*Beep…*Beep….*Beep…

            Ben Grant slowly awakens, surrounded by white sheets and bright lights. “Where am I?”, he wonders. Shielding his eyes from the light above, he takes in his surroundings. It’s a white, tidy, and seemingly sterile room. Bennet’s nearsightedness prevented him from making out any of its contents, except a bedside table with a glass of water and a computer displaying his vitals. The realization hits and Ben groans, “I’m in a hospital? Geez maybe I should’ve stayed in class after all”.  Feeling no need to get up, Ben instead plays back the events that led up to this moment.

            It started at his high school when Ben got headache in math class.  It’s very slight, but it persisted for the next hour, prompting Ben to use it as an excuse to skip some school. Now Ben didn’t consider himself a truant, but senior year was dragging on and he pretty much had all his classes in the bag. He raised his hand and asked to go to the nurse, slipping out without issue.

Ms. Beck, the school nurse that’s seemingly worked there forever, hands Ben some ibuprofen after hearing his explanation, “Okay take these and lay down for a few minutes we’ll see where we’re at then”. Ben obliges, content to rest as opposed to sitting through a boring history lecture.

Despite his headache persisting, Ben manages to fall asleep on the cushioned bench.

Seemingly moments later, Ms. Beck’s voice rings out,
“Hey Ben we’re going to send you home you seem like you shouldn’t be adding any mental strain today.”

Ben’s eyes light up, “Jackpot! I only wanted to skip history, but this is golden”, responding, “So I’m free to drive home whenever then?”

Ms. Beck shakes her head with a look of disapproval, “No actually, I just got off the phone with your emergency contact she’s the one that’ll drive you home. A Mrs. Linda Grant?”, says the nurse.

Mom?, Ben thinks, Oh hell no! She’s not gonna give me a break.

Responding quickly, Ben tries to worm his way out of it “Oh okay,  I’m actually fine enough to drive home I’ll text her to stay at work”

Ben walks towards the exit but a strong hand grabs his shoulder

“Ow!”

He turns around and Ms. Beck is giving a disappointed look.  Ben groans, Ms. Beck is a big lady, old too, but still able to handle herself. “Mr. Grant if your head hurts as bad as you say it is you definitely shouldn’t be driving.  Now take a seat” she says, gesturing towards the bench.

‘Ouch, that stung’, Ben thinks, ‘That kind of made me feel like a kid, Jeez’. He sulked and sat on his phone for a little bit, but quickly cheered up when he remembered he’d get to go home three hours early.

Just then, he gets a text from his mom, 

--"Walking into the front office, you better not be faking another headache to get out of school. I’m already thinking about grounding you for skipping class"

John groaned again; he only skipped that one class because he was late. Being late gets counted worse than absences for some reason and it was her fault he was late in the first place- she wanted him to switch her laundry over to the dryer right as he was about to leave. That put him in a pretty bad mood, considering he had to touch his mom’s underwear on top of missing class.

As if on queue, his mom walks in, concern spreading across her face upon seeing Ben looking so upset.

“Aw are you okay honey? Hey, come here, let me feel your forehead” , she says as she quickly walks over. Her high heels click across the floor as she closes the distance between them, Ben putting his hands up to stop her.

“No mom I don’t have a fever don’t do all that. I want to go home and sleep”

Linda frowns, looking down at Ben in a hurt manner, “What’s with the attitude? I was only trying to help; you don’t have to get mad at me. I feel like you’ve been very short-tempered lately”

Ben realizes she might be right and responds,

 “I’m sorry I think it’s just my headache. I appreciate you coming to pick me up”

Linda sighs and acknowledges his apology, proceeding to sign him out and thanking Ms. Beck for caring for him.

Ben followed her out to her car, an SUV that she’s had since it was new in 2008.  He opened the door, and an offensive stench wafted out to greet him. “Aw mom what the hell is that? It smells like a turd barfed all over your car”. His mom frequented the gym often and her backseat was littered with gym clothes, towels, and shaker bottles- with protein still in them, sour after being left in the hot car. The resulting smell was a nasal train wreck.Linda blushes as she gets in the car, partially from embarrassment but mostly from anger. He just got let off the hook for mouthing off and he was already at it again.

 She looks over, “That’s none of your business young man, you should actually consider yourself lucky I left work to come pick you up.  Actually, now that I think about it you just earned yourself that grounding I’ve been thinking about” With that, she starts up the car

“Aw what mom that was a fair question how are you going to ground me for that?”

Ben was a little heated now, this is not how his day off was supposed to go. They pull out of the parking spot and begin the drive back, a tense silence hanging in the air, alongside the gym stench.

Linda eventually breaks the silence, “You’ve been very disrespectful lately and I decided I’m going to teach you a lesson. I want your phone and car keys as soon as we get home, you obviously need to rest ” .

Ben doesn’t respond, his headache starting to get progressively worse as his mom sets the radio to a station playing pop music. While Ben wanted to complain, he didn’t want to worsen his already shitty situation.  After a few minutes his headache started to worsen, and by the time they got home it was excruciating. Seeing spots in his vision, Ben climbed out of the car and made his way to the front door, only to collapse before he could make it inside. He tried to get up but could only mutter out a garbled ‘help’.

            His mom was there only a moment afterward, rushing to help her son out, “Ben! Oh, come on stay with me”. She lays his head on her  lap, dialing 911 with tears starting to run down her face, confused at the illness suddenly afflicting Ben. Ben starts to fade out of conscious, the last thing that he sees being his mom’s expression looking back at him with fear. Despite her being worried, Ben felt protected laying on her expansive lap. He looked up at her one more time before finally passing out cold.

“I’ll be just fine”, he thinks,

Maybe a little bit preemptively…