The shy boy from math class

Chapter 20| Waiting game

     I rush into the hospital waiting room wearing my pajamas and robe. I see Grayson's mom in the corner with her face in her hands. I frantically run my hands through my hair as I start getting closer to her. I rest my hand on her shoulder and she shoots her head up. Her eyes are watery and the tip of her nose is pink.

She stands up and wraps her arms around me. I hug her back and I can hear her quietly sniffling. The one hospital that would admit Grayson is forty-five minutes away from where we live. I got here quicker since there wasn't any traffic. All the roads were foggy and creepy.

"What happened?" I finally ask her.

She takes the tissue in her hand and dabs it near her eyes. "H-He fell asleep and collided with another car." Her voice sounds so shaky.

This is all my fault. I should've ignored him and gotten him the fucking taxi or something. Fuck. There were so many signs!

"The other person is okay thankfully but Grayson-
- Grayson got hit pretty bad. I called Steven and he booked the next flight available which is in a few hours." She cries. "He's still in surgery and every fucking minute feels like a nightmare."

I rub her back in comfort and she digs her face into her hands again.

This all feels crazy. I can't see clearly. Everything's kind of blurry. All of this feels like a blur. I shouldn't have let him run get in that car and just drive off. I should've insisted him to go home at midnight. Instead, I found it sweet that he wanted to stay and help clean up. I feel a small headache growing upon me and my stomach is growling.

But I'm not leaving. Not until Grayson's okay or his dad gets here. The waiting room is pretty empty. There are only two other people here with us. A man sleeping in the other corner with his hat covering his face and a middle-aged woman who's reading a magazine.

All I can hear are a bunch of wheels moving coming from the beds being pushed around and the occasional typing coming from the front desk. Elle hasn't lifted up her face in a long time and I don't know if should check in on her. She's breathing fine.

I look over at the window and see the set just starting to rise. I pick up my phone and notice that I've been here for three hours. Those three hours felt like ten minutes.

It's 6:33 am. I haven't slept in nearly twenty-four hours. I've tried to get at least a few minutes of sleep but these chairs didn't help. I take a long stretch when a doctor comes into the waiting room.

"Grayson Taylor?"

Elle's head shoots up and she darts up. She walks over to the doctor and I decide to follow her. I stand beside her and she holds my hand.

"How is he?"

The doctor takes a deep breath and scans through his clipboard. "There's no easy way of putting it. Grayson suffered a lot of damage to his brain. It would've killed him if he wasn't wearing a seatbelt."

I feel tears streaming down my face when the words leave his mouth. I cover my mouth to prevent myself from making any noise. Elle keeps quiet and bites on her lip.

"We had to put him in a medically induced coma for his brain to heal. By the time he wakes up, we hope for his brain to be fully healed. He'd wake up with no life-changing brain damage or memory loss."

Elle gulps and asks, "And how long is this coma going to last?"

"That I cannot answer. It could take days, weeks, months, maybe even a year."

A year? A fucking year? Grayson would miss so much in a year. He'd have to redo senior year. He'd have to reply to all these universities.

"Can we see him?" I blurt out. I immediately cover my mouth after it. Fuck. Why did I ask that?

"He's fresh out of surgery right now. Visiting hours are from ten to nine." He says.

Elle nods and says, "Thank you, doctor."

We watch as the doctor walks away and I rest my head on Elle's shoulder. I think she's in shock right now. I haven't seen a tear come out of her ever since we got the news. She hasn't broken down into screams or sobs. She hasn't asked 'why him?'.

I know the shock she's feeling right now. It's like you think all of this a joke. All of this will go away in a blink of an eye. This only happens on tv. It'd never happen to you.

"I think I'm going to go to the vending machines. Do you want anything?" I ask her. She shakes her head no and I start to roam the hallways. The empty hallways. There's never a lot of people here at six in the morning. I feel my phone buzzing and I see that it's my mom calling me.

"Mom, I can explain-"

"Why aren't you in this house, Selena? I called Genevieve and she said you're not with her! Are you sleeping around with some-"

"Mom I'm in the hospital!"

I hear her gasp from the other line. It's quiet for a second. Too quiet. "Mom I'm not hurt or anything. My friend got into a car accident and his mom called me. I had to be there for her."

"Selena you should've asked! How long have you been there?"

"Since three."

"Three? Selena are you crazy? You've been at the hospital with a woman I don't know for three hours?!" She yells.

"He's in a coma, Ma." I finally feel all the tears come out. It's hard to process a sentence without tears coming out. "He's in a coma and they don't know w-when he'll wake up."

I put my hand over my mouth and let the tears hit my robe. The hallway feels so long and narrow yet so tiny. The walls feel like they're trapping me in. My vision can't focus on everything at once. My vision seems blurry.

"Selena, what hospital are you at? I'll come get you. You're not in a good state to be at a hospital right now." She tells me.

I tell her the hospital and wipe tears away from my eyes with my sleeve. I don't bother getting anything from the vending machines or even roaming around the empty halls trying to find one. I just want to go home. I want to go home, pretending like everything is okay. Like Grayson isn't in a coma and he'll call me as soon as he wakes up.