Chapter 54 - The Worn-Down Carpet

Back at the house, Barry and Ella grew further frustrated with each other. Can you hand me that glass of water so I can have a drink?, Ella asked. Hold on a second, Barry thought, taking a sip of water before passing it to his sister. You're still taking up most of the closet space, you know... Barry rolled his eyes, thinking back, Yes, I know. I'm trying not to! Ella took a drink of the water while thinking I wonder if Mark and Jelly are done yet...

Meanwhile, Jelly was getting more and more worried while he and Mark walked up to the hospital doors. No time to get scared, no time to get scared, he thought to himself. Mark is right here beside me, so if something goes wrong, he'll take care of it, he kept telling himself, but it didn't seem to do any good, though. He just couldn't help but become frightened.

When we stepped on the walkway, I stopped for a second, and turned to my jelly boyfriend. "Remember: Don't say anything until I give you the signal, alright?", I asked him. "When you get to him, I want you to gradually turn your eyes back to your natural pink color. It'll be really slow, so it shouldn't cause him to have another heart attack." He just replied, "I really hope you know what you're doing..." I wrapped my left arm around him, and we walked into the automatically opening doors.

The inside was really nice-looking. The walls looked like they hadn't been replaced for 10 years, the lighting inside was really warm, and the carpet was a brownish-color. There were chairs all around, although only about 3 people were here, presumably waiting to see their loved ones. "Take a seat", I whispered to my jelly boyfriend. As he walked down to the chairs, I walked up to the counter, where the secretary was.

"Hello, what can I do for you?", she asked. "I'm here to see Arnold Goyer.", I replied. "Okay... What's your relation?", she asked. "We're family friends, me and my identical twin brother.", I answered. "What's your names?", she asked. Oh, shit..., I thought to myself. I only had barely any seconds to think about it, but I had to roll the dice, and they had better be good rolls.

"My names... Gerald, and that's... David.", I answered. "Alright. Go take a seat over there on those chairs and we'll get back to you in 5 minutes.", she told me. "Thank you!", I said, walking away from the desk. I took a seat next to my jelly boyfriend, leaning really close to him. "Dude... I had to roll the dice...", I whispered to him. "What?!", he whispered back. "What do you mean, 'roll the dice'? Did she ask for our names or something?"

"Yes, she did. Let's just pray to god that there's friends he has by those names!", I whispered to him. As I turned to look at his face, I knew I was in a gigantic heap of trouble. He gave me 'the look'. You know, that one look everybody has to really tell you, "I am so killing you after this is over". "Look, even if they don't let us in, there's always another way we can approach him", I whispered.

My jelly boyfriend leaned back, facepalming as he thought of all the ways that this could go wrong. There was a woman with her baby in a stoller across from us giving us a weird look the entire time, just to really make us feel uneasy. "Are you two okay?", she asked. "Yeah, I'm just telling him what happened to poor old grandpa...", I answered. Then, like an angel coming directly from god himself, a nurse came out into the waiting room. "Gerald? David?", she called.

I nudged my jelly boyfriend's arm, to signal that this was us. We both stood up, and began walking with the nurse. We both sighed a breath of relief that we got this far. "Follow me to .", she told us. "Alright!", I enthusiastically said. "So, are you two identical twins?", she asked. "Yeah, we are.", I replied. "Oh cool! I've never seen identical twins before!", she said.

I looked over to my jelly boyfriend. He was taking some quick breaths as he got closer and closer to seeing the face of his nightmares. I whispered to him, "Calm down. I'm right here, and I'll always be here for you.", I said, wrapping my right arm around his left. He looked at me with happiness in his face. Everything's going to be okay... He can't be THAT bad... I'll finally get to talk to him!, my jelly boyfriend thought to himself.

"You must be proud if you're related to the Professor himself!", the nurse said. "Well, we sure did great in chemistry class, that's for sure!", I joked. The three of us laughed, but, of course, there were two people fake-laughing, and one person who was actually entertained by the joke. "Alright, if you go down this hallway, and go into the door on the right, you'll see him!", she told us. "Thank you so much!", my jelly boyfriend said to her, using my voice.

As she left us alone, we both exchanged looks. "This is the last chance", I told him. "If you really don't want to talk to him, it's now or never." He grabbed my left hand with his right. "Let's do this! Together!", he told me. We began slowly walking down the aisle, looking in all the rooms. There were lots of seniors laying in their beds, all of them waiting to get better... or something else. It sent chills down both of our spines, but we didn't care. If anything would ever go wrong, we had each other.

Back at the house, Barry and Ella were still fighting over closet space. Ugh! Barry!, Ella said, trying to give herself some space by pushing her brother. Hey! OW!, Barry thought. Stop pushing! It hurts! Ella thought back, I don't care! You've been hogging this closet for all these minutes now! I've been uncomfortable this whole time! Then, they both stopped in their tracks when they heard the front door knocking. Barry looked at his sister, who was motioning him to sit back down. Stay quiet, and don't answer the door! They'll go away eventually... Barry softly laughed, thinking back, I hope so!

Back at the hospital, me and my jelly boyfriend stopped in front of the closed door. We must have stood there for a good 2 or 3 minutes, just thinking about what this man had done. I looked over at my jelly boyfriend. He was shivering, as thoughts of how this man could hurt him further. "Look, we're not going in until you're completely comfortable.", I whispered to him.

"Bu-Bu-But what if he... huuurts me...?", my jelly boyfriend struggled to ask. "He might not even remember you all that well! After all, he's only seen you for a couple of seconds.", I assured him. He slowly stopped shaking, deeply thinking about what exactly he was going to say to him. He eventually nodded his head, signaling the go-ahead. I reached my hand up on the wooden door, and slowly pushed it open.