⇾ 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 | 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐈

𝚇𝚇𝚇𝙸𝚅

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢-𝙵𝚘𝚞𝚛 → 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚐𝚗𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚜

⊹ 𝟷𝟶-𝟹-𝟷𝟿𝟼𝟾 ⊹

Forcing myself to not take another Valium after my first had been challenging. As soon as I woke up yesterday morning, all of my anxieties had come back. They'd made me dizzy, ill, and miserable all over again, and I wanted nothing short of an escape. I missed the blissful feeling that the orange pill gave me. I missed how damn calm it made me. I wanted nothing more than to feel like that again.

I sat once again by my mother's bedside. My eyelids drooped in exhaustion and my stomach cramped in hunger, but I refused to move and my eyes refused to close. I needed to keep a watchful eye on her. I needed to make sure that the doctors did everything in their power to help her. I could never live with myself if something went wrong. Not to mention, her results had been delayed yesterday, but I had pretty much been promised that they would be in today, and I certainly wasn't going to miss that.

Over the past forty-eight hours, my mother had spent some time awake. I fought like hell to keep the tears away whenever she was awake. I felt like it was imperative that I stayed strong for her, especially after she had stayed strong for me for so many years. She had always been there for me when I needed her, so it was my turn to be there for her now that she needed me.

"Liss, I brought you some food," John said. "You haven't eaten since supper last night."

"Don't know where in the hell you seemed to find out that I needed you to tell me that," I said, quite irate between my hunger, my hormones, and my exhaustion. Poor John. All he had ever been was kind, and here I was, treating him like a nuisance. No matter how much I acted like I despised him, he had stuck around this entire time. He hadn't left the hospital if I wasn't with him. He barely left me alone when I was trying to spend quality time with my mum in between her lengthy naps.

John ignored my comment, instead coming over to stand by my side and wait for me to tear my eyes away from the deteriorating figure in the bed in front of me. "She'll still be there after you eat, Liss. You've got a little baby in that belly of yours who needs some bloody protein."

I finally looked up at him. "Thanks, John," I said, taking the Styrofoam tray from his hands. "Hospital food is so wretched, though," I said, peering at the sketchy-looking mashed potatoes in one of the compartments.

"Think that may just be Liverpool food you're talking about, Alissa," he responded with a coy grin. He pulled up a chair beside me and sat. "Now, are you going to eat that or am I going to have to bloody hand-feed you like a toddler?"

I rolled my eyes and picked up the plastic fork on the tray. I dipped it in those sketchy-looking mashed potatoes and pushed the bite past my lips. To say that the consistency was simply awful would have been the understatement of the century. I literally gagged before shovng it back at John. "Bad idea," I spluttered as I forced myself to swallow the food. "Get that away from me before I vom."