Best Friends [UNEDITED]

Chapter 14

Lucas's POV

After a week of boring myself silly with the only networks they have on the hospital televisions, and visits in and out from Noah, my mom only showing up when she has the energy (she almost got in a wreck last time she drove past exhaustion,) a doctor finally informs me that he's going to run some tests to see if I can be set free once again.

A male nurse, looking not nearly as old as the other employees in this hospital, helps me into a wheelchair. I'm about to tell him I can push it along myself, but he shushes me and pushes it for me.

"Honestly, you don't have to--"

"It's my job, sir. Don't worry about it." He says, his voice kind. "Besides, you have to let me do something for you."

"Excuse me?"

"The whole time you've been here you've refused every offer you've gotten that wasn't forced upon you. What gives? Are you afraid of being taken care of?"

I chuckle quietly. "No," I say, "I just didn't want to start a fuss."

"If you haven't noticed, this is a hospital. It gets pretty fussy."

I laugh again.

At the same time, Im excited to run these tests and move on, whether to be free again, or so I can get the disappointment over with quickly, but I'm also dreading it. Every part of me aches. They wouldn't let me have pain killers because they thought it might interfere with the results.

We pass down this hallway filled with rooms with their doors tightly sealed, "do not enter" plastered on a board in front of a couple. I hear someone hack and cough in one of the rooms, immediately flinching away from that direction.

I look up at he nurse, seeing the name tag indicating them as "Zachary."

"Hey, Zachary?" I say his name awkwardly, not sure if I should have asked for it before.

"Call me Zach. Zachary is so formal."

"Okay, well, Zach, about this tests..." I trail off, watching doors pass by us as we go. Just in case there are sounds coming from them, I focus my hearing on what I am saying only. "Will they hurt?"

The question is wimpy and childlike, I know, but it had to be asked. Zach chuckles.

"No, they shouldn't hurt at all." He says and I hope there's no sarcasm in his voice. Honestly, I'm too anxious to tell.

"That's good. That means this is the only pain I will feel. The pain not only in my body, but in my mind."

"You've lost me."

"It's like, I think to try and stop the hurt, then when it's gone I think about why it was there in the first place and soon enough, thinking hurts. It's like my brain is being stretched from one side of the universe to another, being spread so thin it may snap. It never does, thankfully. It never has. It's like it doesn't want to. Like it wants the pain inflicted on itself, on its body, on me. Like it enjoys the feeling of it's world crumbling down around it, so fast nothing pieces itself together but a single puzzle piece that ends nothing, but can start nothing either. Pain. Suffering. Thinking. It's like they're the same words by now."

"That's some deep shit. Try not to hurt yourself, kiddo."

"Now you've lost me."

Zach stops my wheelchair and kneels in front of me. "You think too much. You have a smart little brain up there,"--he taps my forehead with his index finger--"I'm sure you do, but you bring it into ultra-drive. You gotta give yourself a break. Live in the moment! Let your heart decide before your brain even gets a chance to hop in."

Advice like that, I've never heard. I nod as though I understand, but I don't. I don't understand, and neither does my brain, and neither does my heart. But I understand the look in his eyes. The sincerity, the passion, the belief. I understand his truths, I just need to decipher them into something logical. Something I can understand.

"This is your stop," Zach says, "tell me if you need anything, and, if things go well, say goodbye before you leave."

"Will do. Thank you."

Zach salutes me and walks away.

Right as he leaves, a doctor appears from one of the scary doors we've passed by.

"Hello," he says, "are you ready?"

I look back, yearning for Noah's smirk and bad puns to ease my fear. My stomach churns, and for a second I feel like I may not be able to keep down the small breakfast I had eaten this morning. Nevertheless, I ignore the pain in my body and head. I ignore the loneliness. I ignore the fear that things won't go as planned. I ignore everything and nod my head simply.

I am ready, because everything else tells me I am not.

...

Noah's POV

I arrive to the hospital to see a nurse wheeling Lucas into his room. I notice the nurse keeps trying to make conversation with Lucas, but he doesn't say much in reply. I follow behind them, smiling, excited to see my friend once again.

The nurse helps Lucas into his bed and leaves.

"Hey," i say with a smile, "how are you feeling?"

"Not great."

"No painkillers?"

"That must be it." Lucas doesn't sound too sure, but I brush it off, maybe the fact that he's in the hospital has just caught up to him. He has a right to be upset about that.

"I hope you're not in too much pain."

"I'll live."

"So.." I step lightly, he seems to be in a bad mood, not bad angry, bad emotional. "What did you do today?"

"They ran some tests. Trying to see if I can get out of here soon."

"Bad news?"

"None yet, actually."

"Oh... when?"

"Tomorrow. I guess I won't be sleeping tonight." He laughs bitterly.

"Everything will be fine. Would you feel better if I stayed with you?"

Lucas's POV

I'm such a burden. I must be so annoying and so needy. I can't believe he's still my friend. Am I classified as a good friend? He's had friends before me, would I be classified as as good as they were? Probably not. I'm just in the way all the time, just a burden, just another problem.

I nod.