Red Band Society

two // ice cream cuddles

Blaise

After I quickly grab a cheeseburger, I run upstairs to find Astrid. The entire hospital is split into two sections, General Medecine (for adults), and pediatrics. Each of the two sections is then split into several wards, or wings. Astrid "lives" in the Cancer ward of the pediatrics section, and I guess you could call her my girlfriend. Her and I, along with a handful of other teenagers who will be staying in this hospital indefinitely, make up the Red Bands.

Lets see, ninth floor, 9-10, 9-11, 9-12, 9-13 got it. I open the door to her room quietly; to make sure she isn't asleep. She's not. She sits up straight and looks at me excitedly. I rush over to her bed and give her a quick kiss on the forehead.

"I've only got fifteen minutes until I have to be back in my room and hooked up to my IV, so whatever we're going to do its gotta be fast." I tell her.

"Well, originally we could have gone to the break room, I just got one of the new nurses to tell me where the key is. They have actual cable in there. Though now that you need to be in your room in fifteen minutes, I don't know what we are to do." She declares back.

"Leo is letting me borrow his Xbox, so we could go to my room." Leo was another member of the Red Bands. He suffers from osteosarcoma and is undergoing chemo, so he and Astrid share the same bald head.

"That sounds nice," Astrid answers with a grin.

I help Astrid into her wheel chair and attach her bag of IV fluids to the pole on the back of the chair. I wheel her carefully out of her room, to make sure that no nurses are watching. When I find the hallway clear, I hold the handles of the wheelchair tight and start running.

Astrid laughs and screeches with excitement and a smile spreads across my face. We round the corner and I slow down, allowing space between the chair and the elevators doors to decelerate. Once in the elevator I press the button for the fourth floor, the Cardiac Ward.

The hallway leading to my room is not clear of nurses, so we have to walk slowly and boringly to my room. I wheel her over to my bed and help her out of her chair. I grab an extra IV pole from the hallway and hang her bag of saline onto it. I plop down next to her and remove my prosthesis. In one swift motion I unpinch the IV tube attached to my hand and reattach it the tube that hangs from the bag of fluid. I decide that it would be a bad idea to play Halo, as Astrid wasn't really into video games, so I pulled up Netflix, I debate putting "Brain Games" on, but I decide that it would be to touchy of a subject, and would probably lead to a puddle of tears.

We finally decide on Greys Anatomy (ironic I know), our favorite show. We have actually both met the cast from the show. We were much younger and didn't know each other, but we were already living the five star life of the Hospital.

The cast made a visit to the hospital to meet some of the kids that were going through similar things as the characters in the show. As a twelve year old, I didn't know who these people where, let alone the show that they were on. When I started watching the show some years later, I vaguely remembered these people, but I still get to brag that I met Meredith Grey and Christina Yang.

We don't pay much attention to the show as we are both exhausted after our meds, which no matter what time you take them always make you drowsy. She lays her head on my chest and I take her hand in mine. We fall asleep the way we are, a tangled mess of IV tubes and missing limbs.

I wake either a few minutes or a few hours later, I can never tell. Astrid is still asleep with her head on my chest and her hands wrapped around my torso.