u/VisibleComedian195

i feel like this is a pretty appropriate subreddit to ask this on. title is self-explanatory.

for example (and without intending to personally target any few users), i see a lot of posts on here that often seem to just be kids wanting people to validate their work out of some kind of insecurity.

one could ask some indirect question like: "is this chapter good?" come on, what do you mean? technically? characteristically? do they just want people to reassure them?

not asking this in a disrespectful way, but i'm curious.

previous context would likely be very helpful here, so if anybody requests it, i will give it. i'm moreso asking if this is a decent closing.

the point i wanted to make with this novel is the general effect of self-isolation and pre-existing depression.

this is the chapter:

20

“Are you feeling well, Yuri?” asked the caring nurse. “You seem pale.”

She was the one who usually replaced his salines and checked his vitals each morning. He had learned that. However, the only substantial thing he had been able to take in about her, visually, was her bosom.

She had cream white scrubs with small, repetitive printings, like drawings in a children’s book. Her favorite thing to do was give him orange juice.

She set the tray in front of him very carefully, her hands lingering as though ensuring it would remain steady on the overbed table. She drew away with just as much mind and crossed her arms beneath that bosom. He looked briefly, then at the tray. It was something that looked churned and bland. And, of course, the orange juice.

He had thought he moved his arm towards the glass, but saw that it remained just as unmoving as it had before, lying bare and useless at his side. He took another look at her. He had been giving himself a challenge of sorts, avoiding looking at the faces of anybody he saw in this place, just to avoid whatever look they wanted to give him in return. It was a very frustrating one; like he was a wounded puppy.

“I don’t really like orange juice,” he said. It sounded like he had been drowning recently, every time he spoke, in fact. Which was why he didn’t do it much.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is there anything else you’d prefer, then?”

Yuri inspected the white bedspread. It was a little abrasive compared to what he was used to. “Not really,” he responded.

“Water? Milk? Or, another kind of juice, maybe?”

“Water.”

“All right. Thank you for telling me, sweetheart.”

She picked the tray back up. Her footsteps descended away. Maybe she was wearing heels, he heard the click-click-click.

She was about to leave the room, the door was even drifting closed behind her, but he felt a sudden burst of panic.

“No, wait,” he called.

The door hitched at her heel, and she leaned back in. Her fingers remained trained tightly on the tray. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“I can take orange juice.”

“Oh, are you sure?”

He nodded vigorously.

It seemed as though she were hesitating, but she stepped back inside eventually, carrying the tray back to him. She put it back down on the table and leaned over him.

“Well, you never answered my question, Yuri. Do you want anything else?”

He didn’t answer her for a moment, but looked at the glass, a simplistic orange. His hand moved this time, yes, forearm resting on the table. His fingers found the glass and held it.

“I don’t,” he said. He picked the glass up, taking it tentatively, stiffly, in both hands, bringing it slowly to his mouth. He didn’t enjoy the pulpy tang, but swallowed anyway.

It seemed she hovered there a little longer, then sighed. “Okay. Then I’ll have to go and check on other patients now, okay? Will that be fine?”

It was some feeling of dread that blossomed in his chest. Being alone was one thing, not an awful thing. Being alone with the roaring AC unit, the thick comforter and the bars, the perpetual hum of the machinery to his left, that was another.

“I’ll be back soon,” she added.

“Don’t let it be long.”

“You don’t have to worry at all, sweetheart.”

Her hand, strong and gentle all the same, rested briefly on his bicep, before she pulled away. The click-click, click, click, it left again, and the door drifted almost closed. It was kept slightly open with a door stopper so anybody could come in quickly if he started dreaming, or shouting. His room, it was located near the nurse station in the step-down unit.

Originally, he had been deeper within the unit, but was moved up following a culmination of events.

Misha was the first to visit, and all he had done was cry. Cry, cry, cry. It would have been sickening, really. Yuri had actually woken up to his presence; Misha had climbed onto the bed and was clinging to his legs through the comforter, which soaked the tears. There was a large gray spot where the fabric had swallowed the moisture, and Yuri could feel it on his knees when he shifted himself. To squirm away from Misha, of course.

“I thought you were going to die, Yuri! You were asleep for so long! I told all of my friends that you were gone, for sure! Thank you, thank you! . . .

“ . . . Don’t fall out of the window again! That’s crazy clumsy, you stupid . . .

“But you’re the strongest ever! I think I would die!”

Really, Yuri had never hit the road at all.

A few among many units in all complexes had small balconies. Three stories below, on the fourth floor, had been the balcony of two new tenants, a young husband and wife. Had it not been there, he would have landed on a second story balcony. And surely would have been dead. He emerged with three broken ribs and a fractured left wrist, bruising from his shoulder to his index finger, curiously, and a coma.

They told him that, and he didn’t believe it for a second.

He needed help going to the bathroom, which really irritated him. They even got him a nurse seemingly just for that purpose, to get him out of bed and walk him there. Yuri had decided he would call him the piss nurse.

So there the piss nurse had him, walking across the corridor back from the bathroom, and Yuri had the IV walker as support as well. There was a sitting area around the corner, which often housed fidgeting relatives or patients who wanted something other than a white wall to stare at.

In one of the couches, a small kid with buzzed blond hair and a gown like his own sat with a sensory toy.

The IV walker hadn’t been much of a help at all, neither was the nurse, because suddenly he could walk just fine by himself. He was sure he had created a scene, he remembered people looking at him. He had to ask the kid, of course he did. Why was he alive? And what was the purpose of his bullshit talisman and the church and satanism, if all it had done was kill him?

He didn’t ever hear of the kid’s response, however, because he toppled over and fainted. Though, he did see his face, and it was something that really did confuse him. The boy was just afraid, and confused.

They considered him unstable since then, and so they moved him closer to where people would be present almost constantly. And never let him close his door. They must have thought he was delirious or truly, mentally unstable, something performatively ruminative like that.

Also, Matvey came around for about an hour. Yesterday, actually. Yuri was surprised he knew about his state at all.

“School’s heard about it,” Matvey had then explained. He probably knew Yuri was confused. “Yeah, I don’t . . . know, I wanted to check in. Even though we . . . you know, don’t know each other all that well. But we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Again, Yuri was half-asleep, like when Misha visited as well. It felt like they all deliberately chose the wrong moments.

Matvey chortled nervously. “You know, there was, like, a really small rumor in chemistry that you died in the coma. They didn’t . . . know what happened, really, just that much. That you were comatose. You’ve been gone for like, a month. You can ask me for help on, you know, catching up on stuff if you want. We could hang out if you need anything like that.

“Hopefully it’s . . . hopefully it gets better for you, man.”

Yuri didn’t know about that. Maybe even after being dispatched from the hospital he’d slug out on school. His parents wouldn’t say anything.

They wouldn’t care if he wanted to be home. It would give his mother more time to cling on to his side and simply hold, like she was afraid he’d disappear.

He didn’t take up on Matvey’s offer, at least not definitively. But maybe he would go and spend time with him. The funniest thing of all was that he didn’t want to be alone.

That was hilarious to him simply because of how impossible it felt. To be alone was all he had ever wanted, and all he had ever allowed himself. Now, he craved for the caring nurse.