen pictures..." She trailed off. "Nice to finally meet you, only I wish the circumstances were better." There was a lilt to her voice that two decades in the States couldn't wipe completely. "I'm Maggie."
There was such a kindness in her eyes, such an understanding....Between physics, orgo, Murph in the ER, and turning twenty, everything was suddenly too much.
I burst into quiet tears right then and there.
"Oh, love," Maggie said, gathering me into her arms. "It's a bit overwhelmin'."
Didn't matter it wasn't my own mother, Maggie was still a mom and I needed a mom's shoulder to cry on right now. Which I did. Soaking up the warmth Maggie provided. This would be damn mortifying if it didn't feel so good. And if I didn't need it so badly.
"Sorry," I mumbled, pulling back and wiping my cheeks.
"There's nothing to be sorry for, Ollie." She rubbed my arms lightly. "And you made a very pretty pirate on Halloween."
Cue flaming cheeks. "Thank you." Gathering what composure I had left, I turned to Dermott. "Hi, Mr. McRiley." He shook my hand, looking closely at my tear-red eyes and then, much to my horror, my shirt. If he recognized it, he didn't say. Which was one of the better things to happen tonight.
"Nice to meet you." Dermott's accent was thicker than Maggie's. He smiled slyly, and that's when I really saw Murph in his father. "Cold down here lately?"
Not what I was expecting and, honestly, a hell of a lot better. "Yeah. It hasn't been too bad, but, um, I don't have any heat."
We sat, Liam and I, between Dermott and Maggie. The rest of our motley crew returned, and Maggie hugged Dev and Colby; I introduced Cara and Sasha. And then we sat. And looked at each other.
In silence.
Oh, Lord.
The drunks and mishaps started rolling in around three. Girls who had been out partying, frat boys worried about their passed-out brothers, and city kids who didn't have enough sense to read the warnings on the Jackass DVD's. We made small talk - or rather, Cara, Liam, and Maggie did as Dev, Colby, Dermott, and I kind of sucked at it - and around four-thirty a doc came out.
"McRiley?"
Maggie, Dermott, and Liam went to speak with him. Sasha sat next to me, holding my hand tightly in hers. Dermott and Maggie followed the doctor through the door and Liam came back to us, hands in his pockets.
"His appendix had exploded." There was a collective flinch. "Yeah. They removed what was left of it and cleaned out the infection. He's on antibiotics, painkillers, and should come out of anesthesia sometime soon. Might not come out of it for long, and he might just go right back to sleep. He's gonna feel like shit when he does wake up." He took a deep breath. "They've moved him to a room on the second floor. He, uh, he's gonna be just fine. Eventually."
I uncurled and hugged a shaking Liam. Now that he knew his brother was going to be fine he was more or less losing it. All the control he'd had since the whole fiasco had started - in the fishbowl and then waiting until his parents arrived, then with his parents - he didn't have to be calm and composed anymore. Now he could worry.
"They have visiting hours tomorrow, right?" Cara asked, prodding a half-asleep Sasha. "We should come back tomorrow."
Colby rubbed his eyes. "That sounds like a plan."
"You want a ride to your car?"
"Please."
They gave one last round of hugs and paraded out the ER doors while Liam led Dev and I through the hospital to an elevator. We passed the time waiting outside Murph's room (once we found it - we had to circle the floor twice until a passing nurse took pity on us) by playing the Movie Game - Start with a movie or an actor and then get another film or actor from the first one. So, start with George Clooney and get Ocean's 11, then say Brad Pitt, who was also in Fight Club. Edward Norton then gets you to The Italian Job. Donald Sutherland gets you to Pride and Prejudice and Kiera Knightley leads to Pirates of the Caribbean. That sort of thing.
Liam was a little scared at how long Dev and I could go without needing to start again.
Maggie poked her head out the door. "He's awake. A little disoriented and tired, but awake."
Dev shoved Liam into the room first then we waited a little more until Dermott waved us in.
Murph was still too pale to be healthy and hooked to both a heart monitor and an IV. Liam pulled gently by my sleeve all the way to the side of the bed and I slipped my hand under Murph's. He was definitely more drugged than our previous ER trip. Still, he gave me a ghost of his regular smile and whispered, "Hi."
"Hi, Murph."
He swallowed hard, like his throat was dry. "Ha - Happy Birthday, Ol."
And then, right there in front of his parents, I leaned over and kissed his nose. Just to see him smile.
Happy Birthday indeed.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Murphy and Me XXXIX
[I get to change symbols at fifty. And yes, I had to look at wikipedia for that tidbit of information. Short section, but I didn't want to combine this with what's coming next. Happy Thursday.]
Maybe it was a good thing we didn't make it too far into the tournament. Playing soccer in a snow storm doesn't bother me (had to dig the peacoat out of the closet, finally) but we were more or less starting the downside slide of the semester. Couple more weeks until Thanksgiving, and after that it was a short foray into December and then finals would come up hard and fast.
Also between now and then would be my twentieth birthday.
So, considering all of that, it was probably a damn good thing we were knocked out by penalty kicks by Ithaca the following weekend. It freed up a lot more time. Time I should have spent doing back physics work and orgo practice problems. Time I spent doing anything but.
Except maybe driving myself absolutely batshit crazy with back homework.
Like I was trying to do on a Tuesday night. Finally had to say screw it and move onto T-S Britain from chem. Then again, having at least two hundred pages to read in one book alone (reading that was due three weeks ago) made the task rather daunting. Not to mention we were supposed to get a few inches of snow overnight.
Damn it.
My phone vibrated against the bed frame. Text from Izzy. Moulin rouge is on vh1. *squeeee*
Squee I did. Almost went headfirst off the bed trying to get the remote and was very grateful to find it had really only just started. Score.
Needless to say whatever focus I had left took a swan dive from the fourth floor to the sounds of beauty, truth, and love. And the sight of a green fairy shaking her ass.
I have up on anything academic two verses into One Day I'll Fly Away. The knock on the door came shortly thereafter. "Yeah?"
Murph poked his head in. "Hi."
"Hi." Motioned him in. My favorite part was coming up. "Whatcha doin'?"
He propped a hip against the bed, looking between me and the screen. "Wonderin' why my girlfriend hadn't answered when I saw her light was on."
"Oh." Checked my phone. Four new messages. "Sorry." I uncurled enough to sit up and drop a leg on either side of him. "I tried doing work, got a text from Izzy that Moulin Rouge was on - love this movie - and said to hell with it about an hour ago. Sorry."
"No, not it's fine." He turned to look at me straight on. "I just...Wanted to see if we were still on for dinner tomorrow at the Pub. And how you feel about last Saturday."
Or rather, how being knocked out of the NCAA tournament so early was sitting.
He bent to kiss my nose. "And - "
"And again? How many more are you gonna pull out?" I giggled.
"Funny," he grinned. "And - " He drew it out for effect, "You have a birthday coming up."
I did. November 22, actually. Five days from now. "You're planning something, aren't you?"
Murph smiled coyly; butterflies erupted low in my belly. "Maybe." He planted his hands on either side of my hips, leaning in and brushing his cheek against mine. He hadn't shaved this morning. "Can't tell you all my secrets." He pulled back to look at me. "Just some."
"Uh huh." My brain was goo. And there was a new sensation in my gut that was downright terrifying.
"I actually need to go do homework, so I will leave you to your movie." He kissed me gently. "See you tomorrow."
I squeezed his sides with my knees. "Yup. Seven?"
"Definitely." He hesitated on his way to the door, almost like he was going to say something. It was on the edge of my tongue, and after an awkward silence, he cracked a smile and said, very softly, "Bye, Ol."
Did that make us both cowards, that we couldn't say two words that were almost right there? Or maybe...Maybe it wasn't time yet. I lay on my belly, eyes on the screen and mouthing the words with Christian: like I've never seen the sky before/Want to vanish inside your kiss/Every day I love you more and more.
Come what may indeed.
Maybe it was a good thing we didn't make it too far into the tournament. Playing soccer in a snow storm doesn't bother me (had to dig the peacoat out of the closet, finally) but we were more or less starting the downside slide of the semester. Couple more weeks until Thanksgiving, and after that it was a short foray into December and then finals would come up hard and fast.
Also between now and then would be my twentieth birthday.
So, considering all of that, it was probably a damn good thing we were knocked out by penalty kicks by Ithaca the following weekend. It freed up a lot more time. Time I should have spent doing back physics work and orgo practice problems. Time I spent doing anything but.
Except maybe driving myself absolutely batshit crazy with back homework.
Like I was trying to do on a Tuesday night. Finally had to say screw it and move onto T-S Britain from chem. Then again, having at least two hundred pages to read in one book alone (reading that was due three weeks ago) made the task rather daunting. Not to mention we were supposed to get a few inches of snow overnight.
Damn it.
My phone vibrated against the bed frame. Text from Izzy. Moulin rouge is on vh1. *squeeee*
Squee I did. Almost went headfirst off the bed trying to get the remote and was very grateful to find it had really only just started. Score.
Needless to say whatever focus I had left took a swan dive from the fourth floor to the sounds of beauty, truth, and love. And the sight of a green fairy shaking her ass.
I have up on anything academic two verses into One Day I'll Fly Away. The knock on the door came shortly thereafter. "Yeah?"
Murph poked his head in. "Hi."
"Hi." Motioned him in. My favorite part was coming up. "Whatcha doin'?"
He propped a hip against the bed, looking between me and the screen. "Wonderin' why my girlfriend hadn't answered when I saw her light was on."
"Oh." Checked my phone. Four new messages. "Sorry." I uncurled enough to sit up and drop a leg on either side of him. "I tried doing work, got a text from Izzy that Moulin Rouge was on - love this movie - and said to hell with it about an hour ago. Sorry."
"No, not it's fine." He turned to look at me straight on. "I just...Wanted to see if we were still on for dinner tomorrow at the Pub. And how you feel about last Saturday."
Or rather, how being knocked out of the NCAA tournament so early was sitting.
He bent to kiss my nose. "And - "
"And again? How many more are you gonna pull out?" I giggled.
"Funny," he grinned. "And - " He drew it out for effect, "You have a birthday coming up."
I did. November 22, actually. Five days from now. "You're planning something, aren't you?"
Murph smiled coyly; butterflies erupted low in my belly. "Maybe." He planted his hands on either side of my hips, leaning in and brushing his cheek against mine. He hadn't shaved this morning. "Can't tell you all my secrets." He pulled back to look at me. "Just some."
"Uh huh." My brain was goo. And there was a new sensation in my gut that was downright terrifying.
"I actually need to go do homework, so I will leave you to your movie." He kissed me gently. "See you tomorrow."
I squeezed his sides with my knees. "Yup. Seven?"
"Definitely." He hesitated on his way to the door, almost like he was going to say something. It was on the edge of my tongue, and after an awkward silence, he cracked a smile and said, very softly, "Bye, Ol."
Did that make us both cowards, that we couldn't say two words that were almost right there? Or maybe...Maybe it wasn't time yet. I lay on my belly, eyes on the screen and mouthing the words with Christian: like I've never seen the sky before/Want to vanish inside your kiss/Every day I love you more and more.
Come what may indeed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)