I woke up thin, hard bed under the harsh white lights usually associated with hospitals. A nurse bustles around at the foot of my bed and I clear my throat to catch her attention.
She looks up at me with warm blue eyes and a kind smile. Her dirty blonde hair is tied up in a bun and the lines around her eyes are prominent on her tanned skin. Her name card reads 'Alice'.
"Good afternoon, Miss Lancaster. Did you sleep well?" Even her voice sounds inviting. Like one of those kind old ladies that offers you cookies and pies. I just hope she doesn't live in a gingerbread house and cooks little children.
"Alright, I guess? I don't know but it must've been good in one way because sleeping fights cancer. What happened?"
"Oh, after told you some important news, you passed out in the doctor's waiting room," Alice replies. "And the babies fine." She adds, seeing the worried look donning my face.
"Do you, by any chance, know what the news was?" I ask in hopes of gaining some knowledge of the past day.
"Um, I believe it was something about an..." She draws out the word as she thinks. "Marcus being the father of your child and the brother of your ex, Apollos? No, that can't be right. What about... Matthew is the father of your child and the uncle of Andrew? No, it still spent sound right. Oh! I know! Miles, the father of your baby, is the cousin of your dead lover: Augustus. There, I knew I'd get it eventually."
Meanwhile, as Alice mumbled to herself about how she knew she would be right, I was having trouble breathing. Is this what it's like to have a panic attack? If so, I don't want to have another. I'm already having trouble breathing as it is, I don't need my breathing to be any shallower.
"Miss? Miss Hazel? Are you okay?" My breathes got harder and harder to take when she said that one word that meant so much to me. "Miss! I'm going to get the doctor, just keep breathing."
I vaguely hear a buzzing noise in the background as Nurse Alice calls for backup and the sound of a door and multiple footsteps echo around and off the bleached white walls but I can't stay awake anymore my lungs won't permit it. So, I collapse into the blissful darkness of unconsciousness.
