Learning to Cope

Page 9

Andrew:

He's crying? I thought he'd be happy? Are those tears of joy? Maybe he's just gonna miss me sooooo much. Probably not though.

"Can I see your phone?" I ask, I hold out my hand and he cautiously places it on my palm it to me. That's weird. For such a private guy, he doesn't have a lock on his phone. I go into his contacts and put my phone number in, then I text myself from his phone. I hand his phone back, he looks at it confused "Really? 'Hello sexy beast'?" he laughs "that's what you chose to text yourself?" "of course, and I named myself 'Sexy Beast' in your phone too" he puts his phone on the table "Oh! I'll be back!" I run out of the room and down the hall. August had his clothes destroyed when he got here. Luckily the church donates clothes for situations like this, I just have to find something that might fit him.

There's basically nothing! He's too tall for most of these clothes, maybe this puke green mumu? I don't think he'll want to wear that. At the very bottom of this bin was a pair of red tracksuit pants that looked too long for him but too long is better than too short, right? Plus it should be comfortable. And if he doesn't have underwear then he's out of luck. They don't usually donate boxers.

I run back into the room and August is sitting on his phone. "I brought you some clothes that might fit you" he looks up and smiles. "thanks." he takes the clothes and limps into the bathroom. "...Do I still have to leave the door open?" I giggle "no, you're good" He loudly sighs in relief and shuts the door.

I've only seen him in a hospital gown for two weeks, I wonder what he looks like in normal clothes? Maybe he's the type to look bad in a lot of clothes....probably not though. Oh! I forgot shoes! "Hey, August?" "yeah?" "What size shoe do you wear?" I get close to the bathroom door the door is slightly cracked and I can see his shirtless body in the mirror. I immediately back up a bit. I can feel my face getting hot. He's muscular and covered in tattoos. I knew he had tattoos but he has a large one on his back but it was hard to tell what it was. "Ummm I'm not sure." "how do you not know your own shoe size?" I ask in disbelief.

He opens the bathroom door. Damn. He's standing up straighter and he's probably 5 inches taller than me at least. The shirt fits him...Very well. And the pants fit him perfectly. It's like it was tailored for him. It's just sweatpants but he makes it look so good. "I think I came here with shoes, I don't think they had blood on them," he says while pulling at the shirt like it's too tight on him.

"I'll go ask" I step out of the room and try to keep my face from burning. Ashley is at the nurse's station, I'll ask her. "Hey, Ashley" she whips around and smiles at me. She's wearing blue scrubs today with some pink breast cancer ribbons all over the. "Hey! How's your boyfriend?" she gives me a smug grin. "Did he come here with shoes?" I brush off her question. She puts her hands on her hips and stares at the ceiling for a moment. "I think so, let me check" She heads towards the closet just inside his room and starts digging.