The Waiting Room Novel Novels & Stories

Her waiting. The flat waiting. The bowl waiting on the hallway shelf. The space kept warm. She was glad people had known when to wait. End of chapter 97

Elena POV The waiting room was white and sterile and filled with other people waiting for news about their loved ones, and I sat in one of the plastic chairs with my hands still covered in Adrian's blood because I couldn't bring myself to wash it off yet. Hours passed and I didn't move except to shift slightly when my body got too stiff, and I stared at the wall across from me and tried not to think about the last image I had of Adrian on the stretcher with his eyes closed and his face pale as death.

We sat there in the institutional beige silence of the waiting room, eating crackers, the television mounted in the corner playing a home renovation show on mute with the captions running in a font that was slightly too small to read from this distance. The room had two other occupants — an older man doing a crossword with the focused energy of someone for whom the crossword was load-bearing, and a woman in scrubs who appeared to be on her break and was asleep sitting up with the practiced ease of someone who had learned to sleep anywhere. A clock on the wall moved its second hand in the particular way waiting room clocks moved, like even time was slowed down in here, made thicker by the spe

Irina sat down. Sasha sat beside her. The family waiting room on the third floor was small and beige and had chairs that were marginally better than the waiting room downstairs and a window that looked out at a parking structure which was not a view designed to comfort anyone but was what it was. They sat in it. Two chairs facing the door. The clock on the wall moved in the specific way clocks moved in waiting rooms — each minute taking considerably longer than sixty seconds to complete, as though time had been informed of the situation and had decided that urgency was not its problem.

(November 17th) Ben I sit in the waiting room at St. Joseph's Emergency Room. My left leg taps an impatient rhythm on the floor. I scan the room for the seventh time, mentally taking notes on each person in sight. I check the hallway leading to the exit. No one. I check the hallway behind the front desk. No one. But someone could be approaching, just out of view. I casually stand and walk toward the entrance to the ER, scanning for signs of anyone I might have come into contact with during my two

After I was rushed into the hospital, Nova and her husband kicked Ian out of the hospital ward. As she was pregnant, he didn't dare to force his way in—so I ended up with some peace and quiet. But he started waiting outside my hospital ward every day, just as he had before we were married. Nova was beyond fed up with Ian, but this was the hospital, and she couldn't exactly throw him out. As she was pregnant, she needed to attend prenatal checkups and rest. She couldn't stay by my side around the clock, so he managed to slip into the hospital ward to take care of me.

Set the phone on the counter. Picked up his cold coffee and drank it without expression while Isa's footsteps moved through the ceiling above him and the morning light came through the window and the road outside stayed empty. The waiting room was the kind designed to make you aware of your own heartbeat. White walls. Stiff chairs. A receptionist behind a desk who had the specific energy of someone who had watched a hundred people sit in those chairs and had stopped seeing them as people. A number system. A water dispenser nobody was using because using it meant getting up and drawing attention and everyone in here was trying to take up exactly the right amount of space.

Who cared how nice I looked for the man who was going to do that? “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Theo reassured me. And with that, he and the mousey man disappeared, the door shutting behind them with the same feeling a prison door might conjure. “Now what?” I asked Charles. I glanced around the interior of the room. It certainly wasn’t an uncomfortable space. This waiting room was the size of a small living room. It had a television, a couch, a table with three chairs around it, and a coffee table where one could put laptops or other things as they waited.

"I'm his partner." She nodded. "Have a seat. The doctor will be out soon." I sat down. The waiting room was cold. White walls. Fluorescent lights. The smell of antiseptic. A woman was crying in the corner. An old man was reading a magazine. A child was sleeping on his mother's lap. Normal life. Happening right in front of me. But my world had stopped. My phone buzzed. Maya. How's practice? I stared at the screen. My hands were shaking.

I sign my name. Return the clipboard to the receptionist. “Perfect.” She files the papers. “Please have a seat. Someone will call you shortly.” I look around the waiting room and see that it has three other people seated. A woman about my age, flipping through a magazine. An older man in a business suit, checking his phone. A younger guy who looks nervous, bouncing his knee. I wonder what packages they’ve booked. What fantasies they’re here to explore. None of us make eye contact.