Sullen
by M. F. LuderPart ten
Later that night, Seth doesn't know exactly how long, an hour, maybe two? Longer? He doesn't know, but later the doctor appears, walking through the door and looking almost as exhausted as the three of them feel. Seth tries his best to listen, to pay attention. He really does. But maybe it's the exhaustion of the day, or the shock of seeing Ryan on the bed, eyes closed, not responding. He does, however, catch a word here and there.
bus accident. A month ago.
brain injury
contusions
surgery
fracture skull
twenty-four hours
breathing regular
coma
broken ribs. Leg. Arm. Wrist. Shoulder blade
broken bones in general
no ID
lost
coma
unresponsive
healing steadily
coma
Seth shakes his head, head still down, the wall supporting him because, really, right now? Seth feels like fainting. His mom nods every so often, his dad's hand squeezing her shoulder. He hopes they have caught more than the few words Seth was able to. But, it doesn't matter, because he got the gist of it all.
coma, Ryan
him, in a coma
unresponsive
in a coma
That's more than they need to know at the moment.
After a while, after whispered comforting words that mean nothing, the doctor walks out of the room. He doesn't know when his parents and him spoke about this, or agreed on this, but they won't leave the room, not for a while, not for a couple of hours.
They stand, or sit, or anything, there, alone, in silence. They don't try to make sense of what happened, or why it happened. They'll do that later. They'll ask all the right questions, about the accident and the lack of ID. They'll ask how exactly they were contacted, how that nurse knew their name.
Now, they just think, and breathe, and wait.
After a while, his dad excuses himself, saying something about paperwork. About half an hour after that, his mom says she needs to use the restroom. And Seth just stands there, looking at Ryan.
He wants to ask him how this happened, how he got into this whole mess. Seth wants to ask Ryan where's Theresa, and the baby. Why he was on the bus, why he didn't have his ID, or cell phone, or something?
He wants to ask why the fuck Ryan won't open his eyes.
Seth wants to ask all that, but doesn't know where to begin. So he stands, and closes his eyes, and breathes steadily as Ryan does the same.
Sarah stares down at her laptop, at the black keyboard and the small keys that took her almost two weeks to get used to after Emma gave her this laptop for her birthday, three months ago. She stares at the keys, her head starting to hurt behind her eyes and she pinches the bridge of her nose. She's supposed to be getting work done, but she's tired, and her heart hurts. Everything hurts.
She sighs, pinching harder. Maybe it's because she hasn't been using her glasses for the past couple of days while being on the computer. She doesn't like those glasses, silver and oval, because she's certain they make her look like a dork. Emma likes them, though. She likes the way Sarah looks with them, all intellectual, not that she needs them, says Emma. Sarah doesn't believe her, of course. It's love that's speaking, not accuracy. Emma's biased, after all.
Still, her head hurts, and with that pain behind her forehead, she can barely think. So, against her better judgment, she retrieves her glasses from her right pocket and puts them on. Once again, she looks down at her keyboard and then at the screen. There are tons of things to get done. Papers to be revised and lists to finish.
She can't think about anything but Emma, lying down on the hospital bed the way she was when Sarah first came in. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, tube sprouting out of her mouth. Sarah felt like someone had punched her in the chest, in the stomach, everywhere at once. She had stumbled inside the room, and had sat down on the chair she's sitting at the moment and had wept.
Her lower lip trembles and she bites down on it hard. She won't cry because Emma asked her not to.
"Everything will be alright," Emma had said. "It's surgery. I've been through this twice already, three times I think."
"Don't joke about this."
Emma had chuckled. "I'm not joking, love. I'm serious. It'll be fine."
Sarah had barely been able to breath.
"Look", she had said, "best case scenario? I come out perfect, as good as new. Worse case scenario? Things don't work out and I have to go on dialysis for the rest of my life. Three hours, three days a week. It's not so bad. It's like going to the gym."
Sarah hadn't thought so. But Emma had reached out, taken her hand in hers, and smiled at Sarah. "You won't cry, you won't worry and you'll get your work done, ok?"
Sarah could only nod.
Now, with Emma in surgery and Sarah sitting there, alone, the room barely lit, she doesn't think she can be strong, not even at Emma's request.
Sarah shuts down the laptop, covers her face with her hands, and cries like she did a month ago to the date, on a night like this, hours after she had been told her partner had been in an accident.
Andrea sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, her head starting to hurt. It's almost two in the morning and her last cup of coffee was two hours ago. It's time for a refill.
"I can't believe it."
There's astonishment in Kerrie's voice. She was shocked when Andrea told her about finding the boy's parents. It was even worse when two hours ago the couple and their son walked out of the elevator and asked about the boy -- Ryan. The corners of Andrea's lips curl upwards. Ryan. His name is Ryan.
"Ryan," she whispers under her breath. She likes the sound of that.
"I can't believe it," Kerrie repeats.
"Kerrie," Andrea says, shaking her head.
"No, no, really. It's like... wow. Those are his parents. Can you believe that? Those are his parents."
"I know." Though Andrea has thought about Ryan's parents, about siblings he might have, it's something entirely different to put a face with the image.
She turns to her right, looking at the closed door of room 524. Doctor Campbell went to speak with them an hour ago, after he got back from rounds. The mother and the brother are still there, the father having walked out of the room to fill out the paper work.
Her gaze shifts down to the chart on top of the counter, personal information that used to be empty until an hour ago already filled out. The hospital bill has already been taken care of, Mr. Cohen asking about the Financial Department when he had finished. A forty thousand dollar bill probably paid with the slide of a credit card.
The sound of high heels catches Andrea's attention and she looks up, Mrs. Cohen making her way to the room after going to the lady's room. Her blonde hair is pushed back with a swift movement of her hand, blue eyes with a reddish tinge to them and Andrea can see Ryan's features reflected on her. They are very much a like, as is the brother to the father.
She sighs, smiling softly and it feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders, the boy already reunited with his parents. It might sound corny, or stupid, but she was worried about him, about them. She doesn't care if it does sound corny, worrying is part of her job too.
Andrea goes through Ryan's chart idly, personal information written down in slurred handwriting, and this is the first time Andrea has seen the boy's name on a piece of paper.
Name: Ryan Scott Atwood.
She frowns, the last name taking her by surprise. Atwood? Why would he be an Atwood, if the family's name is Cohen?
Hmm... Maybe Ryan is Mrs. Cohen's son from a previous marriage with a man named Atwood, and then, when the boy was young, their parents got divorced. She remarried, becoming Mrs. Cohen and having another son. That's probably why Ryan has no similarities with Mr. Cohen, or the other boy. Then again, both boys do look close, age wise. Maybe the other boy is Mr. Cohen's son from a previous marriage, making both boys only stepbrothers.
Or maybe Andrea has been spending too much time reading detective novels not to realize when to keep her nose out of people's business. She shrugs inwardly and tells herself not to get too curious. Ryan's parents have been found and that's all that matters.
Andrea keeps on reading Ryan's chart -- address, age, emergency phone, childhood illness -- as a door opens down the hall. It's the lateness of the hour that would let Andrea hear a pin dropping in one of the rooms. She hears the steps, slow and dry, and recognizes the person as Sarah from 526.
As she reaches Ryan's social security number, another door opens, this one closer to the station, and she looks up. Ryan's brother, Seth -- having read the name on the file -- walks out of the room, head hanging low. Andrea sighs softly.
Checking her watch, she notices it's two ten in the morning and it's time for Laura's IV bag, the little girl in room 538, to be changed.
Sarah runs a hand through her hair, remembering she needed to have it cut about a week ago. This is one of the little things she has neglected. Like watering the plants, taking the car to the carwash and picking up the laundry. There are bills piling up on the living room corner table, she knows, but she can't seem to find the time, or the energy, to care about things like that anymore.
She walks down the hallway to the small waiting room. It's an open space with eight chairs and three vending machines. Sarah has become best friends with the Sodas one. Getting out her one-dollar bills, she slides it into the slot, pushing the button for Coca Cola. The machine beeps, but no can rolls down to the slot. Sarah frowns.
"Don't do this to me," she mutters, pressing the button once again. She waits. Another beep, but no can. She groans. "Come on."
She presses the button once again, and then once more, and though it beeps and the can should slide down to the retrieval slot, it doesn't.
"Oh shit."
She feels like crying. She knows it's the stress, everything accumulating, but it doesn't make her feel any better about wanting to cry because she can't have a drink of Coke. Though she does need it, and if she plans to get work done tonight at all, at two thirty in the morning, then she really needs the boost of sugar.
Not that coke does much for her anymore. After years of drinking the damn thing, she has become somewhat immune to it. Red Bull, though, and Impulse, those things do make her brain clear up and her eyes stay wide open. But she can't get Red Bull at this time of night in a hospital, so Coke is as good as she can get.
And now, with this stupid thing that decided to eat her money, she can't even get it. Sarah glares at the machine. "Fuck," she says, more annoyed than anything, and kicks it on the corner.
"That's the good thing about vending machines," a voice says over her shoulder and it has been so long since someone addressed her directly that Sarah jumps, turning around.
A young boy, not even eighteen, stands before her. He has dark curly hair that stands on every end, hands in his pocket, and his head ducked. He gives her a small smile as he tilts his head before finally looking up at her.
"They don't fight back," he finishes and it takes Sarah a minute to get what he means.
"Oh," she says, glancing back and forth between the vending machine and the boy. "Oh. Yeah, well..." She shrugs. "Stupid thing ate my money and now I'll fall asleep on my keyboard."
She rubs her eyes with her closed fists to get rid of the sleepiness that’s creeping around her eyes and to have an excuse for her blood shot eyes. Though, as she looks at the boy as he stares back at her, she can see his brown eyes shining and, in this kind of situation, in a place like this, it's not sleepiness.
"Sorry," he says, and his voice is low, deadpan. With a shrug of his shoulders, he retrieves a bill and slides it into the slot, pressing for a Coke as well, and after the beeping, this time, there's a plucking sound as the can falls down.
He grins, though it's barely heartfelt, and it looks more ironic than anything else. Bending down, he gets two cokes out of the machine.
"I think second try is the charmer."
Sarah snorts. "That thing hates me, I think. Maybe I've been bugging it too much these past few weeks. I might have to go downstairs to the cafeteria for my sugar supply now."
He hands her one of the cans and she takes it gratefully.
"Thanks," she says, eyeing him carefully.
She hasn't seen him around here before, she would have noticed. This kid, because he isn't even a young man yet, with a sad expression and confusion in his eyes. She would have noticed.
"My name is Sarah," she says, extending her hand.
He gives her half a smile. "I'm Seth. Nice to meet you."
"Same here." Tilting her head, she wonders if he's part of the family of the kids that were brought in a while back. Sarah has seen the parents, crying and waiting. He could be someone's older brother. Sarah looks at him. "Are you here--?"
"Excuse me?"
They both turn around, eyes wide and expectant. A nurse is standing by the threshold, looking at them. Sarah wonders if Emma made it out okay, Seth hopes Ryan has opened his eyes. Only one of them is right.
Andrea smiles at both of them, her gaze landing on Sarah. "Ms. Anderson is out of surgery now."
Sarah lets out a long sigh, her hand going to her chest as every breath becomes easier to take.
Andrea's happy for her, for this young lady worrying sick for her partner. She gazes at the boy, Seth, and notices how his eyes saddened a little bit more, his head hanging down a little lower. She's sorry she can't give him good news as well. "She's up in post op if you'd like to--"
"Yes, yes, thank you." Sarah says, nodding as she walks toward Andrea. "Yes, please."
Andrea nods. "Sure. She's still unconscious, but she's fine now."
"Thank you," Sarah whispers. As she's about to round the corner, she looks over her shoulder at Seth. She wants to say something, to smile at him inquiringly maybe, but as she sees him looking down at his feet, left hand scratching the back of his neck as his right hand grips the can a little bit too tight, she remembers there's nothing she can say that will make him feel better.
Sarah sighs, turning around.
Andrea Lexington leads the way down the hall to the elevator as Seth Cohen drops down on one of the chairs, elbows on his knees, hands going to his hair. Can of coke stands on the chair next to him, forgotten, as he closes his eyes and pretends his heart hadn't paused for a moment when the nurse had walked in. He tells himself the sadness doesn't feel tighter and darker somehow.