𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 | f. w

xliii. a visitor

chapter forty-three
A VISITOR

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Edith

» » I KNOW HE WENT to see me in the hospital. I found out a day or so after waking up, one of the nurses told me she had seen a red haired man sitting at my bedside, holding my hand and talking to me. She said he looked extremely worried, his eyes glossed over. I don't know how I felt about that, he hadn't been to see me in what felt like forever, and I wasn't expecting him to show up anymore than I did before. I guess I must've thought he hated me, that he wanted nothing to with me or my problems. Then again, I had made it seem as if I didn't care about him or any of my friends anymore the day they tried to get me admitted, and so hearing the nurse describe his sullen appearance, I guess it came as somewhat of a surprise to me.

I spent the following week in completely agony. Not only was I rearing from my relapse and enduring terrible abstinence, but it felt as if I would never be happy again. All of past mistakes and everything I had done to the people I presumed to love, it was all catching up to me in full speed. I was beginning to realise that I was only hurting the people around me by keeping them in my life, and no matter how difficult or painful it would be to let them go, it's what I had to do. I realised I would have much rather sacrificed my own happiness if it meant they would all be fine, and I told myself they would be — just not with me in their lives.

A week ago

"Do you love him?", Lena asked me, her face all serious looking, something I had yet to get used to when it came to her. She was usually the more chipper and ironic one of us.

I looked up from concentrating my gaze onto the cards in my hand. We were playing a round of exploding snap, and she was winning. "Who?"

"That boy you're always sulking about. Do you love him?"

I had told Lena about Fred one night, and ever since she kept pestering me to confess my feelings. Though I hadn't explicitly shared my undying love for him with her, it seemed she could tell what I was really thinking, simply by looking at me. I figured out early on, that Lena had what you'd call a wicked sixth sense.

I took a moment to gather my thoughts. I knew full well to the extent my feelings went, and I knew just how much I loved him. How badly I wanted him. Yet, some part of me was still refusing to accept what these feelings were doing to me. I didn't want to acknowledge them, I was fearful of hurting myself in the process, as well as the person for whom I had those feelings. Because accepting it—really accepting it—would mean I was putting us both at a risk of heartbreak, and I couldn't bare the thought of that happening. Not again.

Still, I couldn't keep myself from confessing to my friend. By the cheeky look on her face, she already knew what I was feeling, so telling her wouldn't make that much of a different now, would it?

"More than anything."

Lena smiled, caressing my hair comfortingly. It felt good to have someone care about me this way, especially when that someone knew what it was like to be going through something similar.

Lena had shared with me her own story of when she met and fell in love with her best friend, Farah, only to lose her. She had found out that the girl she loved was to be married off to some uptight bloke and that they could no longer be together. This had left Lena heartbroken, and she never fully recovered since.

"Then what's the issue? Why aren't you going off proclaiming your undying love for him right this instant?"

I sighed. "It's not that easy. I can't bare the thought of losing him, not when I've already lost him so many times before. He deserves to be happy, to be with someone who makes him so, and I can't stand in the way of that."

She scoffed, growing irritated. "Your kidding right? You have someone who loves you with all he has, someone who would go to the ends of the earth to be with you, to make you happy, and you choose to simply walk away? You're being unreasonable, and you know it."

A tear made its way down my face. "I just don't want to ruin him. I love him, yes, and that's why I'm doing this. I have to let him go. I'm being selfless."

"You're being selfish."

No matter how many times Lena tried to get me to see reason, I still wouldn't agree with her. Fred deserved to be  happy, to be free from all of the torment I was causing him by keeping him in my life like that. I gad already made up my mind, and nothing was changing it.

"Miss Gannon. There's someone here to see you." One of the nurses, whom I later figured out was called Marsali, caught my attention as she called out my name. I had been spending close to a week in bed, crying and feeling extreme guilt about—well—everything. I refused to talk to anyone but Lena and Marsali, and I had almost completely given up hope. Hope of ever getting out. Hope of ever being happy.

I took a deep breath. I don't know how, but I knew very well who was standing at the other end of that door, waiting to see and talk to me.
So, against my better judgement, and fighting the urge to tell Marsali not to let him in and that I didn't want to see him because it would hurt less if I didn't, I nodded, agreeing to have him let in.

"Hey you."

It was almost as if I hadn't heard his voice in forever. It made its way into my eardrums, putting pressure on my still aching heart. He sounded nervous, scared even, and I couldn't help but feel an extreme need to walk up to him and throw my arms around his neck. All I wanted in that moment, was to hold him, hold him and never let go. Breathe in that sweet scent of fireworks and candy that I had grown to love. Feel his skin against mine, setting it on fire. Hear his beating heart from under his chest, her it beating in sync with mine.

I had missed him so much in the last couple of
months, more than I ever realised and cared to admit, and seeing him just then, standing in front of me with that sad smile displayed across his freckled face, made me wish I wasn't about to do what I was about to.

"Fred."

His name rolled off my tongue like a song I knew all to well. It was carved into me, stitched into every cell of my being, and I would never forget what it felt like to say it, to hear myself say it, no matter how badly I knew I was going to wish it wasn't such a primary part of me. I knew, that after today, in less than an hour, I wouldn't be able to say it the same way again.

Because I would no longer have the right to.

"Fred." I repeated, feeling my eyes sting from attempting to hold back the river of tears I knew was about to come falling down. The dam was about to break, and I didn't have the power to stop it, no matter how badly I found myself wanting to.

⬩ word count: 1320