Spoiler :

I wonder what people will think of the character of Romona? While there are many differences she is one of the few characters that I allowed to be like myself. And while Ro won't interact directly in the story for quite some time, you will probably be able to see that she had a major impact on the MC and continues to effect her.

I think I will have 2 or 3 more flashback chapters before going back to the new world again. Actually I wonder how the story will end up...? Well I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The Start of the Life Changing Visits

(Samantha)

I won’t go to deep into the details of how I ended up in the hospital. Suffice to say it was first partly out my own bad decisions, then mostly because a classmate was being really stupid and finally a bit of nasty bad luck was the straw that broke the camels back. The how and whys don’t really matter in this instance.

You just need to know that I was injured badly enough that I couldn’t go to school for months and that other than doing some homework sent to me regularly by my teachers and watching TV I had nothing to do, and of course I was near to dyeing from boredom.

For the first few weeks the whole family visited me nearly every day. However they my mother and father especially had busy lives, and once they saw that I wasn’t going to die or be crippled, they came less and less, until finally I was lucky if I received a phone call.

Not long after mother greatly cut the frequency of her visits my oldest sister followed suit, my elder brother managed to make it a few days longer but then sissy got jealous and soon he was making his excuses and not showing up.

Just in case you are feeling that I left someone out I am going to put on the hat of captain obvious and point out that since James is a baby he and my mother are a package deal...just kidding. Yes, I have yet to mention Ramona.  

For a time after my parents stopped coming she didn’t appear as well. I didn’t give much thought to this and just assumed that she was ‘busy’ being her and like my parents felt there was no need to visit me.

A short while after my brother stopped visiting I started to suffer from loneliness. I hadn’t really acknowledged it before, but prior to this hospitalization I had almost never been alone. Whether it be at school or at home I was almost always surrounded by family friends or acquaintances.

Nurses and doctors don’t really count, and although when they found out what happened my ‘friends’ had quickly promised to visit, they had gotten bored of it even quicker than my parents, and other then being sent an occasional get well email, or a random comment on my social networking site I did not really get anything substantial from my peers from school.

Although I can say truthfully that I get along with my teachers more than most students do, I can’t really say that I am true friends with any of them either.

So while I did receive with gratitude several baskets of fruit and a bouquet of balloons from my goofy science teacher, there was not enough contribution to negate any of my loneliness. For other than the small comments they made on some of my homework after correcting it I didn’t really get communication from them either.

As I said I became desperately lonely. The kind of lonely that allows for a lot of introspection. I realized that I gave to others far more then what I received. Later when I researched the subject I learned that my type of personality is often labeled as ‘the nurturer’, I cannot deny that I am the type to care more about others then I do myself.

Thinking about how, despite everything I do I was rarely acknowledged for it, or even appreciated for it started to make me feel depressed. My sadness exacerbated my feelings of loneliness, and mixing those feelings with boredom I ended up in quite the uncomfortable state.

I was few days into enduring such feelings when my sister suddenly reappeared into my life.

I had been working on one of my recently delivered homework assignments forcing myself to take as long as possible as I knew that once I finished I would have nothing to do. There was a knock on my room’s door frame and I looked up when I heard the sound of one of usual nurses clearing her throat. Next to the nurse stood Ramona smiling and lightly waving one hand.

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I couldn’t believe my eyes at first and just stared at her after the nurse who had led her here left probably after saying something, probably along the lines of ‘your sister came to visit you isn’t that nice’, but I couldn’t hear her, I was that shocked.

After a few moments of silence Ramona walked up to my hospital bed and waved her hand in front of my eyes.

“Hello anyone home?” She smirked at my shock.

After I blinked several times, I asked in befuddlement “What are you doing here?”

She gave me a look that said ‘isn’t it obvious’ then declared in a neutral tone of voice that was hinting that I had just gone insane.

“Visiting you of course.”

I could barely get my hand around the concept, Ramona was visiting me? Hadn’t she only come before because the others forced her to go? That is what I had believed, and what happened during the visits of my family only served to enforce this belief.

While my mother and sister had exclaimed and fussed over my injuries, my brother had hugged me then held my hand, and my father had repeated what the doctor said alongside the encouragement of “you will be back in the game in no time.”

Ramona had just stood silently in a corner and looked reluctant to be there. In my mind there had been no other explanation then she had been forced to go.  As I was thinking this in full befuddlement. Romona started speaking again.

“I am sorry that I had stopped visiting and wasn’t able to come again sooner, but when brother was eh encouraged by our mutual ‘deeda’ to stop coming I lost my ride, and since I have never really had to use the bus system other than to go to school, it took me a while to figure out how to get here. “

Seeing that I was still not replying, she assumed that my silence was accusatory sighed and admitted.

“Well yes, I could have gotten here earlier but I had…stuff that was taking up a lot of my time, plus I figured that you wouldn’t want me bothering you while you were having your vacation. I mean, I am so jealous!

Other than a few homework assignments you don’t have to work and can just lie around all day doing almost whatever you want! Plus you don’t have our evil deeda breathing down your neck here.”

I continued to stare at her, in a corner of my mind I recalled the dim memory of our childhood before Lucy and thus of course Howie had decided that it was uncool to be with family, a time when everyone still played together and Ramona had called Lucy by her strange made up word ‘deeda’ and Howie and I were occasionally referred to as ‘ooduh’.

In that faintly remembered time, where strangely, instead of insulting Ramona we all admired her, and appreciated her for her great ability to come up with games and other things to do, and lead us in doing them. As I recalled that happy time which I until now had let myself forget, I suddenly had a surge of affection for my sister and I found myself smiling as I spoke to her.

“No it’s fine, I am just glad that you came at all, unlike you I find it terribly boring when I am by myself I can scarcely consider this a vacation.”

Ramona looked at me thoughtfully.

“I can understand feeling alone, but bored? How is that possible? I mean there is so many possibilities as to what one can do in this day in age!”

“If you are referring to technology I am just about sick of it. All my games get old really fast and if I have to watch another boring plotless TV show I will probably scream.”

Ramona showed a exaggerated face of shocked horror and put fake fear in her voice as she said.

“All you have been doing is watching TV? That’s terrible, no wonder you are bored.”

To my surprise she moved even closer to me and while being careful of my reasons of covalence hugged me.

“My dear ooduhii, let your deeda show you how to have fun.”

Seeing the mischievous smile on her face I just had to smile back and answer with.

“Okay.”