Tribulation [h.s]

45

"I don't wanna die or fade away
I just wanna be someone."

-

"Are you ready to go?" I ask Maggie as I help slip her shoes on her tiny feet.

She puts one of her small hands on my shoulder to keep her balance. "Yep," she quips with a nod.

"Are you ready to build the best pillow fort and eat ice cream?" I chime with a pitchier voice, but Maggie doesn't get excited like I was hoping for. "We can watch Frozen as many times as you want!"

Her smile is faint. "Okay."

My body goes lack with disappointment.

I don't know how to make this better. So, I force myself to smile just for her sake, hoping that would somehow make her feel better.

Maggie and I had spent the night in the hospital. Around ten in the morning the next day, the doctors and nurses deemed her stable enough to return home. So, with a new insulin pump, I'm rushing to get us out of this fucking place.

I slide her hoodie over her head and help her slide her arms into the sleeves. It's such a relief to get her out of that damned hospital gown and into her own clothes again. When I'm done helping her dress, I stand, but I don't get too far.

She tugs on the bottom of my shirt to garner my attention, and she raises her arms to me. "Up?"

"You know, you're getting way too big to be picked up," I grunt out as I lift her, propping her on my hip. Who am I to deny her? She needs this—physical contact. She needs comfort and reassurance, and I'll always give that to her.

Regardless of how big she gets, she'll always be my baby.

She wraps her arms around my neck and rests her chin on my shoulder as I struggle to get together the remains of her things: her extra insulin pump, needles, and insulin I received from a kind nurse. To make my life easier, I decided to put that all in her school bag for now, to carry it on my shoulder as we make our way home. However, I'm having some difficulty doing that. How am I supposed to zip up a school backpack with one hand?

"Harry?" Maggie questions in a delicate voice.

Just hearing his name is a shock to my chest. Heart fluttering, I turn around to face the entrance to the room, and there stands Harry, soft, smiling Harry with a bouquet of daisies and white wildflowers in his hands. "Are those for me?" Maggie wonders innocently, her eyes widening with childlike fascination.

"Of course, they are," Harry confirms with a cheeky smile.

"What are you doing here? I thought you left last night," I remark with a frown.

I woke up this morning to find the seat he was sitting in last night empty. I'm not sure why I felt disappointed when I realized he was gone. We aren't his obligation, but he's back, and I'm speechless.

If he hates hospitals just as much as I do, why did he come back?

He blinks a few times at my comment. "I didn't leave last night. I left before you woke up this morning to get these for the little human," he croons softly at Maggie, who gets so nervous before him.

He plucks out a daisy and hands it to the shy little girl. She smiles so wide as she accepts the flower and hides her face in the crook of my neck, holding the single flower close to her heart.

It's beyond adorable.

My heart skips several beats when I see this. He's the first man that's ever made her smile like that, and fuck, it does something to me. He makes her smile in ways that I can't. He makes her happy, even if it's only for a small moment in time, and it's so wonderful to see after everything she's been through in the last twenty-four hours.