BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
White, perfect… the kind of white that had no option about itself. The way hospital ceilings always are, as though the architects had agreed that people waking up in pain deserved one thing in their lives that asked nothing of them.
Lena laid on her bed, in her world or maybe not her world. She just noticed the ceiling, she just woke up. She stared at the ceiling long enough to know that she's in a hospital. She became aware of her body in pieces. First her throat - dry as though she's been in a desert for a long time. Then her left arm, heavy, the weight of something taped on her skin. An IV. She recognises the cool tug of it without looking. Then her legs, distant and heavy, like they belong to someone else and had merely agreed to stay.
And then - warmth.
Her right hand.
She became aware of it last, the way you sometimes save the most important thing without knowing why. A hand was holding hers. Loosely, the way you hold something fragile, something you're afraid of crushing. His fingers rested just slightly around her knuckles, and his palm pressed beneath hers - warm and dry and impossibly still. The kind of stillness that comes from exhaustion.
Lena slowly turned her head.
The morning light penetrated the window and the pale green walls shone brighter, a get well balloon floating sadly in the corner like it had already given up on the sentiment. And there, beside her, just close to the edge of her bed in a chair that was clearly designed for no one's comfort, a man was asleep. One of his arms extended across the bed rail, his hand- that hand, on top hers. He was still dressed. Dark jeans, a grey sweater. His hair is slightly messy on one side. There was a coffee cup on the floor near his feet, empty and forgotten.
He hadn't gone home.
Lena looked at his face for a long moment, longer than she meant to. He was handsome in the way that exhaustion makes men look honest. She raised her eyebrows when she noticed his jaw was unshaved, probably by a day or two. There were shadows beneath his eyes, they looked painted.
She did not know how long she's been here.
She did not know how long he had.
The machine beside her beeped- once, twice, then rhythmically. She felt a strange ache move through her chest, that had nothing to do with whatever had brought her to this room, she thought. It was something older than that.
She pulled her hand away from the man's loose grip.
Not roughly. She wasn't cruel or at least she was trying not to be. She drew her fingers back slowly, and carefully. Hoping the warmth she left behind won't alert him to wake. Her hand came back to her own chest and she pressed it there, feeling her own heartbeat with unreasonable guilt.
Then, he moved
Not fully, just a small shift. Then he stilled again. He kept sleeping.
Lena exhaled something she hadn't realised she's been holding. She looked at the ceiling again.
'Why are you here?', she thought. She wasn't sure if she meant the question for him or for herself.
Outside the window, the city was doing what cities do at this hour, busy as usual. She could see the edge of another building, a water tower, the early morning light trying to make something beautiful out of concrete. A pigeon landed in the window timber, looked in, then decided against it and left. Lena looked in silence, she envied the bird's simplicity.
The door to her room was open a few inches. Lena could hear the distant sounds and humming of machines of the ward, soft soles shoes rubbing the vinyl floor, the murmur of a television somewhere and a cart being wheeled. And here with her, in this quiet room, a man was sleeping in a chair.
The quiet was awkward, but somehow she loved it. Her eyes stung. She blinked it back, she did it again like a practice.
She was good at that. She had always been good at that.
She turned and looked at the man again, against her better judgement. She began to examine him again and noticed a detail she'd missed before. Her eyes narrowed, on the bedside table, tucked behind a cup of water and small box of tissues, a phone lay facedown. Beside it, a crumpled receipt.
She peeked. Someone had written on the back of it.
'She takes her tea with one sugar, not two. Tell the nurse.'
She stared at it for a very long time. One sugar, not two?. She asked herself. She had mentioned it once- she was almost certain she'd only mentioned it once before, on one ordinary morning that she had not marked as significant, the kind of moment that evaporates the second it's over. And he had written it down. On a receipt. And left it where the nurses would see it.
"Who are you?" She whispered to herself.
The machine kept beeping.
She looked at him again. The man folded into an uncomfortable chair, who had stayed through the night in a room that smelled of antiseptic. Confused, but somehow not confused. She'd woken up not long ago. 'What happened?', 'What is going on?'. She began questioning herself. But she didn't have any answers, so she pressed her lips together. She thought about the ceiling again. Safe. Opinion less. Asking nothing. But her gaze kept drifting back. There is a particular kind of pain that isn't physical, the kind that lives in the space between what you want and what you'll let yourself have. She's trying to remember something but her mind is saying she hasn't forgotten anything.
She looked at the note on the receipt one more time.
'One sugar, not two'.
She looked at his hand, empty now, resting open on the edge of her blanket, like a question still waiting to be answered. She looked at his face.
He was still asleep. Still unguarded. Still here. And handsome, she smirked.
Lena closed her eyes.
The machine kept beeping, she was in her world. Silence.
Then.
The chair beside her scraped softly. He was waking up.