Parallel Hearts (Parallel Hearts Trilogy, #1)

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Marcie firmly holds my hand as we pass through the hospital’s sliding doors. I hate hospitals and I hate their overly polite sliding doors. As if the ease of accessing the premises makes up for all the pain and suffering this place causes. The inside of the hospital feels cold and sterile. Its bright white walls and hard tiled hallways provide no comfort to those who enter this place, those who ironically need it the most.

“I think we need to go this way,” Marcie gently insists, pointing as we take a sharp left turn heading towards the nurse’s station.

During the agonizing drive to the hospital, I did nothing but stare out the passenger side’s frost covered window. I didn’t speak to Marcie while she carefully drove through the snow covered streets, I didn’t call my grandmother, informing her of the tragedy, and I didn’t cry. Instead, I sat frozen in a state of shock while my eyes saw, but failed to register the world passing by.

Walking sedately down the hallway, we pass several patients’ rooms, and I turn my head to look inside the open doors. Most of the rooms appear empty, but in one room there is a small boy with light sandy hair sitting up in bed, dressed in one of those unflattering hospital gowns that are always ten sizes too big. A woman, who I assume is the boy’s mother, sits next to him reading a story. An aching sensation settles in the pit of my stomach as I realize my mother will never have the chance to share a story with me again.

“Can I help you?” a kind mannered nurse with bright blue eyes asks as we approach the nurse’s station. She must be near the end of her shift because her pinned hair is disheveled and there are heavy bags under her eyes. Despite her exhaustion, she smiles warmly and directs us to an empty room close by. My intuition tells me she has been expecting us.

Still clutching my hand, Marcie and I sit in one of the navy colored couches in the dimly lit room. The floor is carpeted and there are several framed pictures of generic landscapes hanging on the walls.

As I let the couch swallow me whole, Marcie wraps her arm around my slumped shoulders. I’m lucky to have her here with me.

“We’re going to get through this,” she whispers, but at the sound of her wholesome words, a tear falls down my blanched face. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel in this moment. I’m devastated and heartbroken over the loss of my parents, but panicked knowing my sister is still out there somewhere. She needs me. I need her. I shouldn’t just be sitting and waiting in this depressing room; I should be out there looking for her. She would be looking for me.

I’m about to rise from the couch and run when the door is pulled open, and Officer Charles accompanied by a doctor enter the room and close the door.

Officer Charles looks different from how I had pictured him on the phone. He looks to be in his late twenties, with short dark hair and a scruffy unshaven face. He looks tired.

The two men awkwardly take a seat on the couch opposite us as they survey Marcie and me. This is the last place anyone wants to be.

“Anna,” Officer Charles says, gesturing to the middle aged man seated beside him. “This is Dr. Evans. He was with your parents when they arrived in the ambulance.”

 The haggard looking doctor adjusts his glasses and clears his throat like he’s about to give a speech. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Scott,” he says in his well practiced voice.

“Please,” I stop him before he has the chance to go on. “Call me Anna.” I’ve never liked when people call each other by their last names, it sounds so impersonal to me. I’ve always thought your given name is a representation of who you are and how you know yourself.