Two Boys

vii

trigger warning

boy 2

I internally screamed when mum wound her window down and a police man with a stern but gentle face came into view.

"Please, madam, do you have a reason to be speeding today?" He asked, silently daring her to come up with an excuse. To my utter surprise, she left the vehicle.

About two minutes, mum popped her head in. "Come on." She said. I didn't know what to do. Were we getting arrested?!

"Hop in the back there." The police officer said. Mum nodded gravely but smiled gratefully. We climbed in the back. We couldn't be getting arrested, why would she be smiling?

I didn't understand until about a minute later we turned up at the hospital. Mum explained that we'd gotten off scot free and the officer had offered us a ride so we would get there faster. I thanked the officer as he pulled away and we ran in.

"Alex!" I yelled, my face going pale when I saw his limp body lying on a bed. He was being wheeled at record speed down the hallway. His mum came towards us, dried tear tracks on her face.

"They're taking him in for testing... they think the car accident hurt him majorly or... or either..." she didn't finish, because the tears began again.

And that was the last thing I saw for quite some time. When I saw the look on Alex's mum's face I knew something pretty bad had happened. So I ran. I didn't know where I was going, but I knew I had to get away. And I did.

//

My phone was ringing in my pocket. I begrudgingly pulled it out. It was mum.

"Hello." I said, my voice betraying me as it cracked halfway through my greeting.

"Hi, I think you need to come back." Her voice was thick, like she'd been crying.

"Where are you?" I asked, although I really just wanted to pull my hoodie up over my head and stay where I was.

"The cancer ward." She said. And then it all made sense. I pressed the red button, ending the call. I couldn't believe it. If he was in the cancer ward, he obviously has cancer. And it would have to be terminal. Why else would his mum have said "Or else...", why would he have said "It's back" this morning when I was leaving to get mum, and why else would he have pulled away when I put my hand against his chest this morning? It was so unfair.

Tears blurred in my eyes as I swerved to avoid nurses and their trollies filled with needles and medicine. My converse squeaked on the linoleum, and I almost crashed into the wall as I ran around the corner and into the children's ward. That's when I realised I didn't know where I was going. I was lost. Damn hospitals. I hated them.

I fell against a wall and memories of when I'd been confined to the hospital beds because of all the abuse I'd received when my father had found out my sexual orientation came flooding back. The times he'd punched me so hard I couldn't see, breathe. The times mum had sobbed quietly in the seat next to me when the doctors had told her I mightn't make it. The times I gripped her hand when I felt like I was falling, slowly. But those times had passed, and I was so ready to make new beginnings in this small town, but I guess it was a fate I couldn't escape. I was happy, for lack of better words, that it wasn't me, but at the same time I wished it was. That it was me lying unconscious, cancer thriving through my bones, a number of days left tacked onto my ending life. Because when I'd finally found happiness, it had been ripped away from me. I wiped fiercely at my cheek. As the nurses walked past, no one asked me if I was ok, if I needed directions. I guess people sitting propped against hospital walls wishing it was them dying instead was a common sight.

I sat there for a little bit longer. That's when I realised, if Alex was dying, then I wanted to spend every waking moment with him. It was that thought that gave me enough motivation to ask one of the nurses for directions to the cancer ward.

a/n: no