Lazar

by Lawrence Heath

  “I’m afraid you and your parents will have a bit of a wait.”

  As she spoke the doctor’s pager buzzed.

  “Excuse me,” she said as she read the wording on its screen. “Please take a seat, I’ll be back in a minute” she suggested distractedly as she turned and hurried up the ward quickly followed by the nurse.

  Hal looked at the seats, and then at the curtains and then back up the ward. The doctor and the nurse’s attentions were elsewhere. Nobody else appeared to be around.

  He turned back toward the curtains, then looked down and took a deep breath.

  “Right, if I’m going to do this I must remain impassive,” he told himself insistently. “I mustn’t give her any clue as to how she looks from my reaction.”

  Hal took another breath and then swiftly slipped inside the curtains. The bed was immediately in front of him and straight ahead was a girl propped up on a white cliff-face of pillows.

  He betrayed his shock immediately. But so did she. Instinctively, she snatched a knot of her unkempt hair and pulled it diagonally across her face as quickly as she could.

  But not before Hal saw.