Beat Of My Heart

Chapter Eight: Eccentrics

Chapter 8

“It’s only been about a week but I missed you so much!” Anthony said when running back in to the hospital room.

Laughing, I replied, “I missed you too! How was home?” 

He shrugged, “Boring as usual. I would have rather been here. You can blame stupid Nate for that,” he trailed off as soon as Nate walked in the room.

“Stupid Nate, huh?” He asked, looking at Anthony now.

“What makes you think we were talking about you?” Anthony said.

“Well you did say my name," Nate concluded.

“It was a different Nate.”

“Sure it was." 

Unwilling to keep arguing about it, Anthony turned to me. He noticed something that must have bothered him, which led him to the question, “Why did you let him sign your cast but not me?!” He said accusingly towards me. I laughed as he faked disgust when referring to Nate.

“You can sign it too, Anthony.”

Nate chimed in, “And technically she didn’t let me sign it. I didn't really ask." I rolled my eyes as Nate flashed a dazzling smile at me.

Anthony made his way over to a backpack set near his bed. He pulled a sixteen pack of Crayola brand markers. Then he turned towards me, and sat down on the edge of my bed next to my cast.

He wrote his name in big, colorful block letters, covering up some of Nate's previous artwork. Anthony’s kid-like handwriting made Nate’s messiness look almost neat. He didn’t stop at his name though; he kept drawing over any area of my cast that was still left white. He drew aliens, spaceships, shapes, people, animals, and pretty much else you could think of that went through a little kid’s brain. My cast looked like a circus. 

“Anthony!” I asked as my cast began to look like a chaos of colors. “I said you could sign your name, not make an entire art project out of it!”

“Hold still, I’m almost done,” he said ignoring my complaints entirely. That was just typical of him.

Once he finally finished, he stepped back to take a look at his hard work. He admired it and smiled to show he was proud. He should be proud; it took him almost a half hour to no longer make my cast visible of white.

I could still see the spot where Nate had signed. Although it was untidy, it was more perfect then I could have asked for myself.

“I’ll be right back,” Anthony said before getting up and walking near the door, “Lizzie has to come and see this! Those are some of my best drawings ever!" 

I remembered hearing Lizzie’s name before. It was one of Anthony’s also diagnosed friends. I was finally going to get to meet her,He talked about her a lot to me too, in the free time we spent in the hospital room together before. It was nice to put faces to names so frequently heard about.

“Your cast looks.....great,” Nate chuckled. I forgot he was even still in the room as I waited for Anthony to return with his friend.

“I actually agree with you. The white was kind of boring,” I said, admiring it as well. Anthony sure made it look less-boring, which pleased Nate a lot as well as myself. 

Anthony came in a few minutes later, dragging a long the hand of a young girl. She looked to be the same age as him, maybe a little bit younger. I could tell she was sick too, just like Anthony. Her body looked frail and fragile, but mostly really tiny. I was shocked to see bright purple hair, cut short in to a bob.