The chairs are the color of nothing, and you hate them. Right now you are counting the ceiling tiles for the second time, and the vending machine has been humming that one flat note for an hour, and you would give anything to be somewhere else.
Stay a moment. Look at your own hands.
You are holding a paper cup of coffee that tastes like the cup. Your knee is bouncing. Across the room a television plays a cooking show nobody is watching, and every so often the double doors sigh open and everyone looks up at once, and it is never for you, and then it is.
Here is what I remember, from here: not the fear. The fear burned off like fog. What stayed was the small square of light on the linoleum that moved while you sat there, and the nurse who called your name softly, getting it slightly wrong, and how when the news finally came it was good, and your legs would not quite hold you.
You think this is the worst afternoon. You will not remember it as the worst afternoon. You will remember that you were young enough to be terrified, and that the people you were terrified for were still here to be terrified about.
Drink the terrible coffee.
It is warm, and your hands are cold, and that is enough for now.