Purposefully Accidental

Interlude

2020

When I woke up, I found him sitting on a plastic chair next to my hospital bed, scrolling through his phone with a deep frown on his face.

I shifted with a grunt, which caused him to look up and sit straighter. Attempting to sit up was a mistake—I immediately saw stars—so I dropped back down and let my head fall into the thin pillow with a sigh.

"Why the long face?" I asked him before he could say anything. I didn't even bother with a greeting. It wasn't polite, I knew—we hadn't seen each other in so long.

He paused. "Just reading the news," he answered. "Apparently, this Coronavirus thing is serious. They're saying it's about to get worse. I don't know, though. It just sounds like a common cold."

"Mm," I hummed. "Think I heard the nurses talk about it while I was getting my blood taken."

"Yeah—in fact, I was almost not allowed to go in to see you. Family only." He threw me a sheepish smile. "Told them I was your fiancé—hope that's okay."

"Well, what's another little white lie? Your whole family already thought we were together, once." I shrugged. "Anyway, thank you for coming. You absolutely didn't have to. And it's really great to see you. Sorry, should've led with that."

He shook his head at me. "Don't thank me. It's the least I could do, after everything you've done for me. And it's nice to see you, too, Han. I just wish it was under a better circumstance."

I looked away, biting my lip. I didn't want to admit it, but I told him, "I'm scared."

I squeezed his steady hand, feeling warmth seep through my cold, clammy skin. I told him what happened and why I called him. And apologized for intruding on his life, when we barely even kept in touch the past few years. I felt really rude about it.

"I don't know what's going to happen now. They didn't tell me anything. Just kept pushing me into different rooms to get tested."

Feeling unwanted tears already falling down my cheeks, I moved to wipe them away. I'd never felt that kind of pain in my life, not ever since my accident. I almost thought I was getting hit by a moving vehicle, by the way the pain had incapacitated me.

"My mom had a cancer scare when she was around my age. She had the same problems with her periods. And she had trouble getting pregnant. They checked her for lumps and found something concerning. Just like me. They thought it might be ovarian cancer, but the blood tests cleared her. What if... what if I'm not that lucky?"

I still wouldn't look at him in the eye, so it surprised me when he leaned down and wrapped his arms around me—as much as he could, with the way I was laid down on the bed. Before I knew it, I was embarrassingly sobbing into his chest, tears and snot all over my face.

He didn't say a thing, just held me there as I was sobbing until I tired myself out. He shooshed me, patted my head comfortingly until I calmed down.

My sobs tapered off until I was lightly laughing and snorting into my hands. "Oh, why am I being so dramatic? Maybe it's just my appendix."

He pulled away from me and helped dry my face with a napkin from the box next to the bed as I continued laughing to myself.

"Don't, Hannah. You're doing that again." He rubbed my shoulder gently. "Don't bottle it up. You're allowed to be scared."

I took a deep, shaky breath. "I'm so, so, so scared. I'm scared, and my body hurts, and I'm so fucking scared."

"Whatever happens, you know I'm here for you, right? Just like you were there for me, with everything that happened with my dad. I promise everything's gonna be okay."