StarStruck Coffee

CODE BLUE (edited)

"Two weeks?" Zach's head span, he'd been in a coma for two weeks. "Two fucking weeks?" He started to go dizzy, W- Wait how's Beth, is the coffee shop okay." His vision started blurring, he faintly heard Nate say something about Beth taking time off to be here. "Sounds like her." He chuckled half-delirious. "Nate. Nate, I don't feel so-" Zach collapsed in an instant. His head lolled to the side against the pillow. His breathing uneven, Nate screamed "ZACH!" Nate's voice echoed through the entirety of the hospital, "NURSE! Nurse come quick!" He half-sobbed Zach's name. "Where are all the nurses in this goddamn hospital?" Crying for help Nate ran around the room pressing all the buttons. After a few seconds alarms started ringing all over. Even a voice could be heard over the intercom, "CODE BLUE. CODE BLUE. ALL DOCTORS TO ROOM E17"

Within less than a minute the room was swarming with doctors all shouting numbers and words, half of which Nate had no idea what they meant, he was soon ushered out and sat down with a glass of water in the waiting area.

His hands were shaking madly as he pulled out the new phone, he was about to give Zach and dialled the first number in his contacts.

The dial tone rang. Once. twice. "Hello? Who is this?"

"It's Zach." Nate replied. "He woke up but...." His breath hitched in his throat. "Just come to the hospital please." He hung up before anything else could be said and out the phone back in his pocket.

Nate sat there for what felt like hours before the door to the waiting area flew open. Those all too familiar bouncy curls flew through the open door. Her hazelnut eyes scanned the waiting hall looking for Nate. her scarf still swaying and her breath clouding in front of her, she locked eyes with him, he assumed she had run all the way here by the slight beads of sweat now rolling down her forehead. They locked eyes and Beth scanned him just like she scanned the room.

Despite her short stature and rather fluffy aura about her, that gaze was rather violating. Nate had the urge to wrap his arms around himself but suppressed it.

Beth strode over to him, each step filled with more determination than the next, "You called me?" She inquired. Nate stood up rather awkwardly and held his hand out, "Yeah I did-" When Beth didn't shake his hand, he withdrew it and rubbed the back of his neck. Beth could tell why he was friends with Zach; they had the same tendencies.

"I'm Nate", he continued "Zach woke up about an hour ago, and we were having a nice talk, I would've told the doctors, but I was so happy to see him awake." Beth sat down on her hands, and Nate followed suit. She nodded in understanding as Nate continued the story of what happened right up to him ending their phone call, which he paused as if debating something, then he skipped the wait between that and (as he described it), her throwing herself through the door, which he had to stifle a giggle at. When he finished, they both let out a sigh.

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, before Beth shuffled in her seat, "So it's a stupid question because we wouldn't be out here if we could, but can we go in and see him yet?" Nate looked around anxiously, "Well I haven't actually asked anyone." He looked at her sheepishly but instead of that violating glare all he saw was sympathy in those eyes; that gave him the confidence to keep going. "After I hung up on you, i spent five minutes pacing and muttering and tapping my feet, before I picked up the phone again and called someone else-"

"I thought we were Zach's only friends," there was no insulting tone there, but Nate still felt a pang of guilt, hearing that especially because of all the times he brushed him off over the past few months to do other stuff. "We were until just recently, he recently had an incident with a few girls in our sociology class, it was actually the day of the incident." Nate followed,

"Just carry on with the story," Beth prompted,

"Right. Right. The girls, always sit behind us and Zach never really bothered with them except to moan about their pumpkin spice lattes-" another giggle from Beth, this one was more of a snort but still, "Anyway, this time, it was before our class, and they were with..." he paused, "My sister."

As he said that almost like she was summoned, (It was a miracle the glass hadn't broken from the abuse it had suffered) the doors flung open and Layla came storming through, the exact opposite from Beth's light bounce.

Nate let out a sigh, as she spotted him, "NATE! WHERE IS HE!" it wasn't that Nate was shocked she was like this, during that first few minutes when they ran to Zach unconscious in the alleyway, she was like a war general. Shouting orders at people, staring down men that went to question who she was. He was surprised then as she normally portrayed that cute shy girl, but when he realised how much Zach meant to her even after only knowing him for half a day, it all clicked into place.

Beth nudged him quickly, as Zach finally clocked the looming shadow of his sister standing above him with her hands balled up in fists, which were firmly placed on his hips, her skirt swayed in the breeze, and her white beret was askew on her head. "Where." The room went as cold as ice, Nate could see his breath cloud in crystals of moisture Infront of his eyes

 "Is." The birds singing their merry songs were hushed, it felt like Mother Nature herself was pulling away from this monster Nate had unleashed. 

"My." The wind hammered on the doors and windows, Beth jumped as the glass on the door cracked and made a loud groaning noise. 

"Zach." Lightning crashed right outside, sparks flying everywhere, as a flaming patch of rubble lay in its wake. 

Layla pronounced each syllable with that much authority, for the first time in a long while Nate was scared not just for himself but for Zach too.

*AUTHOR NOTE- sorry I took so long to release this part; I hope it was worth the wait :)*