Word Count: 965

Paris hated hospitals.

He hadn’t ever had very many chances to be in one, except for the one time he’d broken his wrist in battle, but that had been a relatively short visit, and though he’d been stuck with a very unattractive brace for a few weeks, it hadn’t been quite as horrible as he’d made it out to be at the time.

Not like this.

This was different.

He didn’t like the room. It was too boring, bland and bare. He never would have thought anything could possibly be too clean, but the room was so spotless he almost wished he could take a marker to the wall or bring in some brightly colored lights. He could do neither, of course, and so he tried to placate himself by attempting to scuff the scuff-less floor with the heel of his shoe.

The chair was uncomfortable, almost as bad as the chairs at school, and the machines around the bed made him nervous, as if at any moment they would start chiming and beeping, alerting him to the fact that something was dreadfully wrong. He’d have liked it better if they weren’t there, if he didn’t have to hear them at all.

He’d have liked it better not to know if the figure in the bed suddenly went silent, still and cold.

It was chilly in the room. Paris didn’t understand why they kept it so cold. Wouldn’t it make sense for the temperatures to be more pleasant? If not for the patients themselves, then at least for the sad, tired, and anxious people who came to visit them? Paris brought his legs up onto the chair to hold them close to his chest, wrapping his arms around them as he huddled in on himself and tried to stay warm. He hadn’t brought a jacket. He hadn’t thought to. Funny, the sort of simple things that were so easily forgotten in panic.

The waiting was the hardest part. At first, he’d been annoyed, not knowing what had happened, inundated with phone calls at the end of his dance lesson, rushing over and then sitting around, waiting for someone to tell him what was going on. The waiting area was quite possibly the worst place on Earth, a veritable prison of worry and grief and fatigue. Some of the people sitting around had seemed hopeful, and some of them had every reason to be, but it was hard to feel happy for them when he was battling his own anxiety, when there were others whose expressions held nothing but dread.

Once he knew, once the doctors had come to find him, to explain, Paris’s frustrations mounted. He felt bitter. He felt angry. He hated the doctors and their fake sympathy. He hated the hopeful people and their picture-perfect ending. He hated the grieving people, as if their anguish had somehow jinxed him, as if their tears and sorrow had brought him this new plight. He hated life for its constant unfairness, for adding one more thing on top of everything else pulling him down, and he hated the world. That it should continue spinning after all this, after all it had put him through – was still putting him through – it seemed a crime.

Now, sitting here in this chilly room, with his arms wrapped around himself and his head resting on the back of an uncomfortable chair, Paris just felt sad.

His father stirred, groaning and coughing through a parched, dry throat. There was water by the bedside, but Paris didn’t retrieve it. He felt too tired, too weighed down, to move. He simply sat there and waited, watching his father’s eyes blink open, watching his head turn as he slowly became aware of his whereabouts.

He saw Paris and frowned, but didn’t move to push himself up. “What happened?”

Paris almost laughed, would have if he didn’t feel so empty. How very cliché.

“You collapsed at work,” he said. “You were brought here in an ambulance. They called Mom and she called me.”

“Good of her to come,” his father grumbled, sarcastic, knowing she wasn’t there. In his state, groggy and hooked up to medical equipment, Paris supposed it said something that he still had the ability to joke about his long-dead marriage. “What’s the verdict, then?”

“Your heart,” Paris said, staring at him accusingly, “and your liver.”

“Of course.” His father had the audacity to roll his eyes, as if it were some minor issue and not a very serious problem.

“You could be a little more apologetic.”

“You want me to apologize? What, because this is some great inconvenience for you?”

“You did this to yourself.”

“Then you keep your nose out of it. I won’t hear any lecture from you of all people,” his father said. “You keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll end up here one day, too.”

It was Paris’s turn to roll his eyes. “Don’t even start on that, Dad.”

“Don’t want to hear it, do you? You little hypocrite.”

Paris frowned and looked away.

“Don’t just sit there,” his father snapped. “Make yourself useful and get one of the damned doctors so I can get out of here.”

He didn’t bother to argue, to tell him it was unlikely he’d be discharged right away. Paris knew it wouldn’t be any use. He unfolded himself from the chair, stood to his feet, and turned to leave the room without looking back or saying another word. He didn’t go find the doctor or nurse immediately. Out in the hall, with a closed door between himself and his father, he lowered himself to the floor and brought his legs up again, and hid his face in his knees as tears stung his eyes.

He didn’t know what to do anymore.