Swish

.40

The hospital reeked of an ammonia/bleach mixture that stung my nostrils as the double doors slid open, wafting the cooler outside air in with the frigid air conditioning of the sterile building. 

Nurses scurried by in multiple different colored scrubs, some on their phones on break and others eating their lunches on the tables that I breezed by so quickly that I almost knocked one woman's drink completely off of her table. 

Ignoring her confrontational remarks asking what my problem was, I didn't give a single thought to my extravagant outfit and hair and makeup, my feet pulsing with the need to find Eli's room and figure out what exactly I was going to say to him when I saw him again.  

I'm sorry?  I want to be with you?  Was that nearly enough for the litany of emotions coursing through my veins, desperate to be let out? 

Finally, the front desk came into view and though they were all on their land lines speaking to other patients, upon my emergence in front of them, both women glanced up slack jawed and locked their eyes on me. 

"Please hold for Dr. Richardson," the first nurse stated and pressed a button on the phone and gave her full attention to me. 

"What can I help you with ma'am?"

"I need to see Eli Shepherd.  Can you tell me what his room number is?"

My voice must've been shaking because pity befell her sharp age weathered eyes. 

Straightening her red scrubs, she looked to her co-worker and sighed before setting a placating smile upon her face. 

"I'm sorry ma'am but unless you are family, I can't-"

"We are.  Family, I mean.  Look, here's a picture of us together," I said, immediately pulling out my phone and brandishing an old selfie of the two of us from when we were happy, in that short fleeting time period when things weren't so completely and totally fucked up.  At least we'd had each other. 

"Oh.  So...are you his sister, or...?"

"Yes.  Sister.  We have different fathers."

The lie slipped easily from my lips and seeing as the two women obviously hadn't been keeping up with the local and popular gossip I was almost home free. 

"Alright, well let me look him up and check his chart and see if he is able to have visitors.  Is Eli short for Elijah?  Date of birth?  And how do you spell his last name?"

I gave her the appropriate information she needed and finally she found him in the system, still in a triage room in the emergency room, and I dashed in the correct direction once the woman pointed me the correct way. 

Halfway to the emergency department, I spotted a familiar face at a coffee vending machine. 

"Matthew?"

His eyes grew big, and I noticed a small laceration on his left eyebrow, but other than that he had no outward injuries. 

"Virginia?  What are you doing here?  Weren't you supposed to be singing the anthem tonight?"

I rushed towards him, but before the words could come out of my mouth, they grew stuck there, almost like I was terrified to ask the question. 

All the questions, actually. 

Was he hurt, fatally?  Would he survive?  Would he ever play basketball again?  Brain trauma, surgery?

It all surrounded me until I felt as if I were nothing more than a tiny fish floating in an ocean full of sharks swimming below the surface, ready to swipe up from the bottom and gobble me up, eating me whole.