Cookie
Copyright© 2013 by Emerson Laken-Palmer
Chapter 10: The nurse
Cookie awoke, lying on a cot, in a small, yellow-painted, cinder-block room with a slender, young, pretty brunette woman, in a white nurse's uniform, smiling down at her and holding a cold compress to her forehead.
"Are you alright?" the woman asked.
The back of Cookie's head hurt, as did her shoulder and knee, but she said, "Yes," in the subdued voice of one who is disoriented.
"I'm Miss Fleming, the school nurse," the woman said. "I hear that you blacked out and they brought you here to me."
"I guess so... ," Cookie said, trying to sit up.
"No. No." Miss Fleming told her as she reached to her shoulders to steady her. "I want you to just lay back and relax for a few minutes, okay?"
"I'm alright," Cookie stated as she swung her legs around and sat fully up, holding her hand to her now dizzy, aching head.
"Hmm," Miss Fleming muttered dubiously, looking Cookie directly in her pale, blue eyes. "Then, can you tell me what day it is, sweetheart?"
"I ... um ... it's Tuesday ... I ... I think it is."
"That's right. Now let's try a little more easy question ... what's your name?"
"Cookie. Cookie Mullins."
"Cookie," Miss Fleming repeated the word. "Gosh, that's a pretty name for such a pretty girl." As she said it, she put the back of her hand to Cookie's cheek and caressed it softly.
A swirling rush of feelings overtook Cookie, as she looked up at the nurse, and tears suddenly appeared and streaked down both of her cheeks. As much as she desperately craved the kind words and the soft touch of this lovely woman, she was terror stricken by the immensity of the pent up emotions that were welling inside of her. Cookie knew that losing control and letting those emotions out would surely overwhelm and destroy her, right here where she sat.
"Please don't touch me," she loudly stated, pushing Miss Fleming's hand away from her face.
"I'm sorry, honey," Miss Fleming said. "I didn't mean to..."
"It's alright," Cookie quickly interrupted, deathly afraid that she might have hurt the woman's feelings by her reaction to the innocent gesture. "I'm just not used to anyone touching me or being kind to me, that's all. I don't know how to handle it."
"What? A pretty girl like you? Who wouldn't be kind to you?"
"Nobody," Cookie told her directly. "There isn't anyone who is nice to me ... ever."
"What are you talking about?" the nurse asked. "Hey, honey, tell me what happened to you today? Why did you pass out like that?"
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