Wooden Floorboards

One

His screen lit up, illuminating his small, dorm like room. Having just woken up, it took a second for his eyes to adjust to the bright light that seemed to be frying his retinas. His insomnia, which had grown increasingly worse since he left, had not let him sleep this night either, waking him up only a couple of hours before sunrise.

He opened his eyes again, able to read the text sprawled across his screen:

6 unread Text Messages
5 Missed Phone Calls
2 New Voice Messages

He unlocked his phone to check the text messages first. All of them from Nicole, Danny's sister.

"Call me"
"It's an emergency"
"Pick up God-Dammit"
"Somethings happened with Danny"
"You need to come down here"

And quickly, Jamie was experiencing the same effect of too much caffeine. His heart rate skyrocketed, and his hands began shaking almost too much. Eyes wide, ignoring the burn of his eyes as his fingers fumbled on the screen as he went to listen to the voice mails.

"Jamie, it's Nicole, somethings happened with Danny, I need to you call me right now," her voice spoke before the message ended.

"Listen, I don't know what happened between the two of you And I don't care. But you need to be down there right now. Danny is in the hospital, none of us can be there right now, we're stuck in the middle of the Atlantic, you need to be there for him." And the message ended. Her voice was panicked and close to helpless. His family was on a cruise, they had it booked months in advanced. Danny was supposed to be there too, why didn't he go?

It didn't take long before Jamie had a backpack, equipped with just an extra change of clothes, and had his shoes on, tied almost too tight. He walked from his room down the hall to the reception desk. She looked tired as she glanced up from her desktop to stare Jamie down from above the frame of her glasses.

"Young man, where are you going? She quizzed.

"Home, " he stated simply, his hand coming up to grip the door handle, waiting.

"Jamie, you're not permitted to leave for another two weeks."

"I checked myself in, and I'll check myself out, thank you, now open the door." His grip on the handle becoming a white knuckle grasp.

"Son, there's paperwork to be done, you haven't got all your things, I'm sure it can wait at least till morning, when your doctor will be here and..."

"I'll fill out the papers later, I'll send for my shit, now open the God damn door!" He said, raising his voice, becoming increasingly aggravated at the time he knew he was wasting standing here bickering.

The lock clicked he pushed hard on the door, swinging it all the way out and forcing it to swing closed with surprising force.

He dug in his pockets for his car keys and unlocked the doors as he arrived to his virtually untouched vehicle. It had been almost 6 months since this thing had run at all, but he turned the key and it came to life, as if he'd just arrived yesterday.

He could get back across the state line to Indiana by sunrise if he hurried, and be at their hometown hospital by 3 if he didn't stop.

And that's what he did. He kept his foot on the gas pedal for five hours, going exactly the speed limit and nothing less until he was forced to slow down to turn into the parking lot of the hospital.