A Twist in His Story

Alexander
I sat in the break room of the hospital, my elbows sitting on the white, stone table as I had my head buried into the palm of my hands. This week had been stressful, being the anniversary of Rose’s death and Caleb’s disappearance. I knew his father had taken him away, hell, even Damien, Josh and Liam had confirmed it, but I was lucky, I was lucky to not live there anymore. I moved away once I was certain that Rose was dead and that Caleb was most definitely not coming back.
I had cried, I had cried for weeks, months when they told Mom, Dad and I. At first, I had refused to believe it, there was no way I could believe that my sister was dead, that Caleb had been taken away, that he was now back under the abuse of his father. Hell, I didn’t even know if he was alive anymore, for all I know, he could be bones in the earth.
“Fuck,” I muttered, shaking my head, lifting it out of my palms to look at the clock in front of me, telling me that I had ten minutes before I had to return to work.
I glanced over at my white hospital gown that hung over the chair beside me. I was proud to be a doctor, ecstatic was more accurate, but everyone I knew at this hospital knew that during this week, I worked passed my ‘best’ and onto ‘work until exhausted’. Today was a Friday, the day before my two days off and I really didn’t want to go, truthfully, I didn’t even want this half an hour break but Cynthia, a nurse that was like a second mother to me, had asked me to, and I just couldn’t turn her down.
“Doctor Royce to Room 413, Doctor Royce,” a nurse spoke of the intercom.
I automatically rose from my seat and glanced at the time that now read 1:30PM and bolted out of the room, grabbing my Doctors coat on the way out as I slung it around my shoulders. I moved towards the elevator and pressed the up arrow, waiting until the machine dinged and then climbed into the familiar machine, pressing the fourth floor button without even looking.
I was bouncing on the balls of my feet, the few seconds to get up to the 4th floor felt like hours, so I was more than relieved when the elevator stopped and the doors opened. I raced out the door and ran towards room 413, stopping several meters before the door, and walking in professionally, my hands folded behind my back as I stared out the window before I glanced over at the bruised patient. The patient had a friend with him; the friend had dark brown hair with a black goatee. His eyes were as black as coal as he wore a concerned frown on his lips. The man was thin and looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties and wasn’t at all that attractive in my eyes, no one would compare to Caleb.
Shaking my head, I moved forwards to peer down at the man that lay unconscious on the bed. This man seemed to be in his early twenties with shaggy black hair that looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in a very, very long time. The man had visible scars covering his face, but not much else was evident due to the sheet and t-shirt that covered the rest of the body, apart from a scarred arm that revealed a large, hunting knife sticking out of it with a well wrapped bandage around the knife and the man’s arm.
“What happened?” I asked, glancing up at the brown haired man that had a faint smell of marijuana on him.
“Shouldn’t I tell that to the cops?”
“Well yes—”
“Well then don’t bother asking any questions.”
“Well then you should probably get rid of the smell of marijuana,” I replied, rolling my eyes before pressing a large green button on the wall to call up some nurses which would help the unconscious man.
The nurses rushed in quickly and helped me rolled the bed out the room and into a surgery room while another nurse escorted the brown haired man towards the waiting room. I shook my head at the man before I looked down at the injured man before asking for a pair of scissors. The nurses nodded and quickly handed the scissors over, watching me as I slowly cut the shirt off of his body, gasping at the scars I spotted covering his torso. In fact, the scars looked familiar, looking closer, I noticed that they were very, very similar to Caleb’s. Swallowing nervously, I directed my attention back to the man’s face, and brushed the stray hairs away from the pale, scarred face I knew so well.
“Caleb…”
“Doctor? I’m sorry, but we need to begin,” a nurse spoke, making me glance up at her.
I nodded before handing them the scissors and t-shirt before I began. The procedure was quick, fifteen minutes to half an hour at the maximum before we returned him to his room, 413. As the nurses returned him to his room, I shook my head before moving down to the bottom floor and moved over to the man that arrived with Caleb and sat beside him.
“How long have you known Caleb for?”
“Caleb? Who’s that?” the man asked, glancing sideways at me, curious.
“The man you brought in, Caleb Freeman,” I answered, shocked.
“Oh, the boy, only about an hour, why?”
“Oh, no reason, none at all,” I replied, standing up again, “by the way, feel free to visit him, he’s in the same room as before,” I continued before flashing the man a smiling and turning on my heel to see who was next on my chart.
I was relieved to know that the man had only known Caleb for an hour, I would’ve hated to see Caleb with a man like him, yet again, I would hate to see Caleb with any partner. Like I vowed, I love him and I always would, but what about Misty, my 'girlfriend'.