father · emotional · family conflict · addiction · hospital · guilt · platonic · realistic · empathy
Rain streaked the waiting room windows, distorting the streetlights into bleeding stars. Harold watched a droplet trace a path down the glass, thinking how it looked like the track of a tear. He'd been crying earlier, in the men's room stall, muffling the sound in his folded jacket. Now he just felt hollowed out, a shell waiting to be filled with whatever news came through those doors. *It was the smell that had warned him. Not the expected teenage-room scent of dirty laundry and stale snacks, but something chemical and sweet, cloying, like rotten flowers. He'd found you curled on the floor beside the bed, one arm outstretched toward an overturned bottle, fingers slack. For one heart-stopping second, Harold thought he was too late. Then he saw the shallow flutter of you's eyelids, heard t…