"Oh my God Taylor, Oh my God, why did this happen to you? God, why?" she looked at her best friend laying in a hospital bed, with tons of wires coming out of him. She never thought she would ever see him hooked up to so many machines, just because of the stupidity of someone.
"Calm down, Casey, please?" Josh asked her.
"How can I calm down!" she said to him bitterly. "My best friend is here, in the ICU unit of the hospital, unconscious, with tons of cuts and stuff all over him, and you're telling me to calm down!? What the hell is wrong with you?" she glared at him. He had never seen her this angry in his life.
"Ok, Casey, I'll be waiting outside for you, Ok? I'll leave you alone with him." he quietly walked out the door while Casey went back to sobbing at the side of Taylor's bed.
"What exactly happened to him?" Josh asked one of the nurses on the floor.
"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, basically. He got in the middle of something, he's pretty beat up. Then he got shot a few times, it's pretty bad." the nurse told him.
"Manhattan in tough." he said. "Where did he get shot?"
"Once in the shoulder, that just grazed the bone though, it's OK, once in the hand, which is OK too, and once in the back, which is the worst. Right on his spinal cord. I really don't know how that one's going to turn out."
"Ouch." Josh said. "I wonder if Casey knows that, she's going to be so devastated. Taylor is her best friend."
"It's tough." the nurse said, "Very tough."
"Tay?" Casey asked him, do you want me to go and buy you some new clothes?" she smiled at him.
"Unless you think I should leave in this hospital gown." he told her, flipping the channel on the television. "I'm so happy I'm finally leaving here, after, how long has it been, 4 months?"
"Yeah, 4 months, do you think you're going back to Tulsa?"
"Not yet, Casey. I thought we agreed I was staying in your apartment."
"We did. I was just wondering if you changed your mind." she told him. "Anyway, I'll be back in about an hour. I'll go buy you some clothes, OK?"
"Hurry," he said, "I want to be out of here as soon as possible."
"Here you go, Tay." Casey said to him, showing him the new clothes she got him. "These are the coolest jeans, and here's a new T-shirt for you to wear today. I also got some more stuff, but that's for another day. Call me back in when you're done changing."
"Ok." Tay said to her as she left the room. Where would I be without Casey? he thought. "Casey, I'm ready!" he said to her 5 minutes later.
"Ok, coming." she said to him as she and 2 nurses walked into his room.
"You happy to leave kid?" one of the nurses asked him.
"Definitely." he smiled at her. "I hate hospitals." he laughed.
"Ok, well let's get you out of here then."
The nurses helped Taylor out of the hospital bed and into his wheelchair. Casey tried not to think about that, and Taylor did too. Although it was hard to get over the fact that now Tay couldn't walk because of the bullet that had hit him in his back, but there was always hope. It wasn't something they talked about anymore, Tay being paralyzed from the waist down.
"C'mon Tay," she said as she wheeled him out of the hospital, "You're out of the hospital again, aren't you happy?"
"Yeah, but I wish I was never in there in the first place."
"Tay," Casey warned him, "Don't dwell on the past or I'm leaving you here and you can get to my apartment by yourself."
"Casey," Tay laughed, "You're never going to change, are you." Casey walked to the sidewalk and put her arm in the air. "Casey, what are you doing?" he asked.
"Hailing a cab, stupid, it's what you do in Manhattan."
"No, why can't we take the subway."
"I don't think so, Taylor, not yet, you're coming to my apartment in a cab, and that's it." Casey helped him get into the cab as they drove off to Casey's apartment.
