Comfort Zone

I Told You That Was a Stupid Game

The dull white paint. The uncomfortable wooden chairs. The unnaturally clean smell of antibacterial wipes. The worrying. Everything about hospital waiting rooms sucks.

This less than pleasant environment is where I have been spending the last two hours, waiting for word on Rhett.

After he was carted away in the ambulance Vi had hopped the gate, onto the field, and asked one of the water girls what had happened. She (I think her name was Betty) said that they thought it was probably a concussion.

Ben had seen us, jogged over to his bag, and tossed Violet the keys. He was ridiculously good at knowing exactly what she needed.

Once we got the keys we drove directly to the hospital and were sent to this unfortunate area to sit and wait, which is not something I'm particularly good at.

Grant, Ben, and Harrison joined us a little later, seeing as how they had to finish the game first. Grant said that we almost lost because the players were all so distracted.

I could relate.

When I first heard that it was a concussion I had been relieved. "That's no big deal, right," I had thought to myself.

Then I realized that my knowledge on concussions was about as vast as my knowledge of quantum physics, practically non-existent. So I googled it.

Big mistake.

A variety of different articles about football players who died from head injuries and scary words like memory loss and brain damage appeared. It did much more harm than good to look at, but it was one of those cases where I couldn't stop. I ended up convincing myself that Rhett was going to die, or end up with amnesia at best. I had only known him for what? Four weeks? He was going to forget all about me.

After around twenty agonizing minutes of WebMD articles and tragic local news stories, Violet finally caught onto what I was looking at and confiscated my phone.

"Henley. He's going to be fine. Stop worrying. You're not going to have any nails left if you keep biting them like that. And quite tapping your foot so fast. You're driving me crazy."

"I know," I breathe. "Sorry."

She sighs and looks down at my phone, still on google search.

"These are just a whole bunch of worst case scenarios Hen. Don't let them scare you."

I nod.

She's right of course and the reasonable side of my brain knows it. However, the stupid, annoying, irrational part of my brain isn't so easily persuaded.

So now we're just waiting. I hate waiting.

"I've never seen anyone get hit that hard," says Ben shaking his head. He hadn't really had much of a choice on coming here. We sort of stranded him. However, I can tell that he too is worried about Rhett.

Then there is Harrison. Perhaps the most shocking revelation of my life had occurred tonight when I realized that the seemingly heartless bastard does indeed have a heart, minuscule as it may be. The guy might be just as nervous as me, though he's showing it a completely different way.

He has miraculously shut up. Like completely, totally silent. A lady bumped into him earlier and I was sure that would set him off, but nope. He didn't even acknowledge her.

I have not heard one characteristic, rude comment leave his mouth since he arrived. He came in, sat down, and has barely moved since. When he does look up it's because the door has opened and he's seeing who it is. When he realizes it's no one with information on Rhett he looks right back down at his hands again. His silence is more telling than his words ever were.