Tattoos Together || Larry Stylinson

Chapter 21

I didn't want to let go of him when I got fixed on a transport stretcher the next day and was supposed to be driven into the helicopter.

I felt guilty. I had given Harry another sleepless night.

He stayed with me when the rest of my family drove back to the holiday home to pack things for an early return trip and to inform the landlord about my little faux pas in the upper hallway.

I, pathetic little bastard, not only made sure Harry couldn't sleep, but also that the rest of my loved ones had to break off their well-deserved vacation.

I hated myself for it and I hated myself even more for being so selfish that I deeply, madly wanted Harry to continue staying with me.

"Lou, you have to leave now, darling. I'll see you again tonight, I promise. When we're home, the first thing I do is come and see you at the hospital." Carefully he tried to pull his arm out of my tight grip, but I didn't want to let go for anything in the world.

I acted like a defiant little kid.

Harry let out a shaky breath. I knew how much I burdened him.

"Hazza." I scolded.

It wasn't that I was feeling physically ill. Compared to the previous day, I could have uprooted trees with just my hands and I knew that I would probably feel completely healthy the next day. -That was the big problem of the disease. It came in batches in the beginning and was slowly becoming sedentary.

I knew the procedure. I had seen it before.

And because I didn't know how long it would take before it would get noticeably worse, I wanted to enjoy all the tiny, little moments. I wanted to take every breath in Harry's presence.

And yet I knew that all that whining made no sense.

We had already talked to the people from the medical-air-transport-service and they had expressly told us that they would only take the patient with them and not an accompanying person.

"Loubear, see you as soon as possible, dear. You're doing great." He patted my chest encouragingly and turned his back to me without looking into my eyes or saying anything else.

I made him feel bad.

-

What in reality was only a little more than two hours' flight felt like an eternity. The whole time I had to wear an oxygen mask because I had been apparently unsettlingly calm. My silence was actually intended as a protest.

And apparently it had taken even longer before I finally got through the medical admission exam and was taken to my room.

Not much was going to happen that day, I thought, when an elderly nurse brought me into the room in a wheelchair. A comprehensive blood count had been taken, which took at least one, if not two, days to evaluate.

I was still pressing a tissue paper over the puncture site. That was because my body started the wound closure process very slowly, triggered by the cancer. In addition, the young and apparently very inexperienced doctor had managed to burst the vein, which was of little help.

-Seldom had anyone poked around in my arm so clumsily.

"So, Louis, this is Edda, she will be your bed neighbour for the near future." The nurse told me as she heaved me out of the wheelchair and put me on the soft bed as if I couldn't do it myself.

If you weren't sick from the start, you quickly felt like you were with this treatment.

I nodded and looked over at Edda for a moment. The girl didn't seem to have noticed us properly. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, headphones in her ears, immersed in a novel.