"They say we are asleep until we fall in love
We are children of dust and ashes
But when we fall in love we wake up
And we are a god and angels weep
But if I die here tonight
I die in my sleep"
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Karen had listened to the nurse tell her about the surgery abou a hundred times. Every time the nurse would finish, Karen would just break down and ask again. All Karen wanted was the mortality rate of an abdominal gunshot wound but the nurse never exactly answered. She just explained the surgery and how Zoe should come out just fine. She only remembered the part where the nurse said that Zoe's large bowel was affected by the bullet.
She was seated in the waiting room. Her body curled over as she ferociously tapped her foot on the ground. This caused her entire body to shake as she propped her head up with her hands. Her eyes were focused on a single tile on the ground. It was like she couldn't exist. She wasn't sure if she was blinking or not but it was far too much for her.
Karen tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. At all the various dots. There were a lot of dots. She inhaled deeply and just as she went to exhale a sob released from her mouth.
She couldn't go through this again. She couldn't lose someone again. Not like this. Not Zoe.
"Karen?"
Karen covered her face with her hands and shook her head, "She's going to be okay, right?"
"Yeah-" Rhea whispered as she took the seat beside her. She had slipped on her sweats and hoodie again to cover her suit since it was morning. She wrapped an arm around Karen and pulled her close, "Zoe's a tough fucking bitch. A little gunshot to the stomach won't stop her from anything."
Karen let out a sad laugh as she wiped at her eyes, "But-But what if-what if he doesn't survive? What-"
"Hey, hey-" Rhea quickly shushed her and shook her head, "No, you can't think like that. You got to-You got to think about what you're going to do once she's out of surgery, yeah? Like... How are you going to nurse her back to health? I mean, with Foggy, boy, he is about to have me stuck to his side like we've been conjoined."
Karen laughed at this and pulled away from Rhea, "Uh... I think... I think I'm going to try to make her soup."
"Soup?"
"Yeah, uh... French onion."
Rhea immediately snickered at the idea, "You'd have to make some bomb ass French onion soup. Gotta make Zoe prefer yours over the actual stuff."
"Oh, no-" Karen shook her head as she continued to wipe at her eyes to rid herself of the tears, "I don't think I could ever make really good French onion soup like that but I can definitely try. I do make a mean chicken noodle soup."
"You should talk to Benny." Rhea sank a little further into her seat, "She has a bunch of soup recipes. And porridges as well. Benny did this thing that whenever we got sick she'd-"
"Make rice porridge." Karen finished with a small grin on her face, "Yeah, she did that for me when I had gotten sick."
"Right-" Rhea wasn't really close to Karen, so she didn't really have much information on her, "You and Benny met in college?"
