Hospice was not a normal hospital room.

For one thing, it was almost exactly like a hotel room. A comfortable bed, a ceiling fan gentle whirring. A small tv was high up in the corner, playing nothing but static. There was a wooden desk, an open, empty closet, and a couch, two chairs on either end.

It was obviously a place meant for people to stay in for a while. Maybe a week. A place to be comfortable before they died. Not the place for someone to go in and out of so quickly.

Patrick sat in a wooden chair by the bed, asleep. He was the only living thing in the room-besides me, of course. A bowl of wilted and dead flowers sat on the table. Yes. We were the only living things.

It was a comfortable place, if eerie. Too quiet. Too loud, at the same time, noise from a heart monitor next to the bed reverberating around my head.

I tried to shake way the sounds, only to make the headache larger. My head gave a feeble nudge but was for the most part uncompliant in moving.

I turned my eyes back to Patrick. His head was rested near my knee, and he was snoring softly. His chest moved up and down rhythmically. Patrick looked younger, which made me realize how much older the stress lately had made him. I felt guilty. This man should be young still, laughing and running with Pete, Andy and Joe. Singing and living, not sitting in a place for the almost dead.

Almost dead. I was almost dead. Or maybe I was dead already. I couldn't tell, numb as I was. Mary had probably given me morphine to call some of the pain.

I felt pretty peaceful. Sure, I was dying. Instead of being scared, I accepted the fact. Embrace it. Embraced the darkness and the stars and my mother, who was there, there for me.

I took one last look at Patrick. He didn't know, not yet. Soon, though, he would be woken by the fervent beeping of the heart monitor. A nurse would come. He would learn. 

But, sometime, maybe years later or maybe a few days later, he would love. He would move on. That was what I wanted him to do, the only thing I wanted him to do.

"Goodbye, Forrest."

I ran up to the hospice room where Bailey lay. Immediately, I heard Patrick's voice. His dry, aching sobs. He was holding Bailey, he shoulder lolling on his. Her face was passive, expressionless. So unlike the talkative, laughing Bailey I knew.

My best friend was murmuring something in her ear. "I told you you had to stay." He was saying. "I told you. Why, you were getting better, Bailey. Why?"

She died on a Saturday morning.

I think Bailey would have appreciated the timing.