The Boy With BlAIDS

The Know

"Didn't tell me what?" Piper asked, her voice sharp as a knife. I felt myself shrinking under her gaze, intimidated by her sudden surge of anger.

"That . . . um . . . on our anniversary yesterday, the two of us, um, got engaged." My face turned red as I slowly lifted my left hand up to show her the ring that now decorated my ring finger.

Piper sat looking at my hand and the ring in shock. "O-oh . . ." she trailed off. "No, Demetrius didn't tell me that."

"Mr. Coffey and Mrs. Key?" a doctor asked, standing on the edge of the waiting room, tapping a clipboard in his hands. The two of us immediately perked up and rushed over to him.

"Do you have any news about Demetrius's condition!?" I exclaimed, looking up at him with wide, concerned eyes.

"Do you know what's happening with my son!?" Piper practically screeched, her voice going up an octave higher than I'd ever heard it before.

He looked at the two of us, a perplexed frown appearing on his face. "I'd like to talk to you about that with Mr. Key in the room, so he can hear about it as well," the doctor proposed.

"Okay," Piper agreed shakily.

"But family only, so if Mr. Coffey could wait out here in the waiting room until we're finished discussing with Mr. Key about—"

"That's my fiancé you're talking about!" I hissed, feeling my anger flare up. "I am not waiting out here!"

The doctor looked taken aback by my exclamation, eventually sighing and massaging his temples.

"All right, fine, you can come too," he gave in, pulling on a pair of reading glasses and turning to walk down the hallway with several patient's rooms. Over his shoulder, he beckoned for the two of us to follow.

After walking down the hallway next to Piper for about thirty seconds, the tension between the three of us so thick I thought that the entire hospital would actually implode, we ended up outside of Demetrius's room.

"After you," the doctor said graciously, holding the door open for the two of us. Swallowing nervously, I stepped into the room. All of the walls were painted a bright white color, and the whole room stenched of bleach and hand sanitizer. But lying on the bed in the corner of the room against the snowy white bedsheets was Demetrius. His brown skin contrasted the white of the whole room, drawing my eyes to him as he seemed to be one of the only things that looked lively in the entire room, despite the fact that he was sick. In his arm there was an IV, and a heart monitor was strapped to him, beeping in a metronome along with his heart beat. My ears seemed to ring with the beeping noise as I could hear it echo all around the room in its robotic monotone.

"Demetrius!" I gasped, running forwards and kneeling down by his bed. I lifted my shaking hand up to lace together with his left one, admiring the gleam of the ring on his finger. "Oh thank God you're okay."

Piper stood towards the back of the room, watching her son with a sort of perplexed look on her face. It appeared to be a look of concern, but with Piper I couldn't really tell anymore.

"Kristian? Is that you?" Demetrius asked groggily, trying to sit up and face me. Instead though, he just fell back against the bed, to weak to hold himself up.

"Yeah, it's me," I whispered, leaning forwards and embracing him, pulling him into my chest and just holding him. "I'm here, it'll be okay, alright? Whatever this is, it'll be okay."

"Promise?" he mumbled.

"I promise," I confirmed, placing a chaste kiss to the crown of his forehead before leaning back and linking our hands together again.