My best stranger

👆🖐️

Lucas returns from the kitchen with two plates of grilled sandwich and a rolled up blunt.
"Can we get back to playing?"
"I'm hungry" he says and lights the blunt. Sure that will solve your hunger. He offers it to me and I don't refuse. I take in the familiar fumes and exhale. He drops the two plates on the coffee table indicating that the second one is mine. I hand the blunt back to him and reach for the sandwich when I feel a familiar tight pain in my chest which I haven't gotten used to.

I try to shake it of as always but this time it seems to grow, spreading like a bad odour from my heart to my torso and my whole chest.
"You okay bro" Lucas asks sighting the discomfort on my face and the way I'm positioned.
"No"
"Well, what's wrong"
I feel my breathing start to seize, oxygen feels so scarce. And the burning sensation gets unbearable. I point at my heart and manage to mutter "call the ambulance, please"
The agonizing pain gets worse as we wait for the ambulance to arrive. They finally get here and succeed in getting me into the vehicle. I close my eyes and give in to the shortness of breath, it requires so much energy breathing and energy is the last thing I have.

*******.              *********.                *****

I struggle to open my eye lids, feels like bricks are keeping them down. I finally get sight of everything around me. I'm hooked to a drip and I'm dressed in that wierd ass garment they give patients.

I recall what happened last and what landed me here. But why did that happen. And here comes the man that will answer that question. I see a lean guy walk over to me. He has a lab coat on and a clipboard in hand. He adjusts his narrow glasses and says "Mr Grant, your awake."

I guess I am

"What happened?"

"You have unstable angina-"

What the hell is that

He gets cut off by a nurse that peaks her head through the door and says "his family asks if they can come in"
"Yeah, let them in" the doctor replies with a nod.

Family?!

I look at the door dreading to see my dad's face or worse, my mum. I face that looks like my dad's but luckily isn't appears. It's Dylan, I groan at the visit. Following behind is Lucas and finally Erica. I feel a smile form on my face and I completely forget Dylan is here. She came, that's all I cared about.

"Are you okay?" She asks as she speed walks over to me. A look of concern blankets her face. She looks so worried.
"I'm dying" I say and cough.
"I'm not that dumb. The doctor told us you have angina. I was asking if your in pain" she says and laughs then places my palm in between hers. Every pain I feel has been washed away by just that one gesture. Then she pecks the back of my palm, the feel of her soft lips on my skin makes me shiver

Doctor! I'm ready to go home now

"May I continue" the doctor interrupts our moment then I finally notice the other side characters in this story.
Dylan, Lucas, Erica and I pay all our attention to the doctor as he continues

"As I said, you have unstable angina. Naturally, men are more likely to get the disease"
"That's not fair " Lucas unnecessarily points out. He's right that isn't fair but I guess nature can be shitty sometimes.
"But what makes you more subseptible to it is if you smoke" I feel Erica's burning gaze on me but I avoid it. I know she badly wants to tell me a fat I told you so.

Then how come Lucas doesn't have it, he's male and he smokes too. I remember there's one person in the room that doesn't know I smoke. I look at Dylan to examine the expression on his face. He still has a look of concern but is that an underlying anger I see?