Chapter 4
Zac woke up with a start, vaguely aware of a movement beside him. He turned his head to see what was going on, and saw about five doctors around a hospital bed. Realising that it was in fact Taylor's hospital bed, he shot to his brother's side.
"Where am I? Where's my family? Who are you?" Taylor said with a really strange look on his face.
"Taylor? Tay? You're awake? Oh my goodness....thank you God! Thank you!" Zac went straight to Taylor and hugged him with a big bear hug. The doctors tried to get him to pull away, but he wouldn't move. Taylor was finally awake and he wasn't going to let him go away again.
"I'm sorry sir, but you can't stay here, your brother needs some rest if he wants to get back to normal as soon as possible." said the doctor who looked like he was in charge.
"Oh...yeah...okay". He hugged Taylor for one last time and then he went outside to wait. Oh man! I completely forgot to call Mom and Dad. He stood up from his not-so-comfy hospital chair and headed straight for the nearest pay phone.
Ring ring ring
"Hello?"
"Umm...hi Mom, it's Zac....look I don't have much time to explain why I haven't called, but you've got to come to the hospital...okay?" There was a long silence. "Mom???"
Diana was having difficulty breathing...."Oh my god honey, what happened? Are you alright? Where's Taylor?"
"Mom....Mom....calm down....I'm okay. Taylor had an accident, the doctors said he'll make it through...just come to the hospital and we can talk about it then, ok mom?"
"Ok baby! I'll be right there...bye...I love you sweetie"
"Love you too Mom, bye!" and he hung up the phone.
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"How is he going to be, doctor?" Diana asked, concerned.
"Oh, I shouldn't worry, Mrs. Hanson. The only thing is that because of Taylor's AIDS, we have to know whether Zachary actually came into contact with any of Taylor's blood." Dr. Gipson explained.
A look of complete shock passed over Diana's face. "AIDS? But, Dr Gipson, my Taylor doesn't have AIDS!"
Dr. Gipson looked down at Taylor's medical file. "No, he definitely has AIDS, Mrs Hanson... I'm sorry, I assumed you knew..."
Diana had stopped listening. Panicked, she turned to Zac? "Did you know?" she demanded. Zac, looking as shocked as his mother, simply shook his head. "You didn't... you didn't get any of his blood on you, did you? Please, Zac, say you didn't."
"I didn't." Zac stated in a small voice.
"Good." Dr. Gipson told him. Then, turning to Diana, he said, "Well, you can take Taylor home now, Mrs. Hanson. Apart from a nasty bump on the head, he's fine now. There's absolutely no reason to worry, I assure you. Oh," he turned to display of leaflets and picked a few AIDS related ones out and handed them to Diana, "you may wish to look through these. And it would be a good idea to try and talk to him."