"Yeah, maybe 'cause I'm not prodding at him and sticking needles in him," I muttered, shouldering my way past her with two juice pops I'd swiped from the nurse's station in hand.

"So, looks like you're off solid food 'til dinner, so," I said, hooking my foot in the leg of the chair and dragging it back over with a grating scrape of it across the tile. I plopped down into it, and while I noticed his uncomfortably melancholy stare out the window, I pretended like I didn't.

"We got red or orange," I said, the clear plastic of the juice pops crinkling as I waved them where he could see.