I all but charged through the entrance of the hospital before heading straight to the receptionist with a single-minded focus, barely able to react and dodge in time the wave of people moving through the entrance. Thankfully for me, there was nobody in line in front of the receptionist, a different woman than the rude lady that sat there previously when I went to collect my medicine. Upon spotting me, the young brunette greeted me enthusiastically the moment I got to the front desk.
"Welcome. What can I help you with today?" She asked with a tone that was far too chipper for a hospital while she typed away on her computer.
"I need to see my father. He got brought here this afternoon."
"Of course, just give me - oh my god! Are you alright!" she proclaimed loudly as she looked up from her screen and took in my injured appearance.
"I'm fine," I replied, dismissing her concerns quickly. " I just need to see my father as soon as possible, so please, where is he?"
"Alright, if you're sure you're okay. If you just tell me his full name and give me a moment, I can give it to you pronto." she answered, though from the way she kept glancing at me as if I was about to collapse, it was clear she disagreed with my assessment of myself.
"Dan Collins." I said impatiently, strumming my fingers rapidly against the desk in a futile effort to get rid of the anxiety I was feeling.
After what felt like a lifetime but couldn't have been more than half a minute, the cheery receptionist turned back towards me, "He's in room 114 at the moment, just go down that corridor and follow the number plates on the wall."
I barely heard the end of her sentence, already rushing to room 114 as fast as I possibly could. In such a rush, I no longer even bothered to try and avoid any of the other people present around me, barging into a few of them to their disgruntled displeasure as I passed hall after hall. My only focus was on the small bronze plaques that were placed on every wall, displaying the room numbers for each hall. Until, as my legs came to a sudden stop that almost sent me tumbling to the ground, I finally came face to face with room 114.
Standing in front of the door, my heart started to pound heavily in my chest, and my mouth became drier than the Sahara Desert. I took a moment to try and calm myself down to minimal results before I steeled my nerves and all but threw the door open. Immediately stepping inside, I was left paralysed as I was greeted by the prone, sleeping form of my exhausted father. Surrounded by the same beeping machines in a near identical room to the one I was in when I was last here.
Collapsing into the chair resting beside my father, for the first time in a long while, I took more than a cursory glance at him and truly noticed just how awful he looked. His skin was as deathly pale as my own, covered in a layer of sweat despite the cool temperature of the room. His gaunt figure lay there motionless, only taking up half of the available bed space due to the massive loss in weight he had experienced. His breathing came out in shallow bursts, so shallow that it was hard to see whether he was even still breathing as he lay there unmoving. In truth, between the two of us, it would have been hard to figure out which one of us was the one about to die. It was hard to see the similarities between the strong, tall, burly man I had always associated my father with to the frail looking man resting in front of me.
I could feel my eyes sting as tears threatened to build as I sat and stared at my father, and for the second time that day, I was unable to hold them back. Just like before, they began to spill out in excess, cascading down in streams from my eyes and onto my lap. I was overcome with grief and regret. It was all my fault. I was the reason he ended up here looking as gravely ill as he did. It was because of me.
I went to grab his hand that was lying limply off the side of the bed. As I sat there with the constant sound of laboured breaths and the beeping of the heart rate monitor, I thought back to my father and all that he had done. How he sacrificed and worked tirelessly for my benefit, how he all but sacrificed his own life for the betterment of mine. This wasn't the first time I had thought of this with Dad, in fact mentioning something similar in a previous argument. But without the bitterness clouding my judgement, I was truly able to appreciate what he did for me. Regardless of the negatives that came because of it.
Suddenly, I heard the door behind me begin to open. Into the room, an old woman wearing a white lab coat and a pair of green bespeckled glasses entered who I assumed was the doctor in charge of my father. "Oh, hello, I didn't know Mr. Collins had any visitors. If you would like, I can come back in a moment." She said with a serene smile.
"No, no, now's perfectly fine." I panicked, not wanting her to wait even a second more before checking on my father, which she promptly did, going over to the heart rate monitor before scribbling something down on the clipboard in her hands.
"How is he?" I asked, unable to wait for her to finish whatever she was checking.
Seeing my clearly anxious appearance, she flashed another calming smile "You have nothing to worry about; he will be just fine. All he needs is some good rest and plenty of food and water."
The tension which encompassed my entire being loosened immediately. With a deep sigh of relief, I all but flopped back down onto the chair, a relieved smile plastered onto my face as I did so.
"I don't mean to pry, but do you need someone to come look over your injuries? Some of them look very serious." I suddenly heard the doctor ask a couple of seconds later.
"No, no, I'm alright, really. I jus-" The sound of a large, sudden yawn interrupted me halfway through, a sense of exhaustion overwhelming me as my body was no longer being pumped full of adrenaline as it was seconds ago.
"Would it be alright if I just stayed in here tonight?" I asked, my eyes never leaving my father.
Through my bleary eyes, I saw as she offered me a warm smile, "If you would like, I could go get you a room for you to sleep. It would also give us a chance to look over your injuries."
Even though a part of me wanted to jump at the offer of a clean, fresh bed to fall asleep in, as I looked back to the collapsed form of my father as he lay motionless on the bed, an even larger part of myself didn't want to be separated from him. Even though I knew he would be safe, I felt as if he would disappear if I left.
"Actually, would it be alright if I just stayed here?" I asked, annoyed at how vulnerable my voice sounded and the sympathetic look I got back in return.
"Of course, sweetie. I'll make sure no one barges in here unless it's an emergency."
And with that, she walked away, the sound of her exiting the room accompanied only by the sound of the heart rate monitor and the slow breathing of both myself and my father. Yet I heard none of it. All my attention was instead rested solely on my father, the only thoughts passing through my mind involving the guilt and regret I continued to feel. Slowly, I brought up his fragile hand that stayed within my grasp up to my lowered head, resting it against my forehead as if I was in prayer.
"Please, Dad, please wake up. I'm so sorry." I muttered incessantly, the string of apologies never ceasing even as the seconds turned to minutes.