Page 21 of Differences

He shook his head. Something deeper was going on with Weston.

“Can I take you?”

“I said I don’t want to go home.”

I let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, you can’t stay here, drunk as hell, so decide!” I challenged.

“Can you take me to the hospital?”

My eyes widened. “The hospital? Are you sick? Is something wrong?” I looked him up and down, inspecting his body to make sure that I missed nothing.

“Can you? Yes, or no?”

I sighed. “Yeah, come on.”

He stood from his chair, stumbling. I shook my head at how disheveled he looked. We made our way out of the door, but not before I grabbed the trash bag with the two bottles of liquor.

* * *

Forty minutes later,we sat in front of the hospital. We had been sitting there for five minutes. I kept looking at Weston, waiting for something, but there was nothing.

“Um...Weston, are we waiting on someone or something?”

“I need to go in.”

He opened the door and tried to speed walk to the door but stumbled. I immediately jumped out to grab him on his left side. Security patrolled the hospital heavily, and I would hate for them to lock him up for public intoxication.

“Weston, what are you doing? You are too drunk to go up in there!”

“I need to see her. I need to see her.”

“See who, Wes?”

He finally looked at me. His eyes were filled to the brim with tears.

“Tell the receptionist we are visiting room 4 in the ICU unit. Please.”

I looked him up and down. Whoever was in here was taking a toll on him. Instead of questioning anymore, we walked toward the receptionist, and I did as I was told. We were now on the elevator headed to ICU room 4. I walked at his pace, slowly yet steady. We finally made it to the ICU hallway and were a few steps from room 4. He stopped walking and froze in place.

“Wes, what are you doing? You said you wanted to go to this room. It’s right there.”

“I can’t,” he mumbled, his voice shaking.

My eyes ballooned. “What do you mean you can’t? Wes, visiting hours are about to end. You are drunk as hell right now. All of this is too much!”

“I...she’s in there...” His voice cracked, causing me to stop talking. “She’s in there,” he whispered.

“Who’s in there, Weston?”

He sniffed. “My mama, and I’m the reason.”

I grabbed at my chest. My heart was hurting for him. Now everything made sense. Weston was acting the way that he was because his mama was in ICU.

“Wes...”

“It’s my fault. She’s in there because of me!”

Before I could respond, the glass door to room 4 opened. Out walked a short, dark-skinned woman with locs. She looked just as defeated as Weston. We made eye contact, and her eyes traveled to Weston. Instantly, her look of defeat turned to anger. She stormed over toward us with her fist balled up.

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