Colors Always Bleed Together [DUFN]

Chapter Thirteen: Complete Control

From the bottom floor, I can hear the rain pounding on the sidewalk outside. There are so many floors to Park West that I doubt you could hear the water against the roof if there was a tsunami crash into the building. In the quietness of the room, it kind of sounds like there is. I wonder if the rain is always so heavy here.

"Try not to fidget if you can help it." Doctor Yates says as she lays my hand on the small, movable cart with a camera hanging over it. A red X is displayed on the table as soon as she turns a knob. She lines it up with my cast, the longest of the two lines running down my covered up forearm. She tells me to hold still and I obey. The camera makes a few noises and then shuts itself off.

She turns the knob back. "I'm not sure how long it will take these to develop. The times vary." She unplugs the cart from the wall and wraps the wire around her arm until it is coiled up. "Usually, it takes some time between fifteen minutes to an hour. Maybe even two."

Two hours of sitting in a room with nothing to do. Perfect.

I nod and lay down. She wheels the cart from the room and closes the door behind her. I grab the remote and turn on the television. The news is on yet again. "New developments on the murder case sweeping the nation tonight. Investigators believe the suspect to be left-handed, over six feet tall, and somewhere in the Manhattan area."

I turn the channel. I'm not in the mood for depressing news.

I watch various commercials for the next twenty minutes, flipping through channels to see if anything is on but only finding advertisements on every station. By the time I get bored of them and change the channel, I catch the end of an episode about to go to commercial again or more infomercials. Eventually, I give up and let it play. I grab my phone and start to text Zach.

A moment later, before he can reply for the first time in the conversation, Doctor Yates makes her way back through the door. She is empty handed, something I take as a pretty good sign.

"Good news." She states in a monotone voice, slightly making me guess whether or not she is being sarcastic. Although, I'm not sure if a doctor is aloud to be sarcastic with their patients or not. "Your arm is healing remarkably well. Quicker than most I've seen."

The two feelings of sadness and content cancel each other and I'm left feeling no emotion at all at her words. I look to her, asking with no words if she has anything to add.

"May not be long now until it's healed, despite the short amount of time you have been here." She continues in a flat tone. "What your arm has accomplished in six days is what usually takes two weeks for a break that size. Perhaps we just overestimated the size of it to begin with and it is no more than a fracture." She grabs a chart from off the table and the sound echoes through the almost completely silent room besides the advertisement for some clothing store having a sale. "I'm going to allow you to stay overnight tonight and possibly one more day after that, but after, you will need to check in once a week and see where it goes from there."

I nod.

She nods back. "Have a good rest of the afternoon, Mister Tedder."

"You too." I reply.

She opens the door and closes it quickly behind her. The second I hear the door click into place, my feet swing off the side of the bed and I stand. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. It's probably just Zach finally responding. It can wait.

The hinges squeak when I turn the knob and open the door. The place is quiet, as always, making every little sound more pronounced. The rain has slacked off for the most part. The occasional group of raindrops can still be heard, but the precipitation has more or less stopped.