“I’m not saying this to offend you, but you do looked pretty exhausted,” she said, glancing over at me in concern before she started to change a bag of liquid on Alice’s IV cart. Alice seemed to have drifted off.

“I suppose I probably do. People have been telling me that a lot lately,” I replied, finally giving up.

“It’s not really that surprising given the circumstances. Stress really wears a person down,” the nurse replied, still bustling around Alice’s bed and checking on things.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that a time or two.” I said it with a smile, but she didn’t see me because she was checking Alice’s blood pressure. I heard her sigh, and she didn’t turn around before she started to speak.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to sound condescending. Of course you know that. I guess it’s just working in a job like this. I’m always around it, so I think I forget that people don’t know this stuff.”

“It’s really okay,” I told her. “I guess she’s still pretty tired too, huh?” It was a dumb question, but I felt like I needed to ask it anyway. I didn’t really know why, but it felt necessary.

“Yeah, she’s still not completely out of the woods. Don’t get worried, because she’s fine, and it’s normal. But she hasn’t really had a lot of time to recover yet. It should only be a couple more days before she’s able to start therapy though, so please don’t let it get you down too badly. All her vitals look good, and she’s making a lot of progress with her muscle control from the looks of things. Dr. Hernandez is going to be in late this afternoon. It’d probably be a good idea for you to both get some sleep.” She finished whatever she was doing with Alice and turned around to smile at me. “Do you need something to eat?”

I heard myself say “I don’t think my friends remembered today. I have things in the fridge in my room, though.” I didn’t mean for it to come out sounding sad. After all, they’d been bringing me things since we’d first come in, and I had more than enough food in the room.