She Discovered Too Late novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: I Stood Up Beside Myself

I lay on the hospital floor and watched Colby's shoes.

They did not move.

My jaw locked, and my whole body arched against the tile.

I heard him counting under his breath.

Then the door banged open.

"Nurse!" Arlene was on her knees before I could see her. "Nurse, in here, now!"

"He just fell," Colby said, sitting up against his pillow with the call button finally in his hand. "I couldn't reach it. I was trying."

Arlene did not look at him.

She rolled me onto my side and cupped the back of my head. Her voice stayed low and even.

"Stay with me, Cedric. Stay with me. Breathe in."

Hands came from every direction. Someone cut my sleeve open.

Someone said "status" in a loud, flat voice, and the ceiling began to move.

They took me down to the ICU on a gurney. I remember the elevator light and Arlene running beside me.

I remember Miriam's heels in the corridor, and then her voice.

"What happened?" she was shouting. "What happened to him?"

Then the room went white.

When the white went away, I was standing up.

I stood by the window of a small, bright room. There was a long glass wall to my left, and a bed under it, and a machine breathing for someone.

It took me a moment to understand that the someone was me.

He looked very small.

His cheeks had caved in. A tube ran from his mouth. His hands lay open on top of the blanket, with all their bones showing.

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