Waving Through a Window (Connor Murphy X Reader)

Hospital Visit

I kept the business card in my wallet, and texted his dad to get the hospital room information. I was not told much, just that he was sick but was able to take visitors, would be released soon. 

I could assume what happened, despite his parents trying their hardest to keep the information away. The suddenness of what happened, and the way they talked about it made it suspicious. Not only that, but the line "This is from Connor. He wanted you to have this" indicated what they thought it was. A suicide note.

I skipped the rest of the school day to visit him. I shot mom a text saying that I was visiting a friend in the hospital, but it felt like a lie. I didn't know what Connor was. We talked once for about ten minutes, and I gave him my number. Was that good enough to say we were friends? 

Maybe not, but it was good enough that it made me have the urge to visit him in the hospital. It felt wrong to visit him, but also felt wrong not to. We were not close, not at all, why would I visit him? But something in the back of my head said I had to, so I did.

-

When I pulled up in the hospital parking lot, I only sat in my car and stared at the building for a while. 

"Did he hurt himself? Overdose? Jump?" Thoughts ran through my head as ascended floors of the hospital in the elevator. They stopped with a jolt as my eyes locked on his room number. My heart lurched in my chest, and it felt like it was coming up my throat. 

I looked in the room before gaining his attention, seeing Connor dawned in a mint green hospital gown and hooked up to medicine bags by needles in his arms. His eyes were half open as he lazily watched the tv. No one was there with him. I assumed that Zoe would be there, or that his parents would be there after coming back from the school, but there was no one in sight.

I quietly knocked on the door, and my heart seemed to stop as his half-lidded eyes looked at me. It took him a second to register who I was, which I blamed on the heavy amount of drugs they had pumped into him at that point. 

"Hey... Where's Zoe?" I decided to ask the same question I asked when we first met. 

His eyes squinted even more than they already were, and he seemed to be thinking or confused. One of the two. Probably questions like "Why is she here? We barely know each other," or "How does she even know I'm here?"

Finally, he shrugged and leaned back in his bed, closing his eyes.

"Why do you care?" He said the same response he did the first time, which I took as an okay to act normal. 

"She was not at school since... This. Since I learned you were here I assumed she would be with you. Is she home?" He nodded slowly.

"Yeah, since they said I was not going to die or something, everyone went home to get a good sleep. I guess they've been stressed since I'm here, it's an inconvenience," I nodded, sitting down on a visitors chair. "I don't care. It was nice to have some piece and quiet... Until you showed up," I suddenly wanted to run out the door and never come back, being called out like I was. 

"Sorry... You had my brothers letter when... And they thought you wrote it to him and your mom got all excited you had friends," I took the business card from my wallet, showing him the numbers on the back. "Gave us all your numbers and your address just because they thought we were your friends," He shoved his face in his hands, wiping his face. 

"That's mom for you," I put my hand on the side of the bed, feeling the rough sheets under his drugged out body. When I looked up from my hand, I found him looking intently at my face. I felt uneasy under his gaze. It was like he was writing a detailed description of my features, taking note of every dip or discoloration of my skin, my moles and freckles, every slightly more prominent bone. His deep stare made me want to shuffle away, but I stayed. 

I forced myself to look into his eyes, and once they met I could not look away. "I understand you overreacted but... I thought you were a good brother for being protective," I offered a small smile, ignoring my stomach as it did flips, but he stayed stone faced, just looking into my eyes intently. 

I waited for him to do something, and he didn't, so we sat like that for an uncomfortable amount of time. 

After about five minutes, his family walked into the room, his mother hugging me tightly, pushing the air out of my lungs.

"You shouldn't be here, shouldn't you be at school?" She asked, but had that smile on her face, like she was glad I was there. 

"I skipped because I wanted to see him," I said simply, and I noticed Zoe staring at me. We settled down, me letting Cynthia, his mother, take the seat by his bed. Me, Zoe, and Larry, his dad, sat in the visitors chairs.

"I didn't now my brother had friends, and now he suddenly has two?" Zoe said in a dull tone. I felt like she was mad at me, but I was not sure what I did. I ended up assuming that it was just that her brother, which Connor told me she hated, had people that could put up with him. Or maybe, in her eyes, we didn't see the bad in him. 

"Well... We are- uh- recent. Not too close yet, specially my brother,"

"Yeah, I could tell. Connor pushed him on the first day,"

"I don't blame him too much. Jared is an asshole and riled your brother up. Mine just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," She gave me a look, arching her brow at me.

"Why are you standing up for my brother and not yours?" I looked back at Connor, who was talking quietly to his mom, though seemed very uninterested in whatever they were talking about.

"They're both just misunderstood and trying to push their ways through the shit in their heads. Since I was six, I had to look out for Evan because of his anxiety and all, and later on, worse things. I guess I see a little bit of Evan in Connor,"

"You're kidding? Your brother was the nicest, yet most awkward person I've met in my life," I laughed a little.

"Yeah, he's working on it,"