Milky Coffee (1D)

Chapter Two

I pulled up at the hospital after spending twenty minutes in the harsh stop-and-go traffic of the summer. The door to my rainbow colored punch buggy was slammed shut as I rushed inside. The summer heat left me panting and hot, even though I'd barely ran 40 feet.

"I'm," pant. "Here to," wheeze. "See," I breathed in and out before uttering, "Lavendar Brooks."

"Are you sure you aren't here to see whether or not you have asthma, sweetheart?" The kind lady at the desk said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. However, her plans were completely futile.

"No," I snapped. "I'm here to see my friend who has cancer." Her face slackened as she typed away on her computer.

"Floor 17, room 25. Sorry, miss," she said apologetically. I nodded my head and muttered a short,

"Sorry," back before rushing to the elevator. I tapped my foot impatiently.

'C'MON ELEVATOR! WORK YOUR MAGIC!' I screamed in my mind. Soon, after minutes which felt like hours, the familiar ding! was heard and I jumped inside. I harshly pressed the button that read 17 and pushed the close door button over and over. The elevator soared up the floors onto the one where my friend was being kept. Room 1, room 2, room 3... the numbers flew by as I galloped down the hallway. At the very end of the way-too-long corridor, was my friend's room. The door screeched open and inside was my friend and her family, who were speaking to the doctor. Her face remained blank and bored, was she okay?!

"Lav!" I breathed. Her face instantly perked up as she saw me and she cheerful waved from the bed. She put her hands next to her as she was about to sit up and get out of bed, but the nearest nurse put her hands down and chastised her on staying there.

"But I'm fine!" she cried out desperately. "Better than fine, wonderful! Let me live! Let me see my friend!" The nurse shook her head as the brown-haired, tan, blue-eyed girl got out of bed and gave me a hug.

"How are you?" I asked. "Does anyone else know?"

"Fine, perfect, like I said. And no, Lily's off to Olympic gymnastics training, I can't burst her bubble. And I can't burst Beth's either, she's finally moving to the City. Eva is taking a tour of the Princeton campus, and she's moving in two days. Sammie's away in London, doing her YouTuber thing. How am I supposed to tell them?" Her hands still moved as she talked, trying to explain how she felt. I guess some habits die hard.

"What about your university?" I queried. "Didn't you make it in to the University of Leicester and Bonn? Weren't you gonna study in Bonn for a year and then go to Leicester?" She nodded slowly, and sadly, her stoic expression fading slightly.

"Yeah," she muttered, clearly unhappy. "With Lung Cancer, I-" her voice dropped so no one but me could hear her. "I figure I have at best a year or two to live. I know about it, I've read about it, I was going to try and cure it after college, for Pete's sake! I don't want to spend the rest of my days in college in a foreign country, even if it's one I really want to go to. NYU was one of my back up schools, and I made it in. So I'm going to see if I can take courses online, or maybe move in with Beth and go to the campus. They have an amazing Cancer Institute in the city." She paused and looked at me, about to continue when something happened. She froze and leaned over as she wheezed and coughed.

"Are you okay?" I asked soothingly. "Lavandar!" I frantically screamed as I saw her cough up blood. A tear streamed down my face as the nurses brought her to a specialized container for catching the blood to test it later. Her mother rubbed circles into her back and asked the nurses what they were giving her daughter, as she was a nurse practitioner herself. Lav's father looked sad, scared, and worried for his daughter as he spoke to the doctor about hushed things. I sobbed into my hands as she finished lurching forwards and wiped her mouth off with a washcloth handed to her by a nurse.

"I'm fine!" She insisted again, but this time the nurse didn't listen. She gently pushed her back into her bed, and made she sure was comfortable.

"Lavandar, just rest, okay? As they say, mother knows best. Especially if your mother is a qualified Nurse Practitioner." Her mom whispered to her daughter as she fell asleep. "It was nice seeing you, Molly, and having you be here. Thank you." She said, her voice so low I could barely hear it. I nodded and turned to the nurse who was trying to tell me something.

"Visiting hours for non-family guests are now over. Thank you for coming," The nurse told me as she ushered me out the door. I walked down the long hallway again and straight back down the elevator. In the lobby, I thought about my sick friend again.

'Everyone else seems so happy, so joyful in this entrance hall," I noticed in my mind. 'Meanwhile, my friend is slowly dying upstairs, and everyone is happy.' I shook my head quickly and exited the building where my friend could potentially die, as tears streamed down my face.