Luke's Choice || Luke Brooks

This Is Too Good

"GUYS!!" James shouts up the stairs at like 8am.

It sounds like a happy shout but nonetheless, we all crap ourselves and get down to him as fast as possible. My first thought was that something had happened to Jai.

"OHMYGOD" James is smiling like an idiot when we all stand in front of him. I raise my eye-brows, getting him to tell us what's up.

When he doesn't get the hint, and still doesn't say anything else, I just ask. "So, what is it?"

"JAI IS GETTING OUT OF HOSPITAL TOMORROW!!!" James shouts, jumping up and down, hugging us all.

He can't be. This is too good.

I join in on the crazy antics, overly excited for Jai to be coming back.

When everyone has finally calmed down, it only then sinks in that this means Jai is getting better. This probably means Jai is nearly at the best he's going to be at. But we have no idea what that is. He could have improved a lot since we last visited, or improved very little.

The rest of the day is spent actually cleaning the house, focusing on Jai's room, because we want it to be fresh and clean for when he gets back. We all get to sleep easily, and it doesn't feel long until morning.

-

Today Jai is getting home.

Jai is getting home. Today.

We can pick Jai up at 11 so I wake up at 9 and have a quick shower and throw on some sweatpants and a hoodie. Once I'm ready, it's nearly time to leave, so Luke, Beau and I get in the car to drive to the hospital.

"I'm really excited for him to be back, but do you think he's ready?" Beau asks, slightly worried.

"Well they wouldn't let him out otherwise, so I'm pretty sure he'll be as good as he can be," Luke tells Beau.

"Yeah, I think you're right," I agree.

"Anyway, we'll only know if we just get in there," Beau says, getting out of the car.

We walk through the hospital doors, again. I have been through here enough in the past few weeks than I would have expected doing in a few years.

We know where Jai's room is, so we just go straight up. Jai smiles when he sees us.

"Hey," he says, after a few seconds.

"Hey. How are you feeling?" Beau asks him.

I can see he's processing the words in his head for a few seconds before he says, "I'm okay. Happy." A few seconds. "To be leaving." Seconds. "Here."

His speech has improved, slightly, but if this is the way he's going to be we will all need to get used to it.

The Doctor runs through some of the things we need to do for Jai and stuff like that. There's a lot of things we need to do to make sure Jai is okay.

Then we take Jai to the car and go back home. Jai is fine with doing things, it's just the talking that's the problem.

When we get back, Skip and James greet him quite quietly, I think because they aren't sure how they should be treating Jai, and they don't want to pounce on him like they would do to anyone else they haven't seen for a while.

Jai just smiles and says hey, and then goes through to the kitchen to get a beer and food. Alcohol was something he couldn't have for two weeks after he got out of hospital.

"Jai! Stop you can't have alcohol!" I say, suddenly remembering and running to take it from him before he has a drink.

"Aw fuck." He says after a few seconds. I just laugh at his swearing and get him water instead.