Freedom

Jacob pushed through the doors of the long-term ward at West Valley Medical center. Seth was in the back corner of a communal room with a curtain pulled around his bed, creating a private space roughly the size of Jacob’s bedroom at home. Not at home. He couldn’t go back there. He didn’t have a home anymore. He had slept in Seth’s bed, at Seth’s house, for the last few nights.

Seth had been moved to the long-term ward after twenty-four hours of observation for complications of his surgery. 

Seth lay on the hospital bed, as still as the dead except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. He wore a mask with tubes connected to a beeping tower of computers. Sensor wires sprouted from a mesh cap pulled down over Seth’s trademark curls and connected to another computer. On the monitor, several lines ticked zigzags across the