Hospital
| Hospital | |
|---|---|
 | |
| First appearance | Pillow Talk, page 20 February 18, 2011 |
| Related characters | Paulo, Matt, Daisy, Mike, Rachel, Jessica, Tess, David, Lucy’s mom, Sam, Lucy, Yashy, Chirpy, Lily |
The Hospital is the unnamed medical building that serves Roseville, complete with an emergency wing, a big glass-fronted lobby and a number of small patient rooms. The comic never confirms that every hospital flashback takes place in this same building. It sits on a city bus route, and nobody in the comic has ever gone there for a happy reason.
Description
From the street, the hospital is a pale yellow-brick building with a wide band of windows and a red “EMERGENCY” sign above its sliding glass entrance doors. A bus stop sits conveniently close to the entrance.[1] The emergency lobby is a large open space with big pale floor tiles, a tall glass frontage and a staffed help counter set against a wall of tan tiles. It’s roomy enough that visitors look a bit lost in it.[2]
Wooden handrails run along the corridor walls, between heavy brown doors with long metal pull-handles.[3] The patient rooms shown are small, with railed beds, white bedding, big pillows and curtained windows, though the furnishings vary from stay to stay. One room has striped curtains, an IV stand and a bedside vase of yellow roses and white daisies,[4] while another comes equipped with an adjustable bed, an IV pump, a rolling meal tray and blue patterned wallpaper.[5]
History
In a flashback in Pillow Talk, Jessica races down a hospital corridor to find Rachel’s twelve-year-old brother Aaron in a bed with his arm in a cast, broken by a kick from Roger.[7][8] Aaron sobs that without soccer his life is over, and out in the hallway Rachel’s brave face finally gives out, leaving her crying into Jessica’s arms.[9] This visit is what set Jessica against Roger and Tess in the first place.
In Breaking Up, Jordan tells Mike about Lucy’s suicide attempt, and Mike takes a bus straight to the emergency entrance.[1] He never gets past the lobby. Lucy’s distraught mother and Sam are at the help counter,[2] but Lily intercepts Mike before he can reach them, telling him that Lucy will recover and be out in about a week.[10] She follows that with “She’s not coming back. Isn’t that what you wanted?”[11] A subdued Yashy sees him off, calling him by name rather than by her usual nicknames, and Mike leaves without ever laying eyes on Lucy.[12] On the walk home he makes it a few blocks before breaking down against a brick wall.[13]
The car crash after the 2008 junior prom fills the place up in Total Recall, with Paulo, Jordan and Matt all admitted at once. Paulo wakes bruised, neck-braced and hooked to an IV.[4] While he drifts in and out, he gets a visitor he’ll only half remember afterwards. Lucy, in her new private school uniform, rests a hand on his forehead and offers a single “Idiot.”[14] When he properly comes to, Daisy is at his bedside, begging him never to scare her like that again.[15] Jordan is recovering just next door, and Matt is already well enough to be discharged.[16]
Paulo’s room stays busy for the rest of the chapter. Rachel, David and Jessica drop by along with Matt.[17] Mike hovers awkwardly in the doorway before telling Paulo that he’s one of his oldest friends and that he cares about him, earning a simple “Me too.”[18] Once everyone else has cleared out, Tess sits on the edge of his bed, and the two of them talk about graduation and her rehabilitation late into the night.[19]
A flashback in Trapped adds a hospital scene from Augustus’s past. He visits Melanie, who has been beaten nearly to death by Alejandro and calls it a miracle she isn’t dead.[20] She refuses to go to the police, but her grandmother is taking her away for good. “I’m free,” she tells him.[21] Their quiet goodbye at her bedside is the last time Augustus sees her.
The hospital’s most recent appearance is also its lightest. In Popularity Contest, Sue wakes up with her leg in a cast after her cheerleading tryout goes badly wrong.[5] Stacy comes by to apologize for treating her like a nobody, though not without asking whether Sue was born with two left feet. The two make peace over a round of the board game Pandemic, played right on the hospital bed.[22]
Trivia
- Lucy is never shown on-panel during her roughly week-long stay.[10] Her only appearance during her entire absence from Roseville is the hazy visit to Paulo’s room.[14]
- According to Veronica, no one at the hospital ever actually told Mike that Lucy had tried to die. He pieced it together himself, which is part of how he manages to avoid facing his guilt.[24]
- The noncanonical Bittersweet Club International comic Grave Concern, a what-if story in which Lucy dies, restages Mike’s dash to the emergency entrance as a single wordless page, right down to the bus and the brick “EMERGENCY” building.[25]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 17
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 18
- ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 20
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 28
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 13
- ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 20
- ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 21
- ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 29
- ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 22
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 19
- ↑ Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 20
- ↑ Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 21
- ↑ Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 28
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 29
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 32
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 33
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 35
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 37
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 38
- ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 32
- ↑ Chapter 86: Trapped, page 33
- ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 14
- ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 13
- ↑ “What exactly did Mike tell everyone at Rachel’s party?”. 2025-12-04.
- ↑ Grave Concern, page 4 🔒 (members only)