Love For Hire

His family had come by a few times through the next few days to see him, but Nicholas had left orders with the medical staff to send them away. He did not want to speak to anyone. He had spent a lot of his time thinking. The nurses told him he needed to get up out of bed, so at least once a day, they put him in a wheelchair and wheeled him out to the hospital atrium so he could get some air. When they brought him back to his room, Nicholas asked them to park his wheelchair by the window and to open it so he could hear the birds.

He had been sitting by the window for a while when he heard footsteps come into the room. They were too heavy to be female, and since he was not taking visitors, they had to be Dr. Horton’s. “Hello, Doctor.”

He heard Dr. Horton chuckle. “How did you know it was me?”

“Lucky guess,” he lied. He did not feel like explaining his process.

“My nurses told me you asked to see me when I came on duty.”

“Yes, thank you for coming.”

“How could I say no to my favourite patient?” He could hear Dr. Horton pull up a chair and sit down. “So, you wanted to talk.”

“How is your research coming?”

Dr. Horton sighed. “Honestly, I am getting nowhere. I do not know how to help you.”

His heart sunk, but it was what he had expected to hear. “Be honest with me, doctor… I am at the end, are not I? I am failing fast.”

“Nicholas, there is always hope.”

“No, there’s not. You know it as well as I do. I am about two steps away from the grave,” Nicholas held a hand out. “I want to sign a DNR.”

could hear Dr. Horton gasp. “Nicholas,

stop breathing or my heart stops for any reason, the hospital staff is not to resuscitate me with CPR or other life-saving measures. They are to

cannot do this. Think about your family;

the more they suffer. I am a burden. I cannot keep doing this to them. To myself. Just let me die. I promise you may have my body for your research. Maybe one day, you can save someone else…

you have given this

since I woke. I am done, Doctor. I am not doing it anymore. No more medication, no more treatment, just send me home and let me

is what you

“It is.”

signed by the end of my shift. I will call your family and tell them you are being discharged. But I am sending you home in

“Fair enough.”

drag against the floor, and he assumed that Dr. Horton

had to figure out how he was going to

***

hospital against the doctor’s suggestions, and they were sending him home in an

the mantle and a glass of bourbon in the other. Teegan and Kinsley sat together on the couch, discussing their theories of why Nicholas was refusing medical treatment. Naya took a seat on the couch across for the girls. “He should be here any minute,” she

to check himself out,” Teegan said. “He is

deep blue button-up shirt. His eyes were sunken, and he was very thin. He was still seated in a wheelchair, and Octavius was pushing it. Nicholas did not look

he was a husk of that man. He looked like a living corpse. “Nicholas,” Naya

took a document out of the bag hanging on the back. “I took the liberty of having the doctor and the hospital draw up some papers,” he said when Octavius placed the papers in his hand. “This is a living will. It states that I am not to be kept

want us to just let you die?” Naya asked. “That is too much to ask of a mother,” she refused.

was misery and suffering. No more. I am done with it. His document is legally binding. Make your choice. Accept it and stay until the end or leave now in protest and be done