“Your brother’s in the hospital.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that there are fewer people roaming these halls than in the mortuary.”
“The morgue,” I corrected.
“What’s the difference?”
“The mortuary is a funeral home. The morgue is where they put dead people in the hospital.”
He pretended to consider this for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope. They sound the same.”
Gesturing down another hallway, we found vending machines, but not a single thing looked appealing.
“Not in the mood for prepackaged snacks?” he asked, slipping a dollar bill out of his pocket, only to find there was no place to put it in the machine.
“How the hell do they expect you to pay for food if you can’t insert a dollar bill?”
I pointed to the bright yellow sign at the center of the plexiglass. “Credit cards only.”
Leaning in, he read it at least twice before straightening, scratching the back of his neck. “Well, they should have made it more obvious. Anyone could miss that.”
“It’s on a bright yellow paper.”
“Right, but it blends in with the colors of the machine.”
“It’s underlined three times,” I added.
“Do you want something to eat or not?”
“Not,” I grimaced. Nothing could tempt me to eat right now.
With my stomach churning like a washing machine, there was no way anything edible was going near my mouth.
“Something to drink, then. Here, this is what you need,” he said, moving over to the drink machine.
“What?”
“You’ll see. It’ll solve all your problems.”
As he tried and failed to get his card to work, I leaned back against the white wall and watched from a distance as a nurse went behind the desk and started charting about her patients.
Another nurse came over and they began laughing. It struck me as odd that I was waiting for any news on my newly minted boyfriend, yet they were going about their day as if nothing had happened.
Then again, they probably dealt with death and illness every day. Maybe they had to laugh so they didn’t go home at the end of every night ready to slit their wrists.
“I see slightly dramatic thoughts drifting through that brain of yours,” Jeff whispered, shoving a Mountain Dew in my face.
“What is this?”
“Well, you see, Bailey. That there is what we like to call a drink. Also known as pop, but commonly referred to as soda, soda pop, Coke?—”
“I mean, why would you get me Mountain Dew? Are you trying to poison me?”
“Actually, the sugar should help you from slipping into depression. This place is already bad enough. No need to sink any lower. Trust me on this one.”
Opening the bottle, I took a drink, grimacing at the amount of sugar I was ingesting. I wasn’t a big pop drinker to begin with, but this was like spooning sugar right into my mouth.
“Better, right?” he grinned.
