My Desert Haven (BOYXBOY)

Place to Stay

I’d never liked hospitals, but they didn’t bother me. Not really. Unless I counted the time they told me my mom was going to die, there had been no traumatic experiences. And even then, that hadn’t been a real hospital, but a specialist’s office with cozy furniture. Hospitals didn’t scare me until the day that I hadn’t gone back to Nevada with my grandma and I found out that I could lose my father in one.

Luke’s message had been difficult to understand with all of the static, but from what I did get out of it, I knew there’d been an accident, and it was Eddie who was in the hospital. My first thought was to call Luke back, but he didn’t answer, so my next move was to call Eddie’s cell phone, just in case. The call went straight to voice mail. When Seth found me I was on the floor with my bag, pulling the list of numbers Jase had given me out from behind the cover of my mom’s journal, where I’d placed it. I couldn’t even properly greet Seth. I was too busy panicking when Jase didn’t answer either. Seth didn’t quite understand what was wrong with me. He was too busy wondering why I wasn’t on my feet with my arms around him, and rightfully so. But as soon as I explained what I could, he’d explained that there were two hospitals between the airport and home, and we could check both of them. I was relieved to have help, but no less frightened as I wondered what kind of accident had occurred and how bad Eddie was hurt.

Getting to Seth’s truck felt like it took forever, and once we were in it, I couldn’t seem to stop worrying, asking a hundred questions about how far away the hospitals were and how long it would take to get there. When I started asking Seth questions that he didn’t know the answers to, like what had happened to Eddie, he instructed me to keep calling everyone’s phones, just in case. The task kept me distracted, at least until we reached the first emergency room, and I decided that if Eddie was anywhere, it had to be there. It was the same place he’d taken me after the baseball incident.

Seth was with me when I pushed my way past a line of people to the nearest desk. Naturally, I thought my problems were worse than anyone else’s, but the nearest nurse, who was busy speaking to another family, disagreed. “If you’d just take a seat...” she said to me, and I acted like I hadn’t even heard her.

“I just need to know if someone was brought in here,” I explained. “He’s my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“Yes, Eddie Soarda.”

“Okay, take a seat for minute...”

“I don’t want to take a seat,” I informed her.

“Look,” Seth said, placing a hand on my shoulder so I’d know he was there with me. “If you could just check for us, please. If he’s not here we have another hospital to check.”

I was not pleased when she started telling Seth that we’d still have to wait, and I found myself looking around, frustrated, and wondering how much they’d like it if I started checking rooms myself. I looked down the hall where I’d been taken after getting hit in the head with a baseball, noting things seemed generally quiet. Then, I turned towards two double doors, closed and labeled emergency. I went towards those doors, frowning when I found that they were locked. I looked through the small, rectangular window, not at all sure what I was looking for. Anything, I guess. But what I found was two men, walking towards me; the first an older, baldheaded man in a white coat and hospital scrubs, and the second was one of the two people that I’d said goodbye to at the house that morning.