Wild Baleigh love 2️⃣☑️

47. Awake

Ballice's pov

I'm done with my first semester in my second year and I feel like it's a whole lot of a relief. I had my last exam yesterday and immediately I headed to the hospital. Revising for my exams had been a hustle since my concentration was on Kellane entirely. So if I'll fail this semester, it'll be justified. Chances of making it are so negligible and I wouldn't be so damned by it at all. After all I was forced to sign in for the semester.

I left early in the morning to go freshen up when the nurses came in to change her from her usual hospital rugs. I'm now sitting on her hospital bed watching her unmoving figure.

I'm suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door, when I raise my head I see my mum wearing a big smile. Her tummy is so big and for a moment there I almost loose it.

"Oh Ballice baby." She pouts as she walks in towards the bed. She's carrying a bag and I'm quite sure that it's a birthday cake.

"Mum I told you to not call me that, I'm twenty now." I groan.

"Of course but that doesn't mean you're not my baby." She says taking the sit beside the bed.

"A baby is on the way. Preserve that name for him."

"It's a 'her'." She smiles broadly.

In a flip, my heart skips a beat. I'm twenty and I can't fathom the thought of having a baby sister twenty years younger than me. But I can't lie, the thought is appealing.

"Two months from now, you'll have a baby sister." She adds setting the bag on my lap.

I decide to keep quiet. She knows that I'm not comfortable talking about her pregnancy and so she quickly changes the topic. "So it's your twentieth birthday, I can't believe time has flown by this fast. I feel like it was just yesterday when that lunatic took you from me." She whimpers.

She's always on edge and now she may start crying. "Mum, I'm here now with you, aren't I?"

She nods wiping off a lone tear that had already streamed down her cheek." Happy birthday son."

Despite everything, I find myself smiling at her sweet gesture. Unwrapping the foil , I found a medium sized chocolate cake decorated with my name just exactly as my last birthday cake, 'Happy twentieth birthday chubby Bally.'

"I know if she was here she would have done that too, so I wanted to---"

"Thanks mum!" I cut her off as I step down from the bed and I hug her from behind. She remains in her sitting position but she stretches her arms over mine. "Have I ever told you that you're the most beautiful mum in the world? And that I couldn't trade you for any other woman in the world?"

I feel her body trembling. She's crying! These pregnancy hormones, ugh! I pull away and sit back on the bed. I take her hands into mine and ask her to look at me.

"I love you Mom, so wipe those tears off and help me celebrate this birthday with her." She nods and wipes the tears off quickly.

"I can't help it." She chuckles. "It's as if my eyes are so ready to tear up any moment I get emotional. I'm sorry."

"I understand." I brush her off. "I'm such a lucky bastard to have you as my mother, I mean look at you, you're so young and beautiful with a big heart. No wonder Kellane loves you that much, but anyways, who doesn't she love? Her heart is so big and pure, it just doesn't belong here."

"Yeah sure, and people with big hearts are so forgiving." She smiles at me.

"But mum, she'll never forgive me I'm quite sure, I did something bad. Something I don't want to even think about. I'm such an animal... why---"

My mum cuts me off, " Stop beating yourself that much. You know her better. She'll forgive you as long as the act is justified."

I zone out for a second and then I start slowly " She has a very big heart, I sometimes wonder, what if those she loves will hurt her deeply one day and her heart won't take it anymore, and she'll never forgive them. You know, I don't know how to keep my emotions at check when it comes to her. I know she deserves better and she has gone through so much already. All of that is because of me. I've never seen a lady so strong willed like her before. How I wish I knew what she was going through. God I hate myself even more when I think about it, here I thought she found another guy and---" I stop abruptly looking at my mum with big eyes.

My mum is looking at me back with glassy eyes. "Please stop blaming yourself." She sniffs." That's the longest you've talked ever since Tleigh --- well. You really needed to let out those bottled up emotions. And you should know that Tleigh was trying to protect all of us if you come to think about it. She's a hero in every sense of the word and I'm sure she'll sass out of this comma sooner than you can imagine it." My mum has a way with her words. She always have. Now I find myself reeling at her words.

I take one of Kellane's fingers and I squeeze it lightly. It's like a shock or a jolt or even something close to a single lightening because without a doubt, I feel her squeezing me back.

"Mum, she squeezed me back!" I almost scream. "Look." I show her finger which is still twirled around mine. "Oh my God."

I squeeze her again but she doesn't squeeze back this time. I try again but it doesn't work. I slowly drop her hand after giving it a soft buss on the back. My mum looks at me with sympathetic eyes but her eyes are suddenly filled with life.

"The cake!" She squeals.

"Uhmmm... Yeah." I reply awkwardly. My mind is still reeling from Kellane's weak squeeze. I know I was not hallucinating or so, my mum may think I'm going nuts by now.

She forces me to cut the cake and she feeds me a piece, I feed her a piece too and I look at Kellane, I notice we can't really share it with her. A fat tear streams down my face but I wipe it off as soon as it comes out. My heart constricts further and it's as if my mum gets it, she wishes me a happy birthday once more and barrels out the door promising me that they'll come later at the evening with everyone including my brother, Bruce and Kellane's brother, Lodzin, my dad, Kellane's dad, her sister, Zila and all of our friends.

That's more like a school coming to celebrate my birthday in a fucking hospital but I don't have it in me to argue. It's my birthday after all. But all in all, they are also coming to see Kellane.

Now I'm alone again and this time I don't hesitate taking Kellane's hand into mine. "Hello princess." I sniff. "You know I don't know how to behave. Everyone thinks I'm loosing it. Now even my own mum is starting to believe it. I saw how she looked at me earlier. Everyone pities me now. But you know what, I don't care at all. Not even an ounce. But my mum always gives me hopes, I know you're going to wake up and---"  Her hand twitches. At this point am crying and I see tears streaming down her sides of the face.

I still.

"Do you hear me baby?" I question. "If you do please squeeze my hand lightly." She does so and my heart almost bursts.

"Oh Christ son of Mary, you are here with me really." I'm now focused on her fragile fingers curled around my hand until I hear the monitor going off.

I panic .

When I look up, in all her mighty I see her looking at me with a goofy smile. She has already disconnected the tubes from her face.

"Princess..." I let out a breath my body almost giving up on me because oh boy, I'm in shock and I can't even form a sentence, I can't even blink my eye because I'm afraid she might disappear. If I'm dreaming I don't want to wake up out of this then.

"Turn ...it off." She pulls her hand back and closes her ears with both her hands.

"I..I.." well... Now I'm a stammerer.

"That sound is..." I get what she's trying to say. So I stand up and unplug a certain wire which I wasn't even sure about. I'm sure the doctors might be on their way by now because of the loud beeping sounds of the monitor.

But to my surprise, the beeping stops.

Is that you, God?

Wait, is Kellane really awake or am dreaming?
...

Tbc