Claim My Heart

Chapter 5

"Ow, ow, ow!" I croaked, trying to stretch my neck. "Fucking hell, did I sleep on this chair all night!?"

"Language!" I heard Avi's voice from beside me and found him smiling. "Good morning."

"There's nothing good about mornings."

Neil flatlined once last night. Revived only after a touch and go moment. We almost thought that we had lost him when we saw the commotion outside his room in the middle of the night. Nobody had given us any answers for hours. After hours of panicking and pacing around the waiting area, the doctor had come out and assured us that the situation was now under control. He was alive.

After that, I had stayed here with him, right by his bedside, all night. As weird as it sounds, I had spent the remainder of the night watching him breathe.

Watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest, almost too afraid to look away. Too afraid that it'll stop once I looked away.

"You need to take a break," Avi murmured. "You won't be much of a help to Neil if you don't take care of yourself."

"I'll leave in some time."

"How about I get you some coffee and then I'll stay here with Neil while you go freshen up?" He asked and I gave him a reluctant nod.

I watched him walk out of the room and then turned around to face Neil, his chest rising and falling evenly. His vitals were as steady as could be expected with his level of injuries.  But simply looking at him painted a different picture. It was so fucking hard to look at him. It made me physically ill to look at his bruised face. 

How I had recognized him without doing a double-take was still a mystery to me. But I had only needed a single glance at him and I had realized that this ripped apart rag doll was my best friend.

The doctor had told us that there was a good chance that he could hear us talking to him. He had encouraged us to talk to him, so I had read him my favorite books and played him my favorite songs. And I just hoped he knew that he wasn't alone.

"You know, for all the times I wished you would shut up this was not exactly how I pictured it, " I joked and I found myself wishing that Neil would just suddenly sit up and give me a quippy one-liner in response, but the beeping of the machines was the only answer I got in return.

I cleared my throat and looked away from him, my eyes burning. "You can't leave me. We still have so much to do."

I blinked my eyes letting a few tears escape, before quickly wiping them away. I would give anything to hear his voice again, to watch him laugh again, and the longer he spent in a coma the lesser were the chances of any of that happening again.

"The Doc told us that the patient's will to live and fight matters the most in such situations." I gently held his hand in mine and gave it a light squeeze. "You need to pull through. You need to keep fighting. Even when your own traitorous voice will remind you how easy it will be to return to the quiet."