Oh Boy! (BL)

16 - Fractured (1/3)

Saturday, October 23rd; it was 2010. For other people, this might just have been another meaningless day in their calendars. Another Sunrise, another, lunch, another evening watching the golden leaves slowly fall from the trees. To me, it was mom's fifty-fifth day at the hospital. Fifty-five days without anything ever changing. Fifty-five days in which I'd met the ward's nurses; in which I'd sat next to mom's bed; in which I'd made friends with Clara.

Fifty-five days of me constantly hoping that a miracle would happen that would make mom's eyes flip open. It was this image of her taking me in her arms and telling me that everything's alright that was keeping me on my feet. Hope. That's what it had been for fifty-five days.

Days that repeated themselves in my mind while I was running through the shady city streets. With every step I got closer to North Western medical, my hope was vanishing a little more.

"Mom!" I yelled out of breath as soon as I reached the fourth floor.

On spot, Gudrun got in my way with a heavy frown on her face, "Young man! How dare you make so much noise?! Our patients are trying to sleep!"

"Gudrun, it's fine." Lisa rushed past her fellow nurse and caught me when I wanted to barge in mom's room.

"Let go!" I hissed at her.

"Ken! Ken, calm down!" Lisa shook me. "Who told you..."

"Well, you didn't!"

Lisa winced but I couldn't care less at that moment. Just like I hadn't cared about my phone that had been ringing non-stop on my way here. Clay, Evans, Kenner, Cooper. Again and again. I'd endured it for only a couple of minutes before my flip phone took a swim down a drain.

"I'm going to call security!" Gudrun exclaimed without any hint of sympathy in her voice. "Two brats disturbing our ward in such a short time is unacceptable!"

Yeah, whatever!

"Ken, please listen to me!" begged Lisa. "She's alive, Ken! She lives!"

And suddenly the world stopped turning. "But I thought..."

Lisa sighed. "Come with me."

She led me past grumpy Gudrun but not to mom's room. When I wanted to resume my protest, Lisa grabbed my hand and forced me to follow her down to the floor that scared me the most.

INTENSIVE CARE UNIT.

"Mom," I whispered hoarsely when Lisa finally ground to a halt in front of a large glass window. There were more machines, more tubes, more monitors telling me everything and nothing about Mom's condition. And I couldn't even hold her hand in that huge room where she was all alone. Sobbing quietly, I placed my hand on the glass window separating me from her.

Lisa hesitated before she put a tender hand on my good shoulder. "She had a stroke, Ken. But she's alive."

A stroke.

"But she's only forty-five."

"Oh, sweetie, this can happen to anyone. And her injuries..." She shook her head, probably deciding that I shouldn't hear that part. "But Kaori is a fighter. She would never leave you alone."

"Then why is she here?" I whispered.

"It came out of nowhere and the doctors want to observe her for at least the next couple of days. They..." She hesitated, obviously debating whether she should tell me the truth.

"Tell me," I begged with a weak voice that wasn't mine.

Lisa's smile was too gentle. "They are still debating if it'll be the only one, Ken."

I couldn't breathe. I....couldn't... Not the only one? There could be more? I coughed and coughed, and when something wet touched my cheeks, I raised my fingertips to my face. They were wet. The sight of my tears alone made me break out in sobs.

Lisa took me in her arms and held me tight. "Hush. Everything's gonna be fine."

Over and over again, Lisa whispered the exact same words in my ear but they couldn't wash away my fear. How could they ever? Nothing was fine. Absolutely nothing.

"Come, sweetie."

My eyes were begging her not to make me leave.

"I'm not sending you away." Lisa wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of her hand. "You can stay in Kaori and Clara's room. It's an exception, of course. But" She tugged at my hoodie and crumbled her nose. "you need to take a shower."

I narrowed my eyes. How could she think of something so banal when my mom was still on the verge of leaving me forever?!

Lisa matched my frown with unyielding eyes. "You smell like a pub."

I...Lifting my sleeve, I froze. She was right. Of course, she was. I balled my hands into fists. While mom had been in here, fighting for her life, I'd been at a goddamned party! I was such a traitor!

She had needed me!

One more time, I looked back through the glass window at my sleeping mom before following Lisa back to her ward. Without making a sound, I vowed that, from this day on, I'd do a better job taking care of her. I'd be a better son.

Lisa led me back to the fourth floor where she smuggled me into the room without Gudrun noticing. Room 442 was lit up brightly, Clara was sitting on her bed and held her phone to her ear with panic on her face.

As soon as she saw me, she dropped the device. "Ken! Thank God! I tried calling you a hundred times!"

"Hush!" Lisa looked back over her shoulder. "Just be quiet, you two! Now you" She turned me towards the tiny bathroom. "go shower! I'll get some scrubs for you to wear."

The door closed with a quiet click behind her.

"Oh, Ken, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have panicked on the phone."

"Thank you," I pressed hoarsely and gave Clara a broken look. "Thank you for calling me."

Clara's face fell. "I'm so sorry, Ken." She extended her hand towards me and I closed the fingers of my left hand around hers. "I was worried sick when you got off the phone and didn't pick up again."

Tugging at the hem of my stinky hoodie, I mumbled: "I threw it away."

"You..." Clara blinked. "That explains a lot. We gotta get you a new one!"

Who cared about something so trivial now?

Lisa returned with a set of blue scrubs and ordered me once again to take a shower.

So, I obliged. And only now, after seeing that Mom was still alive, did my body realize that running through the entire city, tired, and desperate, was far from good for an injured shoulder. The knife's wound was pounding when the warm water of the showerhead washed over it. I clenched my teeth and endured it for as long as I could.

When I left the shower and slipped into the scrubs, Lisa was there and told me that she could try to organize a folding bed for me, but I refused. No, the space where Mom's bed had been would be occupied again soon.

She'd be back in this bed by tomorrow. Certainly. She had to be!

Instead, I sat down on a plastic chair next to Clara's bed and put my head down on her blanket. Tenderly she caressed my hair. "Everything will be fine, sweetie."

I didn't believe her.

Nevertheless, my eyes closed with the first light of morning.