Would You Rather

37 - WYR: patient 193 or room 193

FINLEY

"Are you... okay?" Darius watches me dump my stuff into the back of his car.

"I'm fine." I mutter. Door open, door shut. I buckle myself into his back seat. I need him to drive. Now. "Can we go?"

"I mean, yeah," he responds, looking at me from the front seat. "Are you sure...?"

"Darius, please just drive. I need to get home."

"You know what, no," Bronson says, turning around in his chair. "Fidan said you didn't stay with him and you didn't come back to ours and then you got up there saying there was a family emergency. Darius and I are worried about you and about Fidan mentioning you got into a fight. We wanna know where you were and if you were safe."

"I was fine, Bronson." I fold my arms over my chest, going over my argument with Fidan, my calls with my brother, charging my phone at the diner, updates from my mom.

"If you're, like, this distraught over fighting with Koski-"

I groan, pressing my hands against my temples. "I just broke up with him, if you guys care so much, and I need to get back home because my fucking sister is in the hospital. For god's sake just give it up and drive."

"Oh," Darius mumbles, setting his hands on the wheel. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Good, now please just go."

The back seat is cramped, my knees in Bronson's seat. It's a six hour drive, but it feels like eight hours when we manage to get to Headingley.

Then Elle. Then Fortier. Portage la Prairie, Bloom, Bagot, MacGregor, Austin, Sydney, Brandon, Virden.

The road feels like we're looping back on ourselves. I see signs with Regina on them but the kilometers number keeps getting larger.

There's no cell service, just me and my hands in my lap and Fidan fucking Koskinen's You're obsessive.

I don't know why I feel so gutted. I don't know why it's as bad as knowing my sister's in the hospital. I don't know why it turned bad to worse. At least I know Dani is very stable as of this morning. Fidan...

Letting him go is just easier. It's less time. Less... stress.

I watch the sunset through the window. Darius and Bronson haven't said a word. The only thing in here is the rattle of the car against the pavement and the din of my thoughts.

It feels like it's been sixty years and ten minutes but we pass the sign that says Regina - 2km.

"Do you want us to drop you at home?"

"Yeah."

And then I'm standing in my apartment and I'm not even changing my clothes just putting on boots and another jacket and a hat and I've dropped my luggage in the door just to turn right back around again, walking. It's two kilometers to the hospital's campus and I'm sweating by the time I get there, standing in the lobby.

"You here to visit? Visiting hours are ending in twenty minutes."

"I am."

"Last name?"

"Shaw."

"Danielle?" She points me down the hall when I nod. "Room 192."

When I push open the door, my mom hugs me. She hugs me and I sink into it, looking over her shoulder at Dani with her head propped up but her eyes open, blinking at me.

"How was the presentation?" My mom pulls back, holding my upper arms, fixing my hair, brushing a thumb over my forehead.

"I... fine. It was fine." I pull off my jacket, looking to Dani, the bruise on her cheek. "Is she okay?"