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Ace fell down into a seat, clutching the air in front of her ribs with a short whimper of pain. She tried to inhale, arching her back with pain, but her breath was coming quicker and quicker. Mike was walking out through the doors, and she watched him go sickly, one hand trembling on her thigh. She could feel something hot behind her eyes, and tried, desperately, to keep breathing. She couldn’t start crying in A&E at midnight, but just the thought that she might was terrifying her, and with her terror her heart was pounding faster, and her breaths were getting shorter and more frantic, and everything just served to stab more knives up from her ribs.
Someone sat down next to her, and Ace looked over, but she couldn’t focus. She could hear, though, loud, slow breathing. She remained as she was, trying to just get in as much oxygen as she could, for another minute, before, slowly, her body began to calm. After a few more, the pain had subsided. The stranger’s breathing quietened - her loudness had been intentional, then - and finally Ace got a good look at her.
She didn’t look injured or ill, her only ailment being some faint dark semicircles under her clever-looking eyes. Her long hair was only a few strands out of place.
The woman noticed Ace looking at her, and smiled at her for a moment before turning her gaze away. After a few minutes she pulled out her phone and started texting someone, then opened a new window and started reading a news article. Ace didn’t mean to snoop, but she did notice that the woman was getting rather a lot of texts from the same number. Eventually she put her phone on silent mode and tucked it back into her jacket, staring up at the ceiling for a few minutes, before she apparently became bored again and started looking around again, her eyes finally settling on Ace. Ace looked back.
“Do you come here often?”
Ace was smart enough to stifle a small chuckle for her ribs’ sake, but she found her lips twitching into a small smile, and shook her head.
“Only occasionally.” Her voice was scratchy, and it sent a bit of a spike through her chest, but anything to subside the boredom.
“Me neither,” said the woman, after a second. “I mean, it’s only because of my brother that I’m here.” She nodded across the room, to a man sleeping in his chair, one leg stretched out and hanging above the ground. “He got into a motorcycling accident, and he thought he’d broken his leg, so I drove him here.”
“Ah.” Ace made the necessary grim sound of sympathy. The woman’s eyes flicked to her chest then away. “Broken ribs for me, I think.” Which was Mike’s fault, leaving things on the stairs like that, and he had said he didn’t want to drive her to A&E at first, but when she started feeling unable to breathe from the pain he’d finally driven her here and ditched her once she’d signed herself in.
The woman gave her a sympathetic look. “That’s rough.”
Ace gave a stiff smile. “Yeah.”
They were quiet for a while longer, then the woman turned back towards her. “What’s your name, then?”
“Ace.”
“Ace,” she repeated. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. Ace had the sudden thought that this woman knew she was trouble, and that she liked it. “I’m Shou Yuing.”
“That’s a nice name.”
“Thank you. Yours is too.” She fiddled for a moment with the strap of her jacket. “They’ll see you soon, I think. It’s not too hectic.”
“And by soon,” said Ace, “do you mean…?”
“In an hour, maybe.”
“I hope you can talk for that long.”
Shou Yuing smirked.
As it turned out, she very much could. She pointed to the television playing in the kid’s corner, and labelled it an archaeology program she had apparently seen before. She talked about archaeology, which Ace found boring, but boring was good. Boring made her head calm and the feeling of pain in her ribs just start to fade away.
Shou Yuing then got into explosives, which excited Ace a little, then went right into the technical side of things, talking endlessly about chemical compositions. Ace listened attentively, despite the fact that, back in secondary, she would almost fall asleep to these same topics. She almost didn’t realise it when a doctor called out “Dorothy McShane!” into the waiting room.
She jolted up a little, immediately wincing. “That’s me, sorry,” she said, and Shou Yuing leant back with a small smile as Ace went over.
She was given painkillers - thank god - by a small, Scottish doctor, and strict instructions not to move, and to come back if she had any problems.
She decided that first thing tomorrow morning, she was going to dump whatever situationship she and Mike had for good.
On the way out, she paused by Shou Yuing, who had returned to sit by her brother, who was still sleeping. Shou Yuing saw her face and smiled.
“Look,” said Ace, a little uncomfortably, “thank you. I really would’ve… Well, things would’ve been worse if not for you.”
“Of course. Are you feeling better now?”
“A lot more.”
“And you’re getting home?”
“Yeah. God knows what buses there’ll be out right now, but I’ll manage.”
“You’ll get the bus?”
“Maybe.”
Shou Yuing shook her head. “Absolutely not.” She got up and led Ace out of the waiting room, where she pulled out her phone.
“Right,” she said, a few minutes later, “that’s a taxi called.”
“A taxi- I haven’t got my wallet on me.”
“I’m paying.”
“No, really, you shouldn’t -”
“Shut up,” advised Shou Yuing, and Ace had no energy left to disobey.
As a taxi pulled up outside, Shou Yung stepped back. “One last thing.”
“Yeah?”
“That guy you came into the hospital with, who left you.”
“Yeah?”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“Sort of?”
“Dump him.”
Ace smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m going to.”
“Night, then. Take care.”
“Night. I will.”
Ace headed out.