We arrived to the hospital in under fifteen minutes. Thank God it was close by. All of us rushed inside anxiously waiting for our dad to be checked in.
We signed in and sat down in the waiting area. When Faye walked in we all rushed up to him. He looked at us. "He's still unresponsive y'all. They're going to run some more test on him."
Our faces dropped. Immediately I started to feel sick again. What started out as speed walking turned into full blown running as I headed down the hallway. I rushed for the exit door and headed outside. I ran to the nearest trashcan, but nothing came up. I went to go sit on the sidewalk and put my head down. The fresh air helped to quell the nausea a bit.
"Hey."
I looked up and saw Mya and Keyona standing in front of me.
"What are y'all doing out here," I said wiping my eyes for what felt liked the hundredth time that day.
"We told Kevin to take a break. We wanted a chance to come out and check on you," Mya said.
"You didn't look so good when you ran out of there. What's wrong," Keyona asked me as they sat on either side of me.
"I've been feeling a little nauseous for the past hour. I think all of this is just weighing on me."
"Are you sure it's not anything else," Keyona said rubbing my back.
I looked over at her. "Wha---what else could it be?"
Mya and Keyona looked at each other. "What," I said looking between them.
"Lys," Keyona started, "you can't think of any other reason why you might be nauseous?"
I thought about it for only a second and swallowed hard. "Fuck," I groaned putting my head in my hands. "That would only prove mommy right." I kissed my teeth. Mya grabbed my hand and leaned on my shoulder.
"You could get tested while you're here," Keyona suggested. "We'll go with you if you want," Mya added.
"Hey y'all," Kevin said approaching us.
"Hey," they replied.
"Am I...interrupting something," Kevin asked looking between the three of us.
"Not at all," Keyona said. "We were just getting ready to head back inside," she said. Her and Maya stood up and dusted themselves off. "See ya inside," Mya said over her shoulder.
"Okay," I said behind them. I stood up and gave my attention to Kevin. "What's up?" I asked looking up at him.
"I just wanted to check on you and see how you were."
"I'm not doing too well," I admitted. "I'd be doing much better if my mother didn't talk so damn much."
Kevin slid his arms around my waist. "I'm here for you when you're ready to talk." He kissed my forehead and pulled me in for a hug.
After a few moments we rejoined my siblings in the waiting area. While we were sitting there talking amongst ourselves, our mom showed up. She gave us some lame excuse as to why she was late, even though we were less than fifteen minutes away from the hospital. I did my best to ignore her. She sat across from all of us crying and saying that this whole incident was her fault. Blah, blah, blah. Some of my siblings tried their best to console her. I didn't budge. I didn't even want to be in the same space as her.
Twenty minutes passed when one of our dad's doctors came into the waiting area. "Mrs. James," the doctor said. Although she asked for our mom we all stood up anxiously.
"Mr. James is in stable condition. He's gonna be fine. He's awake now and can have visitors," she grinned. We all exhaled in unison. We thanked the doctor profusely and went to sit down.
