The three of us try to keep up the light hearted chatter up for hours. Lacy seems to enjoy and it means the world that we have her smiling on such a hard day, but all my smiles are forced.
Every time I start to feel genuinely happy, something instead me breaks and mocks, "Look at her. She's weaker than you've ever seen her. She hasn't even tried to sit up in the hours you've been here."
It's a big bully inside my brain.
"Sometimes, I imagine I'm a princess living in a cloud kingdom," Lacy sighs dreamily.
"There'd be lots of ponies and glitter and I'd wear a crown and let the other kids borrow it whenever they want to."
She gives her hands a couple claps and smiles wide.
"I'd love to visit that kingdom," Bridget says brightly.
Lacy grins and giggles. "You wouldn't just visit. You would be the very... special-"
Her happy mood suddenly darts away and she begins to take deep labored breaths.
I stand up from my chair slowly and take her hand. When I turn to look at Bridget her eyes are going wild.
"Lacy? Lacy are you ok???" I demand desperately, my heart jumping to my throat and then falling to my shoes.
Lacy begins to wheeze and she shakes her head.
"Whatdowedo???" I practically scream.
Bridget says nothing; she just runs to the door, pushes a button on the wall near the frame and sprints out calling, "LUKE!!!! LUKE!!!!"
Before long I'm breathing like I just ran a marathon.
A herd of doctors and nurses rush in. One comes and gently escorts me out to the hallway while the others bark orders at each other.
I'm just outside her door, still able to see. I think this lady doctor is trying to speak to me but I'm barely aware of her presence.
I can hardly sense when Bridget comes up to me and grabs my shoulders, Luke just behind her.
Before long, the chaos seems to die down and the doctors are wiping their brows with a sort of post-panicked calmness that I hope means everything's ok.
As my senses slowly go back to working like normal, I hear someone say,
"Ok, she's ok guys. Don't worry. They put her on oxygen. But I think we should let her rest now, ok?"
Bridget grabs my hand and Luke rubs his face. We make our way back out into the lobby and Luke takes his place behind the front desk.
"You two gonna be ok?"
Bridget nods, but she's not fooling me.
"Gen?" she turns the attention to me.
"Are... Are you coming back with me? Or do you need to meet your Aunt somewhere?"
"I... Uh... Is it alright if I... Ya know... Move on in with you guys again? I stopped at the house before I came here and dropped off my stuff..."
