Loving You Better

chapter 11

Yusuf

The rhythmic beeps of the hospital seemed to ease his nerves. His was surprised at the fact that there wasn't a flurry of activity near the emergency room. He always assumed shittier things happened at night in Joburg but things were almost... peaceful.

Almost.

A nurse almost ploughed him over in her rush to get passed and still had the nerve to call him a bliksem?!

But he still didn't know the woman's name in the operating room nor did he know how old she was. All he knew was that he was shit scared and he really, really didn't want her to die. He didn't even know how it happened.

He went out to buy a can of spray-paint, that was it. The next thing he knew was that his car rammed head-on into a beat-up old Tazz and the woman inside wasn't opening her eyes. He didn't even have his phone with him and it was only by chance that some Mozambican guy happened to be driving past. He got her out of her car and phoned the paramedics, all the while watching Yusuf sit on the pavement mulling over what in the hell had just happened.

He heard the tiny clicks of her stilletos over the grey tiles before he saw her.

Please don't be her family.

He looked at her, covering his mouth as if to shield himself from her in all her intimidating glory. She was almost as tall as him, wider than him for sure and she wore her suit and not the other way around. She stood over him, tapping her shoes on the ground as if to garner his attention before he looked up and almost paled at the sight.

She glared at him as if she were a Rottweiler and he were a mutt and he didn't like that analogy at all. "Are you the guy that bumped into my mother?" She asked- demanded more like.

"Yes."

Her face flushed immediately, her perfectly shaped eyebrows arched into a pretty curve on her forehead as she looked down at him. "What the hell is your problem? What were you doing? Did you skip a robot? Were you joyriding... What?"

"No, I was just-"

"Are you even old enough to have a licence?" She surveyed his clothes, scoffing at his over-washed jeans and ridiculous t-shirt.

"Yeah," he looked up, annoyed, "I'm 21."

"Why don't you dress your age instead of dressing like a 16 year old lightie?"

What?

He looked down at his clothes, deeply offended at her choice of words. He took a deep breath, trying to reign in his anger before he spoke once again. "I honestly don't know what happened." She pinned him down with an impatient stare that had him talking just a little faster. "Seriously. I was driving at 60, it was quiet in my lane and all of a sudden I crashed into her."

"You just happened to crash into her. Out of the blue?" she rubbed at her temples, unsure as to why she was even entertaining his ridiculous notions. "My mother just appeared out of nowhere and you happened to crash into her?"

"Yeah, I swear. I don't know what happened." Yusuf tried to convince her. He honestly had no clue. He remembered hearing an almost deafening crunch and and he remembered the feeling of his seatbelt chafe against the skin of his neck before he realised that he had been in an accident.

"I don't-" her reservations were cut off by the soft beep of the sliding door opening beside them.

"Miss Ismail?" He asked, rubbing his fingers in order to relieve the cramp that had settled over his hand.

"Yes?" Yusuf wasn't sure how it was that the doctor hadn't withered under her gaze.

"I'm Dr. Arnaldi. I believe the patient inside is your mother."