‘He’ll be okay, won’t he?’ I ask my grandfather, but he doesn’t answer.

By the time we get to the hospital, I’ve crumbled and started to cry. My grandparents rush to the admissions area, focused only on finding Adam. I stand in the background, my hands freezing because I forgot my gloves, and my cheeks hot with tears.

We take the lift up to the third floor and power walk down one corridor only to find a dead end, and then down another. Finally, we stop at a door. My grandfather knocks quietly. No answer. He opens the door and … No one there.

‘Where the hell is he?’ Mike says.

A nurse appears from around the corner. ‘Can I help you?’ he says.

‘We’re looking for my son, Adam Black,’ my grandfather barks. ‘There’s been an accident.’

‘He must be in the other examination room. Wait here and I’ll check,’ the nurse says.

‘Does that mean he’s okay?’ my grandmother asks him, her voice small. ‘Nobody’s told us anything.’

‘Hold on a moment.’ The nurse walks down the corridor. We see him speaking to someone at one of the stations, pointing to us before waving us over.

My heart is racing as I try to read his expression.

A billion things, emotions, thoughts are ping-ponging around my head. Is my dad dead? No. He can’t be. Examination room sounds okay. If someone’s died or is at death’s door, they wouldn’t bother with an examination, would they? There would be emergency surgery and doctors huddling, nurses calling for oxygen or shouting ‘clear’, holding defibrillators that make your heart start again once it’s stopped. It’d be chaos, stress, mayhem, like on TV.

All I know is he has to be okay. Has to be. Please, don’t let me lose him now. Please. But do I deserve it? I’ve done nothing but give him a hard time, expecting him to magically think and behave like me. Expecting him to be my version of perfect. I make a silent vow to do better, be better.

He has to be okay. He has to.

We reach the nurse’s station and the nurse says, ‘Come with me, I’ll take you to him.’

He gives nothing away as we follow him down the corridor. We almost have to jog as he has a long, fast stride. We make a right turn, left, then right again.

We finally stop at a door. The nurse peers in. ‘Adam Black?’

Is it him? He’s really alive?

‘There’s some family to see you.’

I follow my grandparents through the door, holding my breath.

And there he is.

Lying on a hospital bed, a drip in his arm, face bandaged on one side, and a big bandage wrapped around his bare chest.