Perhaps, Maybe, I Dunno (boyxboy)

Chapter 23

"Dorothy Styles' room?" Zayn asks the receptionist in the lobby of the hospital. Harry is standing next to Zayn, but he can't take his eyes off of the bleakness of the place: bleak, white walls, bleak, beige floors. 

"And who are you?" the receptionist questions, looking the trio up and down. Harry knows how they must look, three soaking wet teenagers, one of them is shaking in the waiting area, one of them can't look away from the wall, and one of them looks nothing like the patient in question. He would have some doubts, too. 

"We're her grandchildren," Zayn replies coolly, looking the receptionist straight in the eyes. She doesn't seem to be buying it because all Harry can hear is a confused silence from her end. 

"I don't think that you-" Harry turns around and looks at her with wild, determined eyes. 

"Don't," he says calmly, "be a fucking racist." She gasps audibly, and Harry takes her moment of surprise to grab ahold of Zayn's hand and gesture to Gemma before charging into the hallway. He looks back at Zayn after a little while only to see laughter in his eyes. 

"Harry," Zayn says. Harry answers him with a cross "what?". Zayn grabs both of his hands and makes Harry face him. 

"Harry," he repeats, "you don't even know the room number." 

"145," Harry shoots back, "I checked the sheet on the receptionist's desk." Harry whips back around and continues his determined walk to his nan's room, leaving Zayn in an impressed silence. 

When he reaches the door to his nan's room, he stops abruptly. His hand is positioned in front of the door, ready to knock, but something stops him from doing it. He can hear Zayn's and Gemma's footsteps coming closer and closer, but he still can't knock on the door. He doesn't know if he can handle what's in there. He doesn't want to see his nan as anything other than the strong person he's always seen her as. He feels like a coward: she's the one going through this, but he's the one who's scared. 

Harry can hear Zayn telling Gemma to go ahead, and he feels a hand in the crook of his elbow, steering him away from the door. He knows it's Zayn, but he's too ashamed to look him in the eye. Zayn sits him down on a couch, next to a coffee station. 

"Harry," Zayn says, sitting next to him, "talk to me." Harry doesn't know what he could possibly say to describe what he's feeling. 

"I'm letting her down," Harry replies in a barely audible voice. Zayn puts him arm around Harry's shoulders and sighs. 

"You are," he tells Harry. Harry has to do a double take because he isn't sure that he heard Zayn right. 

"You're letting everyone down, Harry," Zayn continues, dropping his arm from around Harry, "Everybody in that room is counting on you right now. Especially your nan." Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Zayn stops him. 

"I know that this isn't what you want to hear, but honestly, Harry, fuck what you want to hear. Your nan's sick right now. Stop feeling sorry for yourself for one goddamn second and think about her." Zayn's breathing hard now, and his shoulders are slumped in the chair. 

"Please be there for her, Harry." Harry almost misses Zayn saying this, but when he says it, it sounds so heartbroken that Harry sucks in a breath. 

"Okay," he tells Zayn, "Okay, I'm going." He gets up and looks back at Zayn expectantly, but Zayn doesn't move. 

"Are you coming?" he asks, but Zayn shakes his head.

"I'll wait until you're done," Zayn explains, but his voice sounds broken down, like there's something he's not saying. Harry assumes it's just the emotions running high from the situation. He gives Zayn a grateful nod before heading to Room 145. 

When Harry enters the room, he sees his parents and Gemma huddled around the bed. He can't see his nan, but he can see the many tubes that lead to her bed. He closes the door behind him, and everyone in the room looks up at him. Usually, seeing his parents would get some kind of rise of him, but he doesn't feel anything but worry for his nan. His mom whispers something to his dad and Gemma, and they leave him in the room alone.

His nan is hooked up to an array of machines that Harry hasn't ever seen before. There's a heartbeat monitor displaying steady peaks of red lines. His nan is asleep, and Harry can't help but notice that she looks a lot better than what he'd pictured in his head. Her skin has a greyish tint to it, and she looks older than he's ever seen her, but she mostly just looks like nan. He's so overcome with gratefulness at this that he has to sit down. 

"I'm so glad that you're okay, nan," he says quietly. She doesn't stir, so Harry just sits in his silence. He thinks about what Zayn said to him earlier, about him being there for his nan, but all he can remember is the weird tone Zayn's voice took when he said it. It was like he meant something else by it.

As soon as Harry thinks this, he knows. Zayn was talking about himself. He needed someone to be there for him, but he was too selfless to say anything directly to anyone. And Harry was too self-absorbed to figure it out for himself. 

Harry gives his nan a quick kiss to the forehead before bursting out of the door. He shuffles quickly to the coffee station where he left Zayn, only to find it empty. He looks down the long corridors of the hospital, hoping to find Zayn looking for him, too, smiling when they find each other. But it's no use. Zayn's gone.

__________________________________________________________________

Just kidding. I lied. Zayn left anyway.