𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭

fifteen

A short chapter today, but hey!! Yates perspective. always so enjoyable, am i right besties??

Yates didn't much like hospitals anymore.

They were too sterile. Hostile. Uncaring. Empty. He despised those empty halls and the crushed up cigarette butts in the hallways, hidden and swept off to the corners as if no one would notice. Somes rooms reek of rubbing alcohol, and every time Yates heard that familiar screech of the wheels on hospital linoleum, he winces, thinking of the way his father's skin split so easily under that syringe. And the convulsions that followed.

"Your card, sir?"

Yates startled, looking back to the woman behind the register. She wore a sleek white coat, a gloved hand outstretched. The hospital was fairly empty, and her voice was grating as she interrupted the white noise of the foyer.

"My card?" he asked.

"To cancel the treatment. We need it for proof, along with your ID."

"Right," he said, giving her a small smile. Yates pulled it out of his wallet and handed it over, thrumming a steady rhythm on the counter top. "Seems pretty busy today huh," he joked, looking around. A few nurses milled around with large carts, their scrubs gleaming in the fluorescent light.

"Uh- yes sir. I've gotten your card information. Can you provide me with your health insurance card, please?"

"Of course. Once I sign Mrs. [last name] out, you are able to wipe it from the hospital records?"

"Yes, we can, sir," the woman replied, quirking a brow. He was thankful she didn't press. "That will cost another three hundred dollars. When we check her out, would you like us to call the second number listed on the contact list? [name] [last name]?"

He shook his head, eyes wide. Didn't he request for them to remove [name]'s number? "No. Please don't call her, thanks. She'll be devastated when she hears about this," he said, hurriedly.

The receptionist's countenance stayed stony. "Of course sir." After a few more minutes of furious typing and the printer spitting out receipts, the receptionist handed him his cards back, along with a tall bill for his mother in law's treatments. "She'll be discharged later today and dropped off at the apartment listed in her records. Thank you for choosing our hospital and I hope we've provided you with excellent care. Do come again."

"Perfect, thank you," he peered at her name tag, "Michelle. Do you mind telling me Mrs. [last name]'s room number? I'd like to give her a visit before she has to leave."

"She's in Room 323. Please take a visitation sticker. Next, please."

Yates stepped away from the reception desk and grabbed a visitors pass from a plastic bin. It was already attached to a lanyard so he simply slung it over his neck, making his way to the elevator. It was the mid-afternoon and Yates's nostrils had already been numbed by the reek of hospital disinfectants. The elevator creaked as he got on, despite being empty. He eventually reached his mother in law's room, after more than a few dizzying hospital hallways. They were identical, with the same fruit paintings hung up every five rooms and fake lilies potted in cheap plastic vases. Even the morbid green of the hospital seats was beginning to sicken him, a headache throbbing at his temples. It would just be better to get this over with so he could find [name].

He wondered how she was doing without him. Did she miss him the way he missed her? He couldn't even sleep properly, knowing that was miles away with someone doing who knows what. It would've been so easy for her to stay! He had cherished her and loved her and given her everything he could- and she still left him. Most men would feel inadequate, insecure. But Yates wasn't most men.