✓ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐆𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘, guy germaine

09. the ones that love us

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜
chapter nine: the ones that love us

[a/n]: enjoy the chapter...at your own risk

tw(s): there are some dark themes like fatal illness. here are also brief mentions of vomiting/feeling sick. i know this can be uncomfortable, so like i said, proceed with caution
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━━━ EVIE DISMOUNTS HER BICYCLE IN front of the hospital - one of the less glamorous ways to arrive, but that isn't her chief concern as of now - and pushes her way through the glass double doors in the front. It leads her to a stark white front office, bustling with doctors and nurses in stiff coats, wheeling cots to their respective rooms.

Evie jogs to a long kidney-shaped table with a few lush green plants that were probably put there to give the illusion of life and hope in such a desolate place. She leans over eagerly to address the receptionist, who is jotting something down on a clipboard, and does not notice her.

"Hello?" Evie surprises herself by how panicked she sounds, her voice wavering. She swallows her fear and continues. "Um, I'm here to see Mildred St. James. I'm her granddaughter."

The receptionist looks up, as if shocked to see Evie. "Oh, yes, of course, let's see-"

"Evie!" a voice cries. Evie whips her head around to see Oliver bursting from another set of double doors. His hair is a mess and his collar is askew. He grips her arm and pulls her into an uncharacteristically tight embrace. "I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here."

The receptionist has returned to her work, evidently deciding to leave her in Oliver's hands.

Oliver leads her to another room, this one filled with all sorts of tubes and mechanisms that Evie can't recognize. She doesn't bother to, because it's hardly the most important thing in the room.

The breath exits Evie's lungs when she catches sight of her grandmother lying on the bed, so ghostly still, her eyes closed and her breathing labored.

Her father's eyes are red rimmed, but he wipes away at them and hugs Evie tightly. "It's good you're here. Sorry we got you here with no explanation, but..." His voice trails off, and he makes no move to finish his sentence, as if he's completely forgotten about it.

"What happened?" Evie croaks, her voice hoarse.

"It's the pneumonia," her mother says, hunched over in a patterned chair next to the cot, her elbows on her knees and her hands cradling her chin. "We didn't think it would be this bad, but at her age, when she's so vulnerable to respiratory failure...I wish we could have seen this coming."

Evie wants to reach out to comfort her mother, but her feet stay glued to the grimy linoleum floor, unable to move. Grandma is from her father's side, but she's always treated Evie's mother like one of her own.

"There was no way we could have seen this coming," her father counters, his voice quiet. "She seemed to be recovering. It just snuck up on us. The doctors don't know if...I don't know, Eve. There are a lot of question marks around this whole thing."

Felix is parked in between Oliver and Evie, his face displaying a range of emotions; a boy so young probably doesn't know what to feel. Evie wraps an arm around him, squeezing him tight, and Oliver slings his arm around the two of them.

They stay tangled like that for a while until a middle-aged nurse comes in and regretfully tells them they need to leave. Evie almost wants to argue, but her mouth stays zipped shut, as if her lips have been adhered together by a layer of superglue. She follows her family out the building.