VICE

| A DEATH AND A BREAKUP |

"Hey mom!"

"Hey baby, I'll be home soon to cook dinner. Are you ok?"

"Mom, could you please come to the St. Paul's Hospital... now?"

"What!" She sounded panicky . "Why?What happened sweetie?"

"I'll tell you when you get here." Austin said. "Please hurry!"

"Please tell me you're ok !"

"I'm fine, mom." Austin insisted.

"I'll be there in twenty. Just hold on!" she said before he hung up.

The bustle in the hospital was too much. There were sick people being wheeled around, others walking around while others lay in their wards, releasing whatever germs they had to the air with their hefty heaving and coughing.

Doctors and nurses moved from ward to ward, tending to overly needy patients. He wondered how they kept their cool doing this everyday. Either they were really nice people or they didn't have a choice. Austin was not a fan of sick people. They seemed to need everything and it was somehow rude and insensitive to protest.

The floors reeked of bleach and disinfectant but Austin highly doubted it did the trick. The patients of all ages; some very recently born, some probably looking to lie in their deathbeds , were literally everywhere. Every once in a while, one of them threw up in a potted plant or on the just washed floors. Disgusting much?

Austin paced, every once in a while stealing glances at the door through which they had taken the doctor. It still seemed so surreal that this was happening. How did the guy even reach the point of a heart attack? One minute the man is talking just fine, the next he is sprawled on the floor with his heart about to give in.

He was freaking out so much because he would blame himself for sure if the doctor's condition changed for the worse...or the worst.

"Can you stop pacing so much?" Nicky, who was seated at the opposite side of the waiting room, asked. "You're starting to give me anxiety and I don't even know the guy."

"Well, forgive me if I'm freaking out over the fact that we almost killed someone." Austin retorted.

"Technically, you didn't ."

"And technically, you need to shut up!"

"I'm not here for you anyway."

"Then why the fuck are you here?"

"Noah called me so I'm here for him."

He refused to look towards Noah though. They had not said another word to each other after the ambulance arrived. Nancy had ridden in the back of the ambulance while Austin drove with Noah following it. The entire car ride had been pin-drop silent and that had been a relief.

The awkwardness in the air was so thick, you could carve  it like a thanksgiving turkey. No one could look at the other -it was like they were now repelling against each other like magnets.

Even when they got to the hospital, as they waited in the waiting room, they made sure to stay as far away from each other as possible. Austin did most of the repelling. He needed his mind to concentrate on the matter at hand but he kept flashbacking to the moment before the unexpected heart attack.