Moonhaven

Chapter 23: Lies My Monitor Told Me

"Tell us what's going on with him," Ziro demanded after he stormed up to the woman loitering outside of the room Alex's was in, peering through the window.

Lev was half a second behind him, curiously glancing back and forth between Ziro and the mysterious woman. "What? Why would she know anything?" he said to Ziro.

"She's Alex's mother, aren't you?" His sharp gaze, intended to do harm like a butcher's cleaver slicing open a gut, bore into her making her flinch.

"Seriously?" Lev questioned. "Prior looks more like his dad — no offense lady. How the hell could you tell who she was?" he asked this of Ziro.

Ziro didn't take his eyes off the woman. "You know me, it's a feeling I get. Are you going to answer anytime soon?" he asked bullishly of the woman.

The woman drew her eyebrows, the skin between them crumpling into vexation. "Who do you brats think you are? What kind of person raises such nosey delinquents...What business is it of my son to you?"

"Who are you calling a delinquent, lady?" Lev shot back as he took a furious step towards her.

Ziro calmly gripped his shoulder, pulling Lev back a pace. "I'm a friend of Alex's, and he," he gave a brisk gesture of his head at Lev, "is Alex's boyfriend."

Though he managed in such a short and practically non-existent time frame to hide it well, it took Lev by immense surprise to hear Ziro say such a sentence about him. Neither he nor Alex had explicitly said the 'B word' out loud yet, it was a conversation still yet to be had between the two, but it actually felt good to at least hear someone else say it.

The woman gave Lev an abhorrent once-over. "His what?"

Recovering from his shock, Lev was able to accomplish a poised smirk. "You heard him, lady."

The woman stalked forward, only two steps that were each a hairsbreadth in distance, but threatening nonetheless. "Leave. Both of you. Do not come back, and stay far away from my son."

Lev tried advancing again, but Ziro held him in place by his shoulder. He had taken out his phone after receiving a text, and nodded serenely as he read it over on the screen.

"Do I need to call security," the woman said impatiently. "The police?"

After just a few mere seconds, Ziro put his phone away. "We'll see," he said to her unconcerned. "But don't misunderstand, we will see each other again. Come on," he said to Lev.

Though hesitant, and irate, Lev followed his best friend as they turned away and headed back down the hall.

The woman's breath trembled as she quietly slid the door open. Inside the room, atop a stale-tinged hospital bed bent upwards slightly, Alex laid in bed fast asleep. He donned a bland white hospital gown, his brown hair a frivolous, tossed mess. A narrow, clear tube tucked into the thin skin of the back of his hand.

The woman came close, pulling a stool over to the side of the bed and stationing herself next to her son. She reached out and gently shook Alex's arm till he woke. Alex came to, groggy and a bit hungry, and he recoiled slightly as his eyes met his mother's — the last person he expected to see.

The woman leaned closer and performed her own amateur inspection on her son for any injuries, patting down his upper body, checking for any signs of pain. Alex was still in shock at her unexpected presence; he let her go on without objection.

"Good Lord...you're not hurt," she stated with absolute certainty. Alex stayed quiet, nodding once to confirm her observation.

"Well, good. And what the police said you did...they must've made some kind of mistake." Alex shook his head only once to reject that claim, and then the woman's tone became exasperated. "So you're saying it's all true? You really did something so...inhumane?"