Growing Pains

Chapter 60 - It was hope, wasn't it?

Z O E Y

Today when I got to the hospital after school, Richard and Sam were nowhere to be seen. Usually, they waited for me by the big revolving glass doors, and then Richard went back to the office, and Sam and I went up to Tristan's room, where we spent the rest of the day until Richard came back to take Sam home, and give me a ride to mine. Most days, he was right on time. Not today.

Today he was late. I waited, a song playing through my earphones, my eyes following the people coming in and out of the hospital. After almost half an hour, I decided to call Richard. The palms of my hands were sweating. He didn't pick up. I left a message and went up to Tristan's room all by myself.

Nurse Flynn smiled at me when she saw me in the hall, but it was sad smile, and she didn't come up to me to tell me how she was liking the book I had let her borrow like she usually did. I decided she was busy.

There was an unsettling silence around, and for a moment, turning the corner, I thought I had lost my hearing. There was no beeping from the machines in Tristan's room. No nature sounds either from the documentary usually playing on tv.

When I walked in, there was no Tristan. His bed was empty. The curtains were closed. The tv was off, the machines too. Only the lights were on. I tried to breathe. Tried to think. Maybe I was in the wrong room. Maybe I had taken the wrong turn, opened the wrong door.

Except the flyer about facing cancer was still on the bedside table, and on the back of it, the words, because we'll beat it together, and Tristan's drawing of a stick figure beating up another one with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire while others tried to stop it but failed. Above it, he had written, I came back for you.

I was in the right room, and before I knew it, I was crying, and my throat was closing up, and I was wiping my eyes, again, and again, and again, and it was no use, no use at all. I just went on crying more, and more, and more.

"Zoey?"

I wiped my eyes again, harder this time, and took a deep breath.

"What happened?"

I turned around, and said, "I'm sorry, I –"

"Why are you crying?" It was Tristan. He was right there, standing in front of me, looking worried, and confused, and alive. "What happened?"

I tried to breathe, tried to say, "Nothing –"

But he stopped me, "What do you mean, nothing? You're crying."

I tried to smile too, tried to say again, "It doesn't matter –"

And again, he stopped me, stepping closer, and pulling my hands away from my face so he could look at me and I could look at him as he asked, "What's wrong with you?"

I shook my head, and he shook his. Then he touched my cheek with the back of his fingers. He was wearing the clothes he had on when he was brought in, a t-shirt and jeans, both stained in weeks-old blood, and no shoes, just socks. There was blood on them too.

He touched my chin, said "My eyes are up here."

I looked up at him, "Where are your shoes?"

He shrugged, "I never got a chance to put them on, did I?"

"I guess not."

"What happened to you?"

I looked at the door, "Where's everyone?"

He shrugged again, "Richard's probably out there paying a doctor to make me stay –"

"You got discharged?"