That familiar smell hit my nostrils, and I started to feel the vomit come out of me. Bleach, or disinfectant, or whatever they used to mask the daily smell of death and disease.
One of the paramedics held me up while I puked into a paper bag that he'd produced from somewhere in his uniform, while the other whisked Will's gurney down a corridor before I could follow.
Saturday night at E.R. was as shitty as I'd expected it to be, full of drunken teenagers, still with their glittered faces and neon Cruz de Mayo T-shirts, complaining about split lips and sprained ankles.
When I was sure that no more of my paltry dinner of soya yogurt, pale ale and potato chips was gonna come out, I sank down unsteadily onto a plastic chair, the paramedic still holding onto me.
"Sorry," I said, shivering despite the fetid air in the waiting room. "I don't like hospitals."
"No problem, hospitals suck. They're just taking him for an examination. You'll be able to see him soon."
"What's wrong with him?" The nice lady on nine-one-one had just listened to me describe Will's breathing, and then an ambulance had arrived ten minutes later. Nobody had told me anything.
"We're not sure, buddy, but he's breathing, so that's a good sign," the paramedic replied with a kindly hospital smile.
The puke threatened to rise again, and the paramedic leaned in with another paper bag. It had taken a full thirty seconds for the vile dirty-clean smell of the hospital to invade my lungs. I thought I'd grown outta that shit.
The paramedic peered over a clipboard. "Are you his next of kin?"
"I can fill in his forms," I said, happy for something to distract me from the churning of my innards. Did Will even know who his next of kin was, now that Mozhgan was gone? Maybe Kasra? Maybe even Charlotte?
An hour, two shitty coffees, and three vomit-bags later, an exhausted-looking doctor ushered me out of E.R. and into a cramped office along a corridor.
"I'm afraid that Will's fibroma is worse, so we-"
"What?" My voice was so panicked that I sounded like a little girl on helium. "A fibroma?"
How could Will have a fibroma? Why the fuck did I not know about it? Had he been sick for a long time? But fibromas weren't a big deal, so Will was gonna be OK, right?
Calm the fuck down, Zeph.
"I am calm," I whispered, and sat stiffly into one of the office chairs with my hands clenched at my sides.
"The paramedics said that you were his partner," said the doctor, looking frantically at her notes, probably to check if she'd just added violation of patient confidentiality to her otherwise fun Saturday night in E.R. by divulging private medical information to some drunk Korean kid. The conversation wasn't going at the pace that I needed it to.
Courage, Zeph.
"I am...Will's partner, and...I really need to know about his fibroma."
The doctor evidently took that as a sign that, whether married or not, neither Will nor I were aggressive litigators, and to hurry the fuck up. "Will has a very large fibroma, that's a kind of benign tumor where-"
"I'm medical. Why did it make him sick?"
Her demeanor changed, and she spoke faster. "He had acute respiratory distress. The fibroma's growth has accelerated since his last examination, and the pressure on his lungs means that it requires surgery very soon."
"His last examination? When was that?"
The doctor squinted at the notes hanging out of her plastic folder. "Nearly three weeks ago, April fourteenth."
YOU ARE READING
The Sigma Asset 🏳️🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022
Mystery / Thriller**AMBYS 2022 WINNER** He'll never play piano again. That's what virtuoso pianist Zephyr has vowed to himself after escaping Sigma, the sprawling criminal organisation that once held him--and still holds his friends--captive in California's mega-city...
