Chapter 12 - Ocean - Hospital Part 1

~~

Ocean

~~

I was confused. One second I was staring at the stands and watching Brittney watch Makai Rivers. She had her eyes glued to him and I was so pissed off. The next thing I knew people were calling my name and asking me if I was alright.

When did I fall asleep? Why was I dripping wet? I have been out of the pool for a while now. And why was everyone crowding around me?

When I opened my eyes I saw my coach kneeling on the floor next to me, his phone next to his ear.

"Ocean? Ocean are you alright?" There was a lot of noise, and a lot of commotion going on around me. The noise of it all was giving me a headache.

I was still in a daze from whatever was going on but I put my hand up and grabbed my head where the throbbing pain was the strongest. Ugh, it was wet there. I had been in the water I guess. But then, why did it feel sticky and not just wet. It didn't feel like just water that was on my head.

When I brought my hand away I saw that it was blood that I felt, not water. Why was there blood on my head? What had happened to me?

There were a lot of new voices now and everyone around me was being pushed to the side. I saw that Coach Dickson was the only one that hadn't been made to move away.

"How is he?" A man with a light blue shirt and a big red bag came running up to me and slid to a stop on his knees.

"He's breathing now, but he hasn't spoken yet." Coach Dickson was talking about someone, was it me? Probably.

"What's his name?"

"Ocean. Ocean Shores." I saw the man, a paramedic, turn to look at Coach Dickson like he thought he was joking. "That is his real name." The paramedic just shrugged his shoulders and turned to look at me.

"Ocean, can you hear me?"

Right after he said that he grabbed my eyelid and held it up while he blinded me with a bright pen light. I groaned and tried to look away from the hurtful luminescence.

"Come on, Ocean, talk to me. Are you alright? Tell me what happened."

"I dun no." I slurred my word, clearly I was still out of it.

"Come on, Ocean, you've got to do better than that. Can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?" I saw his hand in front of my face and I could see the fingers clearly. He had three of them up.

"Thwee." It didn't come out right again. Grrr. This was annoying. I had to try again. I cleared my throat and took another breath. "Three." There, that was better.

"That's good. Can you tell me now what happened?"

"I don't know." Good this time my mouth was working.

"One minute I was just standing there looking at the crowd as they left. The next thing I knew I was waking up here."

"You blacked out? That's not good, son. Can you tell me if you've taken anything? Drugs? Alcohol? Anything?"

"No, nothing." The paramedic thought I was a druggie or something. That's great. "I just wasn't feeling well. I didn't sleep much the last few days."

"Were you just exhausted then? Did you compete today?" His face changed a little, at least he believed me when I said I wasn't on drugs.

"Yes, I did."

"You need to take better care of yourself, Ocean. See what happens when you skip sleep for something else?"

"I didn't skip it. I couldn't sleep."

"Ok. Well, let's get you to the hospital now."

That was when I noticed a man standing behind the first paramedic. He had a stretcher sitting next to him and as soon as the first paramedic mentioned getting me to the hospital he leapt into action. The two of them worked together to move the rest of the people away from me and start lifting me onto the stretcher.

I looked to the side because I thought I felt someone watching me. That was stupid because everyone was watching me but I saw that there was one person not watching me.

Makai was walking away from the group and toward the locker rooms. He looked pissed off for some reason. Maybe he didn't like me taking the spotlight from him or something. Still, I had a feeling that Makai had been standing pretty close to me before I blacked out. What was that about?

Did he have something to do with me hitting my head? That was crazy though, wasn't it? I mean, I blacked out, didn't I?

As I watched him start to walk away looking all pissed off I was glaring at him. I couldn't figure him out at all. That was when I noticed him stop and turn to glare at me, anger clear in his eyes. He was pissed at me for something. Well, that feeling was mutual.

He only looked at me for a minute before he started to walk away again. His steps had quickened like he was in a hurry to get away from me. What was it he had to hide? What was he running away from?

While I thought about these questions the paramedics picked me up off the floor and moved me over to the stretcher. I felt a little too preoccupied and dizzy to be able to move at all. If I moved my head too much my vision twisted and spun like I was on a rollercoaster. It was not pleasant.

I listened to them as best I could, but all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. Not to mention the bright light of the sun coming in the windows was making my head feel worse.

"We'll take him to Trinity Emergency. Can you call his parents?" I could tell that the Paramedic was talking to my coach. I gathered the name of the hospital he mentioned but nothing else. "Hey Ocean, come on, open your eyes back. Don't go to sleep on me pal. Tell me a story or something." The paramedic was trying to get me to open my eyes and talk to him but I was exhausted. I needed to catch up on my sleep and my head was killing me. I didn't want to talk right now either.

"Nnnnnggghhh.." I groaned and tried to turn my head away from the light that was being aimed at me, but I couldn't move right then.