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lostandfoundbook · 4 months

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Chapter 23

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The air felt tense as Alex was moved from the hospital back up to her suite in the hotel. Nurses littered her bedside, working to detach her from all the monitors she used to be hooked up to. No more consistent beeping, no more on going readings, just freedom from the room. She pulled her hair into as messy bun, and let certain strands of hair fall down as she did so.

She watched as the hallways of the hospital slowly turned into hallways of the hotel. They pushed her bedframe all the way towards the elevators and left her off with Oliver, Avery, and another nurse to get her hooked back up to the machines she needed in her bedroom. The ride up to the J-suite was silent and palpable. She wondered what everyone was thinking about.

She was starting to feel a lot better. Her wounds still hurt, of course, but everything else was starting her lessen. The swelling around her face had started to go down massively, and she could see that he nose truly looked fine. There was no question about it. The bruising on her wrists and arms also lessened over the week she had been there, but didn't completely disappear.

New marks had appeared too, ones from the IVs and cuffs she'd had on her the entire time she was there. They left new bruises and imprints on her arms, each one telling a story as to how she got them all. Their words dared to cross her lips as she brushed her arms past them, analyzing them as the elevator began to move.

This elevator had this dark green velvet wallpaper attached to it, and gold metal trims lining each corner. The buttons illuminated as floor 10 was pressed, and they were silver in color. Cold to the touch. She watched as the doors slid open and she was met with a very familiar hallway. She was home. Oliver pushed her bed out of the elevator and into the hall, allowing all the other people to walk out.

They pushed her bed up the hallway and she stopped to look around. The dark red walls with the black floral wallpaper reminded her of where she was, and what she used to see everyday. She was still in treatment, still needed to rest, and still couldn't do much-- but she was out of the hospital. She could feel a spike of adrenaline hit as they pushed closer and closer towards her room until they were outside the big double doors.

Oliver walked over towards the end of the bed and up to the doors, unlocking both doors and swinging them open widely. They creaked as they moved and Alex noted how she'd never seen the second door open at the same time at the first. She also noticed that her huge bed was gone, an empty place sitting for her hospital bed to slot into.

She'd have to work her way back to that king sized bed. Queen sized? Alex couldn't remember at this point, all she knew was that she already missed it. She found herself thinking about who had to have gone through her room to take it all down, and who will have to come in later to build it back up? Would it be Oliver and Avery? Would they hire somebody to do it?

What strangers had made their way into Alexandria's bedroom and fiddled around with her things? Did they see her journals? It was such a weird thought. She owned the place, in her own way and form, but she didn't. A majority of the expenses were paid off by Oliver, and she knew this after checking her bills one day. Bills he said she didn't need to worry about.

The room cost $10,000 a month, and that included most amenities she didn't use, and it covered all the electricity, water, and heating. It was an expensive place to live, but if you're already apart of the elites, it's really not. It'd be a reasonable price for someone on a residency visiting from out of town, here as a vacation or on work.

Alex's bed was slowly carted into its spot next to the end tables, where Oliver reached over and locked the wheels of the bed. Avery did the same for the end of the bed, and Alex let out a sigh. "So. I'm transferred. Now what?"

Oliver put his hands on his hips and shot a questioning glance over towards Avery. "Well, you can do a majority of the things you were doing before, just limited to a bed as much as you can be. Obviously they still want you doing physical therapy each day and getting your muscles in the shape they need to be, but besides that, there isn't anything major that you can do."

Alex nodded as she listened, and looked around the room. "What are you looking for?" Oliver asked out, beginning to search with her (but not knowing what he was looking for). Alex patted her hand on her side table before frowning. "I can't find my journal. It was on my bed, and obviously I don't know where my bed is. I don't know where my journal is anymore."

She tossed her head back in the bed. "Don't worry, we'll find it." Oliver responded as she pulled his hands through her side table drawer before moving to the next one. "And you're sure it was on your bed?" He said as he approached the second drawer. "Yes, I'm sure of it. It's gotta be around here somewhere."

Oliver opened the white wooden drawer and fiddled through it, but in the end he found nothing. He walked over to her dresser-vanity set up and rummaged around on top of it for a minute before pausing. "It's not here."

Alex sighed. "Well no shit. I left it on the bed, not the dresser. Even if they moved it, I doubt they'd move it there. What if someone stole it? That has all my personal details in there as well as my music!?"

Oliver shot her a glance before shaking his head. "No. They'd get fired so fast. They wouldn't risk it." He crossed the room to begin looking at the desk area. It was also white wood, with a rose-pink chair that curled as it reached the top. He pulled out the chair and fiddled around through the drawers of the desk before sighing. "I'm not finding it, Alex."

She let out a sigh and pulled the covers over her legs. She hadn't been hooked up to any of the equipment yet, so it was easy for her to swing her legs over the edge of the bed and trail her IV bag along with her. Oliver quickly whipped around to stare at her as if she was crazy. "You're gonna pop a stitch" He muttered out before turning back arond.

"No, I'm not. If they expect me to do physical therapy, then I can look for a damn journal. I can't believe I didn't just ask for it sooner. That would've solved this days ago." she sighed as she looked around the room, attempting to pinpoint where her subject could be hiding. "Yeah, but you didn't." Oliver replied as he walked over towards the bathroom.

"Why would it be in there?" She asked out as she opened the door and peeked his head in. He looked around a little bit before popping back out and shrugging towards Alex. "You never know." This made a small dash of a smile grow onto the girls lips. She let out a sigh and walked over to the couches, flopping onto it as she did so. She grumbles out a small 'Ow' as she sat, and re-adjusted her position.

Alex sighed a deep heavy sigh before speaking again. "I don't know what I'm gonna do without that book. It has so many personal details, I don't think I could start over from scratch. They were too raw and in the moment, I couldn't redo that if I tried."

Oliver walked over to the couches where Alex was sitting, and he took a seat across from her. "And how are you feeling now?" She let out a small scoff as she kicked her feet underneath her. "What, are you my therapist, now?"

It felt.. sort of like a joke. It felt like her entire world was crumbling into pieces, and she was just expected to play along with the games people played with her while she watched everything disintegrate around her. It wasn't fair that she lost her journal, It wasn't fair that she ended up in the hospital.. it wasn't fair that she met Everette.

She sighed and wiggled her toes a bit. It helped to ground her, and make her feel more present in the moment. "I think I'm gonna take a shower. I feel disgusting. Could you possibly keep looking for me?"

She eyed him up with her big, green, round eyes, pleading for release. She just wanted a little escape. It might hurt, but she would be clean. Clean from the hospital, clean from Everette's touch, clean from the world. It would be perfect. It was exactly what she needed right now. "Yeah, I can do that for you. Take some Advil before you go in, though, or you'll be in a lot of pain afterwards."

She nodded towards the man and unhooked her IVs by herself. She watched as Oliver have her an unapproving stare, but she continued anyway. She removed them all and left her IV bag sitting in the middle of the room. She walked over towards her night stand on the right of her hospital bed and pulled the drawer open.

She scanned through it for the bottle of Advil, and she popped the top open and slid four of the greenish-blue liqui-gel tablets into her hand before tossing her hand to her mouth and inserting the pills. She grabbed a water bottle on the side of her table and swallowed them down. She waved towards Oliver and walked into her closet to pick out the pair of clothes she would continue to rot in.

A baggy t-shirt? Maybe. A pair of sweatpants? Probably. Alex just couldn't decide on which one. One was a plain black t-shirt that was very loose and would give access to both her arms and her injury, meanwhile she had a really cute band t-shirt that wasn't an loose, and would give more of a fight.

She picked out the black one with sweatpants and headed into her bathroom. It was still bigger than ever, and Alex could feel the cool air of the marble floors brush across her ankles as she locked the door behind her. She let a breath escape her lips as she looked into the mirror. She looked thin-- dangerously thin. She knew she hadn't been eating enough, and her stay in the hospital didn't help. They gave out the blandest food possible, it seemed like.

She ran her hand across her ribs and frowned. She needed to eat more. She could see the bandage taped to her body, sitting across her stab wound. She carefully removed the medical tape and tegaderm materials before she could finally see it. It was swollen and red, but it looked a million times better than day one. It looked irritated and upset, but Alex figured that was just the stitches pulling at her skin.

She stripped her body of her clothing and walked over to the shower, setting the water to a cooler temperature. She figured the heat would only aggravate the pain. She walked back over towards the sink and pulled a hairbrush through her matted hair. It took her nearly five minutes to get it all situation, and the puffiness and texture of her hair didn't help. She really should've asked for a hair brush or something sooner.

When she was finally able to run her fingers through her hair, she hopped into the shower. Her wound stung as the water hit it for the first time, bathing it with the cleanliness of the hotel showers. It was cool against her skin, but hot against her stitches. She softly and carefully ran a hand over her body and grabbed the soap.

She made sure to avoid the stitches when she washed. It would be like salt in a wound, literally but not at the same time. It would hurt and she'd wriggle out in pain and she'd rather avoid all of that right about now. She washed the rest of her body and made her way onto her hair, focusing on her roots.

Her hair was so greasy. She needed the water to wash away whatever filth remained in her life. It wasn't just about getting clean, but about getting rid of him. Alex could still feel his hands on her body whenever she thought about what happened, and she needed to wash away the sins of her past lives. It felt cathartic in a way as she scrubbed the shampoo into her hair and squeezed her eyes tightly.

* * *

By the time she made it out of the shower, she had practically forgotten about the journal. It was slotted away in the back of her head, but it was no where present. As she sat down on the couch with her hair in a towel-bun, she stretched her arm out of Oliver to take and re-insert the IV.

"So, was it as bad as you imagined?" he asked out as he took her arm, dressing down on one of her veins to trap it. "No. Obviously I cleaned the wound as much as I could, but I was mainly focused on my hair. It was a rats nest. I needed a shower."

She cringed with one eye as the needle inserted into her arm and slid into her vein. Oliver reached over to the cart and grabbed another tegaderm to place over the IV. "Let me redress your wound" he eventually called out, leaving Alex's face bright red. "Okay. Let me lie down." she said as she spread her legs across the length of the tan-pink couch in the middle of her room. She rolled up her shirt and stared up at the stars on the sky.

She always forget they were up there until she glanced up and saw all the golden constellations across the white ceiling above her. Oliver grabbed a couple pieces of gauze, more tegaderm, and medical tape as he walked up to the girl. "What made you put the stars up there?" she asked as she stared, avoiding the mans gaze.

He looked up heavanward for a moment before looking back down at her stitches. "I loved stars as a kid. My parents put them all over the ceilings of the hotels for me to find constellations in when I was little. It used to take up a lot of my time when they were busy." He worked as she spoke, and unsheathed the gauze before placing them overtop of her wound. He placed down some medical tape to hold them connected together.

"This room has a couple of them, like Scorpio and Aquilla." Alex responded as she winced at the pressure. He looked up to the ceiling again before going back to work. "Yeah, I think I remember that." He grabbed the tegaderm and ripped the packaging off, and peeled away the non-sticky tab. He placed it over her gauze to hold it all onto her skin.

"I used to just get lost in the stars. I'd stare at them for hours, and my parents would have to pull me away kicking and screaming because i loved them so much."

Alex paused at the thought of Young Oliver sitting there, upset at the thought of having to leave the hotel. Maybe he always loved it here, or maybe it was something he grew to love over time-- Alex didn't know for certain. What she knew what that, right now, he loved his hotel. It was his own baby, and she could understand that. It was a family project that was crafted and grown as he grew, and it adapted as he adapted.

It meant a lot to him. Alex didn't have anything like that besides her music but she still got it. She could grasp that something can mean so much to you because of how it was passed down. There was this one ring in her family that got passed down to her sister, but Alex used to wear it constantly. She used to fantasize about it being her wedding ring, or something special like that.

It was something her grandmother had given to her mother, and her mother had given to the "better" sister. It ate away at Alex, and she knew that someday, she wanted to get the ring remade. So she could understand how much this meant to Oliver. He too wanted to remake his own pieces of the hotel.

She watched as he backed away from the girl and smiled. "There. All dressed. How do you feel?" Alex pulled her shirt the rest of the way down and sat up, kicking her feet. "I feel like me, I guess. The shower helped, a lot. I just wish I knew where my..."

Alex paused as she spoke. She felt her feet catch on something as she kicked them, and she pressed down and slid whatever was under the couch out. It was her journal. "Oh my god!" she shouted out. Oliver bent down and picked it up and handed it to her. "Here you go. I found it."

He had a sly smirk across his face. "You're a dick." Alex responded, grabbing the book from his hands. "I wonder how it got under where?" She asked, flipping through the pages. Everything was there, from her venting, to her timeline, to her poetry. Nothing had been touches. "It probably fell off of the bed and slid under when it was getting taken down." Oliver replied.

Alex ran her fingers across the pages before looking around the room. She shut the book and grabbed ahold of her IV cart and walked it (and herself) over to her bed, sitting on the edge of it. She reached into the left side table and grabbed a pencil.

"Well, I should probably get back to work" Oliver called out, awkwardly shuffling his own feet. "Okay. Thanks for getting me transferred."

Oliver gave her a happy nod before walking across the room and out of the door. She let out one last sigh before opening up her journal. So much had happened. She had SO much to tell her journal. Who needed therapy when you could write it all down like this? It was a perfect little escape for her.

She feverously wrote in the little black book. She wrote about her time with Everette, and she wrote about Benji visiting her in the hospital. She wrote about being stabbed and she wrote about how she felt. Like an idiot, a fool, like she should've seen it coming and she should've been able to prevent this somehow. She knew she'd have to go to court eventually, and she wrote about that too.

If she was lucky, she could escape it all, and ignore everything that happened. That was a fat chance, though. Alex had to confront her life head on, whether she liked it or not.

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