The Ogre 22 (Patreon)

Little by little I opened my eyes. The overhead lights were blinding. Someone was holding my hand. Holly? No… Dad?

“Ty, son. How do you feel?” he asked, his worried face relaxing just a bit.

“I… what happened. Where am I?”, I said, trying to remember how I had gotten here.

“Shock,” the doctor said, “You were stabbed, young man. The wound did not touch vital organs but you lost a lot of blood. You are very lucky, a few centimeters off and you likely wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale. Luckily the bleeding is controlled, the wound is closed, but I will have to ask you to keep activity to a minimum while you recover.”

Memories came to my mind. My fight with Billy… the knife…then Holly. Holly! I had to know if she was okay.

“I-I, there was a girl with me. She was hurt too!" I said, trying to sit up. I felt a sharp pain in my gut and my head became dizzy. I fell back on the pillow with a thud.

“You aren't near ready to get up,,” the nurse scolded me.”Stay put and let yourself heal.”

“The other girl was treated in the specialized care ward,” the doctor said. “I don't have all the history but I know she's fine, better off than you.”: I felt a wave of tremendous relief. “We are going to keep you for observation for a few days. If all goes well you can be discharged in a little less than a week, but you still have a lot of recovery ahead.”

The doctor and nurse left, leaving me alone with my father.

“I'm sorry Dad,” I said apologetically.

“Tell me what happened later, Ty. The important thing is that you and your girlfriend are alive.”

“Yes, that's it… did you say girlfriend?” I asked.

“Yes. She's been coming every day to see you. You’re lucky to have found someone so dedicated.” My Dad said with a soft smile. “Now focus on healing. I have to go back to work now but I'll be back in the afternoon.”

“Thank you dad,” I said. He put his hand on my head and breathed a sigh of relief.

God I hadn’t seen him for so long and he came back to me in the hospital. If only I beat Billy… well…

“... if it weren't for the knife I would have beaten Billy,” I said out loud with satisfaction.

"Undoubtedly. It would have been a game-changing result in the hierarchy of power at our school,” Matt said, standing next to my bed.

“What the- what…! When…?” I exclaimed, startled.

“Hey, calm down or your wound will open. You are lucky Billy didn’t kill you, it’d be lame if you died because of me,” Matt said as he waved his notebook. “Just sit back and let me do my job.”

“...Your ninja/investigator stuff?t”

“Ninja/Investigator/underling, to be more exact,” he corrected.

"Underling? Because of Angela?”

"Exactly! My mistress sent me to investigate your condition. You're the talk of the school. Everyone wants to know the fate of the stupid kid that stood up to Bily. You are practically an anime hero!”

“What about Holly, you’ve gotta know what happened to her?”

"She’s fine. She was back to school two days later. She's a beast... in a good way,” Matt said, “From what we know, Holly destroyed Billy and then started screaming for help. She carried you here, you know, pressing a hand to your wound the whole time in an attempt to keep all your blood and guts inside. Lots of people fainted when they saw her with a dagger stuck in her chest and you in her arms. Did you knew her blood was green?”

"Yes, I knew that already. It is based on-"

"Copper, not iron, one would suppose. Though horseshoe crabs also have copper based blood and their blood is blue… anyway… Eventually an ambulance arrived. Believe it or not, Billy had it way worse than you. Broken ribs, cracked skull, several compound fractures. He’s going to take several months to heal. People are wondering how much of it was you and how much of it was Holly.” Matt flipped through his notebook and tapped it with his pen. “They found Billy’s fingerprints on the knife and there were more than enough witnesses. Billy’s henchmen confessed everything to avoid getting charged. Really threw Billy under the bus. Guess that’s what you get when you only have friends out of fear.”

I laughed to myself… it hurt.

“Angela filed a formal complaint with the school administration, and she exposed all of Billy’s actions, the abuse, the extortion, the threats of violence, duly documented obviously,” Matt said as he winked at me “They determined Holly acted in self-defense and Billy’s gotta stand trial. I wonder if he will end up in juvie?”

“That's the job you were doing for Angela? Watching bullies?”

“No one better than a bullied kid to identify bullies. It was our brilliant plan to rid the school of Billy once and for all... I also do her shopping, I carry her books, get her lunch, and the other day we went shopping so I carried her bags!”

“That sounds like… slavery.”

"It sounds like what you and Holly had going, and look at the results! Any good experiment is worth doing twice to verify. Besides, imagine if we DO end up together! Gotta take my chance!” Matt said as he smiled at me.

“Yeah… well, I can’t blame you,” I said wincing at the pain in my wound, creeping up as I became more conscious.

Suddenly the door swung open. Holly stood in the doorway, eyes wide, trembling. I expected her to barge in, screaming… but she didn’t. She just folded her hands, silently walked inside and asked nicely.

“Matt, do you think you could leave us alone?”

“Yeah Matt I think it’s better if-” I looked to my side. He was already gone.

Holly approached with unusual shyness. I could see how her eyes glistened with tears, but she was far too proud to let herself cry.

“Ty… how are you feeling?” she asked in the softest voice as she sat beside my bed.

“I think I dodged that bullet… or, rather, that knife. They said I’ll be discharged in a few days if all goes well." I told her, "I blame your training. I’d be dead without it."

“You gave Billy a good fight. I'm proud,” she said as she gently grabbed my hand, “But don't be careless. If your opponent is armed it’s better to just walk away. Even I’d go down if that knife hit the right way…”

“Wait… didn’t you get stabbed too?” I asked. “Are you OK?”

“Heh, only an idiot like you would worry about me while stuck in a hospital bed.” She showed a bit of her cleavage where there was now another scar accompanying the large scar on her chest, “The knife hit my sternum. Didn’t pierce through to any of the important stuff. Besides, even if he got one of my hearts I got another to spare.”

“Do… you really have two hearts?” I asked.

“Do you really want to be talking about my internal organs right now?” Holly said in a familiar sarcastic tone. We both smiled.

“My father said you came to see me every day. He thought you were my girlfriend,” I told her.

Holly blushed “Everything was moving so fast. It was a lot easier to let him just think that. I wasn’t gonna protest when you were bleeding out on a stretcher.”

"Right. Heh. I mean… It was a nice thing to hear even if it’s not true. Look. Holly I’m sorry I-” I couldn't finish the sentence when Holly put a finger to my lips. She was silent for a second before she started crying hard, very hard. Tears were running down her cheeks and her eyes were bloodshot red. She was bawling.

“I'm sorry TY, I'm so sorry,” she said between sobs, “This was why I wanted to stay away from you. I thought if I kept my distance you wouldn’t have a life as rough as mine. But I just let Billy hurt you! I’m stupid and selfish and-"

“Holly, you're not selfish… you’re just afraid”

“I thought I was afraid, that I knew what fear was, but then I saw you on the ground bleeding. I’ve never been more scared. I thought about my grandfather. I thought about everything I regretted not sharing with him when he was alive… and I thought of everything I’d regret not sharing with you. I don’t want to go through that again, I can’t… I won’t!”

I had never seen Holly so sincere and vulnerable. She caressed my cheek and wiped away her tears, messily trying to regain her composure.

“Sorry for worrying you so much,” I said.

“I’m sorry for pushing you away…” she said, serious, frazzled, and trembling, “I don’t think I can leave you alone anymore. I can’t let this happen again. You’re stupid and clumsy and you’ll hurt yourself and… and…”

“And?” I said with a smirk. Holly simply stood up and leaned over and placed a tender kiss on my lips. “Oh… wow…” I said. I felt like the shock would make me pass out again. “Does this mean we really are dating?”

"No…” Holly said.

“Oh… no?” I said back.

“No… because we haven’t made it official yet. We have to ask… confess… like one of your animes..”

“Hah, I suppose that’s true” I said. I cleared my throat and in the manliest tone I could muster with a gut wound I began to say, “Holly, love, do you want to be my…”

“Shut up, Ty,” she interrupted, “You know who is the alpha in this relationship.”

“Actually the theory of Alpha and Beta wolves has been largely questioned by modern day biologists and is now considered mostly myth-”

“TY, DO YOU WANT TO BE MY BOYFRIEND?” she said with her usual mischievous smile.

"Yes of course. A thousand times yes,” I said enthusiastically. Holly leaned down and kissed me again.

“Now get better soon, we have to catch up on ‘I became a Samurai.’”

“Only if we can go to the Jazz Club again sometime,” I replied.

She laughed. “Sure. I’ll make sure they are stocked up on grape juice.”

“Don’t make fun of me! I’m injurrrrred” I whined.

We both laughed.

It still hurt… but I didn’t care.

---------------------------------

Five days later I was discharged. The doctor did make a note to say that the exercise I had been doing certainly helped me survive. What can I say, I had the best coach, though I wouldn’t be heading back to Holly’s gym for quite a few more months.

Me and Holly, left the hospital together. She wheeled me out in a wheelchair and helped me into the back seat of my Dad’s car. We held hands, fingers intertwined, as I leaned on her shoulder for the long ride home.

Despite almost dying, life was good.