He stayed put.
The nurses told him it'd be a few hours.
Leo just nodded, found a chair in the hallway outside oncology, and planted himself like someone who'd made up his mind.
He wasn't leaving until it was over.
Lila sat with him at first.
She got up, came back with vending machine coffee, and set a can next to his hand, silent.
He didn't touch it.
He just stared at the door.
And Lila sat there, watching him.
"You don't have to stay," she said finally. "I got it covered."
"I know."
"Leo."
"I know, Lila."
She let it go.
Somewhere along the way, he started pacing.
Up and down the corridor. Walk past the window, past the nurses' station, double back.
The hospital had its tempo slow, washed-out by fluorescent light, everyone moving around him while he moved through it like a ghost.
His mind replayed his mother's words.
Before pride and fear start to harden.
He thought about Alex's number in his phone how he never changed it.
