Turnaround

I sit in the waiting room of the local hospital, clutching my hands in a fist. There are a lot of people even at this late of an hour all shuffling about, going up to the receptionists’ desk with scowls on their faces. They speak in harsh words and point at the clock. It seems like I’m the only calm one in a state of confusion, but I’m too scared to get up or do anything. My spine grinds against the back of the chair as I shift position so I’m hunched over. My hands are white and shaking, and my throat is parched but I gulp anyway as a lady comes up to me. I see only her sneakers and don’t meet her eyes.
“Are you okay, young man?” she asks. With relief and dread I realize she isn't a nurse, and look up to see an aging woman carrying a satchel over her shoulder. I fake a smile and nod, yet to my dismay she sits down next to me and sets the satchel at her feet. “Do you need anything?”
“No,” I tell her, running my fingers through my dark hair. I message the ache in the back of my neck, and my hand is drenched in sweat when I pull it back and look at it. The stranger gives me an odd look and shifts in her chair to make a point. “Look, honey,” she says, “you can talk to me about whatever it is that’s happening, alright?” She continues when I don’t reply. “Why are you here all by yourself?”
“Car crash,” I reply, looking at the clock. The impatience of all the others is starting to get to me, and the seconds tick past as the minute hand stretches towards midnight.
“I’m sorry to hear that, doll.”
“It’s okay,” I lie.
She sits back in her chair before reaching out to grab a magazine from a table across from us. The woman makes no more attempts to console me, instead thumbing through the pages, her eyes darting frantically across the ...

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...aren't they?” My voice is a mere whisper, and I know the doctor hasn't heard me correctly. I repeat myself. “You don’t have to give me a speech, Doctor. I know they’re dead.”
He bites his lip and nods. You’d think it would be easier for a Doctor to break the news. “I’m sorry, son.”
The last hour I had spent preparing for this moment, because deep down I seemed to know that my family would never leave the hospital alive. Still, the words hit me at full force, and I feel my breathing quicken and heartbeat pick up as my eyes dart around the room. My pulse pounds in my temple as if I just ran a mile, and the doctor is trying to get me to calm down, but the room is spinning and inky blackness edges into the corner of my vision. My legs feel weak and shaky as I succumb to the horribleness of it all.
I am terrified.
And at that moment, the world falls out from under me.