Mint [H.S.]

11

Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran 

Lord forgive me for the things I've done. I was never meant to hurt no one... This is how it ends, I feel the chemicals burn in my bloodstream. 

HARRY

I was never one for the sterile scent of a hospital. In fact, I was never one for hospitals in general. It smelt like disinfectant, everything was white, the nurses all looked at you like you were a charity case, and it reeked of death. If I was able to avoid hospitals or doctors a like, I would do my damn best.

Whenever a nurse tells you that the doctor will be right with you, that was code word for the doctor will be here in a half hour if you're lucky. I don't know if it was the pain medication that they were injecting into my system, but everything seemed to put me even more on edge. I was tired, agitated and ready to get out of here.

Maddie wouldn't stop staring at me. Her pale face etched with worry. It had to be Monday by now. I don't know why she wasn't at school or something. To make matters worse, Dylan won't seem to leave either. Both of them, sitting there, staring at me like I was about to die or some shit. She was sitting beside me on a one person couch. Her little hands looped tightly around my wrist. She kept staring at me but then shifting her eyes back down towards the IV stuck into my vein. Her forehead was in a constant state of furrow. Again, this was too much for an eight year old. Too fucking much...

"Are you thirsty?" Dylan asked from the other side of the room, his hands moving up and down his trousers in a nervous pattern.

"Yeah," my voice croaked out. I shut my lips tight, not recognizing myself. It was hoarser than usual. The normal rasp underlines of my tone even scratchier.

"Hold on a second," he said. He walks over to the tray close to my bedside, pulling up a paper cup with a long, plastic straw. He hands it over to me, his hands shaking nervously. "Here..."

I manage to mutter a small thank you, taking the cup in my own shaky grip. I try my best to drink the lukewarm water, the temperature churning my stomach. "Jesus," I mutter, pushing the cup back to him. "Aren't Canadians all about the snow? Do they not have any ice?"

Maddie giggles beside me. I give her a quick look, her teeth biting onto her lower lip in childish innocence. "It was all ice but you were too sleepy to drink it before," she explains softly. "I think you're on a lot of medicine."

"Oh," I try sipping the water once again. There was something disgusting about lukewarm water. I'd rather it be colder the better... not this shit. But for the sake of Maddie, I drink it anyways.

"How are you feeling?" Dylan asks once he's taken back his seat on a plastic chair.

"Like shit," I tell him honestly, not bothering to watch my language. Maddie has been around me long enough. "When's the doctor coming in?"

"Soon."

"Right."

There's the same uneasiness looming over the hospital room. My head felt fuzzy from the medication pumping through me. I could feel a dull ache on my side. Different scenarios and explanations flood through my mind. Anything could have happened. One possibility stands tall but I push it to the side. Whatever it was, I never wanted to go through that again. It felt like my whole life flashed behind my eyes as a cloud of darkness fell over me. The surge of pain that shot through my side and towards my back overtook all of my nerve endings. I felt like that had been the end; another reoccurrence of my world crashing down. It seemed like this was becoming a trend in my life. It was safe to assume that if something like this was to happen again, a moment where I surely was going to die, then it truly would be it. It would be the end.