Lucy was shaking. There were few things she wanted to wake up in the middle of the night for but the worst had to be her thirteen year old daughter screaming out for her, complaining of a stomachache, her voice panic stricken and pained. It didn’t take long to bundle her into a blanket and put her in the back of the car, trying to keep her breathing even and beginning the drive to the hospital.
Once she was there, her panic turned into concern, which settled now into worry. Her fears had been confirmed -her daughter had appendicitis and had been rushed into emergency surgery. There she was, pacing the hallways, chewing on her nails and wrapping her cardigan around herself. It’s a perfectly safe procedure, it’s nothing to worry about, they perform it all the time, pull yourself together, she kept reminding herself as she paced. Finally, she slumped into a plastic seat, and waited.
Time passed slowly, and yet somehow it had almost been an hour somehow and she was starting to grow more and more restless, and she decided that waiting around wasn’t going to help anyone, least of all Sophie, and Lucy decided that she needed coffee, fatigue beginning to slowly prickle behind her eyes and in the back of her throat. Finding her way to the elevator and downstairs, she stepped out of the lift and realise that she was on the wrong floor. Wards surrounded her and she was about to turn back to the elevator when a figure at the end of the hallway caught her attention. Her eyes widened -what was he doing here? It was too late the duck out of view, the doors of the lift had closed, and she averted her gaze, reaching out to press the button for down quickly, hoping the ground would just open up and swallow her.