Love Unspoken

Regaining consciousness, Quinn found herself in a sterile hospital bed, an IV drip puncturing her hand. The once sharp pain in her abdomen had dulled to a throbbing ache. She was alone, the room devoid of any other presence. Her gaze fell upon the IV bottle, nearly depleted of its contents. With a grimace, she hoisted herself up and pressed the call button affixed to her bed.

Within moments, a young doctor entered the room. He attended to her IV, adjusting the drip rate, before finally turning his attention to Quinn. "How are you feeling?" he asked, his gaze meeting hers.

Quinn studied the doctor for a moment before her hand slid down her body, checking for any unfamiliar sensations or discomfort. Her eyes eventually drifted towards her cell phone resting on the bedside table. Picking it up, she typed out a message.

"Doctor, what happened to me?" The doctor's initial surprise at the text message was quickly replaced by a look of understanding. Quinn was accustomed to this typical first reaction when people realized she was mute.

"You fainted," he explained. "Once your IV is finished, go see the attending physician. She'll explain everything to you."It was then that Quinn noticed his badge. He was merely an intern. She nodded in understanding and lay back down, silently waiting for the IV to finish.

The hospital room was desolate and eerily quiet, hardly a soul in sight. Tucked away in a far corner lay an elderly man, paralyzed and mute, his silence amplifying the solitude. Two speechless figures lay in the hospital room of loneliness. Quinn glanced at her phone. It was well past four in the afternoon. Silence reigned. No messages or calls to break the stillness. With a sigh, she switched it off and looked back at the old man lying in his bed in the corner. Not long after, a woman with salt-and-pepper hair bustled in, her arms laden with bags. She made a beeline for the elderly man's bed, setting to work with a basin and towel, bathing him with practiced hands.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

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After the wash, she began feeding him, her mutterings about daily trivialities filling the room. She transitioned from casual chatter to complaints, bemoaning their lack of luxuries and the burdensome duty of caring for him in his old age. The old man, mute, could only follow her with his eyes. As the woman's voice began to quake with stifled sobs, Quinn noticed tears welling in the old man's eyes too. His fingers trembled, perhaps trying to reach up and wipe her tears, a gesture beyond his ability.

Quinn turned her head away, affording them their intimate moment. Her gaze fell upon the sky outside the door, heavy with rain clouds, foreshadowing an imminent downpour. Once the last drop of her IV had been administered, she went to find the doctor.

Coincidentally, it was the same doctor as before. She looked at Quinn and asked, a mixture of frustration and disappointment clouding her eyes, "Were you here last time?" Quinn nodded, took out her ID, and handed it to her. She quickly found Quinn's records on the computer. Her face flashed with anger as she scolded, "Didn't you want to preserve your pregnancy last time? How could you have surgery so quickly?" She held back the harsher words that hovered on the tip of her tongue.

"I can't understand what's going on with your generation. You just had an operation, and couldn't you wait for even a month?" Quinn's face flushed with shame as she bowed her head, understanding the implication.

"You're suffering from bleeding due to uterine inflammation, and it's been festering for days. Why would you wait until it got so severe before coming to the hospital?" Quinn bit her lip, her fingers twisting at the hem of her clothes. The doctor's questions made her blush.

The doctor continued, "Young lady, don't say I didn't warn you. If you don't start taking care of yourself, this could escalate from simple inflammation to something as serious as cervical cancer. I'm not being alarmist." Realizing Quinn's condition, the doctor's tone softened. "Where's your family? Have you notified anyone?"