I Told You So

As much fun as the experience of having negative thoughts swirling around in my head, goosebumps pricking the skin over my forearms and shins, I realized I had better things to do than sit in the appointment room and mull over my life like I'd done for the past few minutes. With a disheartened sigh, I jumped off the examination table and removed the paper-like gown.

At least that much is a relief, I thought as I reached to grab my shirt off the floor. But my relief lasted only a fleeting moment.

"Lindsey, what's taking so long?" Dad burst open the door with a bang. My mouth dropped open as I rolled my eyes.

Well, since walking in on me is a common occurrence with Mom, Dad might as well join in on the fun. Too bad he'd get the same reaction from me:

"Dad!" I scolded him in a shrill voice, covering my body with my shirt. At least I could be glad I was wearing my bra and underwear. Still, that didn't exactly cover much ground, if you know what I mean. Especially in front of your father.

"Oh-sorry." The poor man's face nearly turned crimson as he backed out of the room. It wasn't enough for him to forget he didn't trust me, for he added before shutting the door,

"Get your tail down to the labs. I'll wait for you there."

"All right." I sighed, shoving my shirt roughly over my head. In my haste, I accidentally put my head into the sleeve, nearly strangling myself.

"Ahh.." Tugging at the other end of my sleeve, I struggled to get my head back out of it.

This isn't my day. I thought, yanking gently on the collar with my other hand as I struggled to free myself. Finally, the cloth in my shirt gave way and I sucked the sweet taste of oxygen between my lips.

You know, breathing is really something that shouldn't be taken advantage of, I realized, slipping the shirt on correctly and grabbing my jeans. After I was fully dressed, I bent down and grabbed one of my shoes off the floor. As I balanced on one foot, I realized there was a knot in the laces. With a sigh, I picked at it with my fingertips, one foot crossed over over my knee in a squatting position.

"Ahh!" I gasped this time as my knee gave out to the weight pressed on it and I immediately fell, my butt smacking against the hard-tiled floor. In the process, my shoe had flown out of my hand, landing a few feet away from me with a muted clunk.

"Wonderful." I muttered to myself as I reached for the shoe. I couldn't hardly wait to see what else would happen to me, and I hadn't even left the room yet.

"Hello?" Zac picked up his phone.

"Is Zac there please?" JoAnn asked.

"Speaking."

"Hey, it's JoAnn."

"Hey! How's it going?"

"Wonderful." She cut right to the point. "I want to know what's going on with Lindsey."

Zac sighed loudly into the phone before replying sullenly,

"Well, you're asking the wrong person."

"This is really serious, Zac." JoAnn replied seriously. "Is she taking caffeine pills?"

"Caffeine pills?" The surprise in his voice was more than enough to convince her Zac had no clue what she was talking about.

"Yes, caffeine pills." She emphasized with a roll of her eyes. "Is she taking them?"

"Not that I know of.. Wow."

"So you seriously didn't know that?" She emphasized.

"No. I swear."

"Hmm.." So you obviously didn't give them to her either. She figured it wasn't worth the discussion to bring that thought aloud.

"What?" Zac inquired.

"I'd just like to know what'd happened to my best friends. Something's not right here." She tossed her other thoughts around, searching for something Zac could actually answer.

"Anyway, I also wanted to ask why the hell you're seeing that she-devil Samantha."

"She's not a she-devil." He laughed despite her bitter words.

"She's.." He searched for the right words. "really.. not that bad."

"No, she's worse." JoAnn immediately retorted.

"Come on, JoAnn."

"No, you come on." She insisted. "I'm guessing you didn't see her shoving Lindsey around at the party."

"She did what?"

"Zac Hanson, you are the most dense-minded person I've ever met!! How could you have not seen Lindsey leaving the party with tears running down her face?" With a sigh, JoAnn realized she'd be on the phone line for awhile.

"Labs, labs.." I muttered to myself as I walked down the corridor Dr. Coleman had directed me down. Passing by room after room, I smiled with relief as I saw a black sign that read "Laboratory" and my father sitting directly underneath it. But my smile faded as I took in his arms crossed over his chest, a crease in his forehead, and an impatient look in his eyes.

"Hi," I said softly, taking the seat next to him. Before he could reply, a young man stuck his head out of the door and looked at us.

"Lindsey Williams?" He called to me. Gawking at his short blonde hair and chiseled features, I slowly stood up. Maybe this day was looking better, if this is my lab attendant.

"Yeah." I walked over to the door with a smile. Once again, it disappeared as he handed over two small plastic cylinders to me, complete with red plastic caps. I could only guess what they were, as my face was the one to turn crimson this one.

"There's a bathroom right across the hall. We'll take the blood tests right after I get a couple of urine samples." The words pounded back into my head as I closed my eyes.

How humiliating.

"Ok, thanks." I managed to reply in a meek voice as I turned toward the bathroom. After closing the door behind me, I leaned against it and suddenly realized I didn't have to pee.

"Uh-oh." I sighed once more.

Fifteen minutes later..

"About time." I grumbled as the urge to pee finally twinged in my abdomen. I'll spare you the messy details of getting the sample and just mention that I managed to fill both cups about halfway. Capping both of them, I washed my hands.

"There you are," the attendant, whose name I read 'Matt' off his nametag, nearly bumped into me as I opened the door.

"Yeah, sorry." I replied pathetically. "I didn't have to go."

"Understandable." I groaned inwardly as I passed the cups over to his hands. Funny how natural things like that are completely disgusting, but he didn't say anything and walked back to the lab, motioning for me to follow him. As he scribbled something on a his desk, he peeled off two labels and wrapped them around the cups. Pointing to a chair that was next to his desk, he instructed me,

"Have a seat." Silently, I obliged, reaching my right arm up and resting it on the metal tray that stuck out over the seat. Unfortunately, I knew what was coming next.

"I see you've done this before." Matt noted as I rolled up my sleeve.

"Yeah. And you can spare me the Snoopy Band-Aids too." I replied sullenly as he bound my upper arm with a large rubberband. Not that that's what it is, it just looks like that to me. I squeezed my fingers into a fist as Matt pulled a chair in front of me and tapped the inside corner of my elbow to find a vein.

"Oh, it's not that bad." I wrinkled my nose at the smell of the alcohol he cleaned my skin with.

"We'll see about that when I pass out." I looked up into his light blue eyes and tried to smile. Not much came of the effort though: it looked more like a grimace.

"Seriously?" Matt frowned as he reached for the needle. "I only need to take two samples. It will only take a few seconds."

And a couple of hours for me to recover, I added in my head as he prepped the needle. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly as I heard him continue,

"Ok, just a little poke." OWW!! "And just a few seconds more.."

".. Umm.." My eyes flew open. 'Umm..' is not a sound that I want to hear now.

"What?" I glanced down at my arm, only to find that there wasn't any blood filling into the container on the other end of the needle. What I did feel was a hell of a lot of pain in my arm though. It had already began to swell with bruises. My face paled as he immediately withdrew the needle, gasping at the tiny sting it left.

"I must've missed the vein." No matter how gorgeous, I wanted to murder Matt at the calmness in his voice. "Sorry about that. I'll get it this time."

Wonderful.

"Ok, you're all set." Matt replied cheerfully as he slapped two more labels on the samples of blood. I couldn't help but wonder what other body fluids he wanted to drain out of me, as I slumped down in my seat. Suddenly, it felt like gravity was pushing harder down on me, as my eyelids drooped slightly.

"Careful Lindsey." He grabbed my upper arms and shook me a little. "I haven't had anyone faint on me yet."

"I'm awake." I assured him, although by now the room had started spinning. I felt a headache between my eyebrows as I tried to focus my eyes on his, without much luck.

"Mr. Williams," Matt called to my dad. "Lindsey needs to sit here for a few minutes, but she'll need helping walking."

"No, I'm really fine." I assured them, standing up quickly on my feet. Big mistake: the spinning sensation doubled and my whole body pitched to the right. Matt grabbed me quickly before I folded onto the floor. If it weren't for the given situation, I would've been more than happy to be held in his arms.

"Ok, maybe not." I admitted sheepishly. My smile disappeared when my eyes found the stone-cold look on his face and I quickly averted my eyes to the floor.

"So... umm, how'd it go?" JoAnn asked me as I flopped face-down onto my bed.

"Horrible." I groaned into my comforter. Rolling over to my back, I sighed and closed my eyes slowly. Feeling an uncomfortable silence, I opened them and found JoAnn staring at me.

"What?" I frowned at her.

"Nothing.." She replied slowly, her voice trailing off the end of the word. Yet her eyes remained fixed intently on mine and it made me feel more than a little uncomfortable.

"Take a picture, it'll add ten pounds." I replied sullenly, closing my eyes again. After this headache of a day, I wanted nothing more than to be left alone. No more misconceptions, no more close inspections, no more questions (and all those other words that end in 'ions').

".. If you say so." I felt my body pitch downward in the bed as she gingerly took a seat on the end of it.

"That I did."

"Lindsey, we need to talk."

"That's not good." I finally lifted my heavy eyelids and sat up in my bed.

"No, I'll tell you what's not good." Instantly the tone of her voice had turned dark and her violet eyes now blazed with emotion.

"What?" All sarcasm and crankiness was gone from my voice; she now had my serious, full attention.

"What the hell is going on with you!?" She blurted suddenly.

".. What?" I asked in a small voice. Worst of all, she was incredibly serious. Swallowing lightly, I tried to think of an answer she'd like to hear. Fortunately, I didn't have to think very long, for I heard the telephone ring downstairs. A few seconds later, Dad's voice bellowed up for me to come down- I heard it even though my bedroom door was securely shut. Sliding off my bed, I could only hope that it wasn't something else I was in trouble for.

"Yes?" I asked in a crisp voice when I saw my parents standing over the phone. JoAnn trailed into the living room behind me, taking a seat on the floor next to me.

"That was the lab." Mom smiled tightly at my tone.

" .. And?" I asked, although I already knew the answer. With a satisfied smirk on my lips, I crossed my arms across my chest and waited for the apologies to come pouring in my direction.

"Young lady, how dare you lie to us." My jaw dropped. Glancing up into my father's eyes, I was afraid of the fire that burned behind them.

Wait a minute.. this isn't how it's supposed to work.

"What do you mean?"

"How could you tell us you got the caffeine pills from Zac? We gave his poor parents a heart attack, putting the idea of Zac being an addict in their head. First thing after school on Monday you are going over to their house to apologize in person for the trouble that you've caused."

"The trouble I've.. Wait, you called his parents?" Clearly, I was a few pieces short of the whole picture.

"What else were we supposed to do? You told us he'd given them to you."

"Oh.." Scratching my arm distractedly, I replied sheepishly. "Ok, that was a lie. But that's it, I swear."

"How are we supposed to take your word from now on, Lindsey?" "Then who exactly did you get them from?" My parents spoke at the same time.

"She.. She got them from me." With the click, Heidi shut the front door behind her. My heart soared with relief as I watched her take slow, cautious steps toward us.

Good, for once it's not my turn to be the target of this family's dysfunction.

"What?" Mom gasped silently. I only knew it was a gasp because I saw her mouth open and chest rise quickly as she inhaled.

"You, Heidi?" Dad's eyes darkened as his gaze switched over to my sister's face. For once in her life, JoAnn was completely silent, I noticed for some reason at that particular moment. Until now, I'd forgotten she was even in the room.

"Yes." She replied in a thin voice. "And she lied to cover for me."

"You had your sister lie for you!?"

"So let me get this straight." I cut in, wanting to completely clear my name. "The lab tests came back negative, right?"

"Yes, they were negative. Now leave the room please. We want a word with your sister." My heart tugged at the stern tone in my father's voice that had become a little too familiar to me over this past weekend. I gave Heidi a sympathetic smile as I tugged on JoAnn's arm to go outside with me. After closing the front door behind me, I plopped down on the cool cement of the front porch and sighed.

"Now I know why I can never get ahold of you." JoAnn murmured softly into my ear as she sat on my left. "Is your life always this.. exciting?"

"Only when you come for a visit." I cast her a half-amused, sideways smile. "And exciting isn't the exact word I'd use. Stressful is more like it."

She didn't even have to say it, I knew what she was thinking and whole-heartedly agreed:

Sucks to be you.