Intersecting Lines

Chapter 5

                I woke up with Alex's letter on my bed side table. I look over to his bed to see that he's not there anymore. Everybody in the ward is still fast asleep, so I guess it's around 4 in the morning. I close my eyes again; I'm not trying to sleep. I'm not trying to think of a way to kill myself. I'm just trying to feel, to relax as I hold onto the little piece of paper he left this morning. I love waking up at these hours. The hours where the whole seems to be sleeping and you're awake. And you feel at ease with the universe and all the existing diversity of it.

"Hey..." a gentle voice gets through my thoughts. I don't think twice on who is the owner of the voice. I only have three persons who I talk to in this hospital. One, my mom then there's Dr. Mills and lastly, Alex. I opened my eyes and I saw him standing at the left side of my bed, still with crutches but without the neck brace. He was wearing eyeglasses and the sky blue backpack really caught my attention. He was wearing pajamas by the way.

"Hi" I reply to him. He reaches for my hand and I was a little taken aback. I can feel my cheeks blush. What is he doing?

"Good morning, mind going to the rooftop with me?" We are currently whispering to each other as a sign of respect to everyone still sleeping in the ward.

"Why? It's too early. I haven't had breakfast yet. And my mom's not here." I dart my eyes to my phone on top of my bed side table and he finally lets go of my hand to reach for it. He hands it to me.

I type in a message to my mom. I told her that I will be at the rooftop and I asked her where she is at this time of the day. Then I send it to her and I look back at Alex who is still looking at me. There's something about his expression, an excitement and just pure joy. I nod to him to tell him that I would be okay to go to the rooftop with him. And so, we both stagger as he helped me get on my wheelchair.

When we were inside the elevator, we were silent like we always are. But it's not that awkward silence. We have been in the rooftop together a lot of times and I wonder why we always go back there. Maybe it's our refuge. Maybe it is where Alex and I feel at peace both at the same time. Maybe, our better reality exists in the rooftop than the world below it. We reached our destination after a couple of seconds. I was the first one to go out and then he followed. He sat in one of the benches.

"Why are we here?" I ask him.

"We are having breakfast here." He told me and he reached for his backpack and he brought out two bagels, he hands one to me.

"Oh, thank you. I love eating this. It's my favorite." I tell him as I get the bagel from his hand. I am a big fan of bagel. Like, it's the second food that I love, cheesecake being the first one. Honestly, I love pastries and it's against my diet to eat too much pastry especially if it's not wheat bread.

"Seriously?" he asked me widening his eyes. He looks cute because his eyes are naturally small but he tries to open them as wide as wide possible and he looks like a cartoon of some sort.

I smile and ask him, "Yes, why? I'm a fan of bagel. Is that a bad thing?"

He shook his head strongly and he swallowed before speaking, "No, of course not! I love bagel, too. Like, it's the second thing I would love to eat any single day. Bagel is love." I laugh at him. He looks totally into bagel and what in the world is this coincidence? We both love bagel and it is both number two on our list. I shook my head to myself and he stops eating for a moment.

My laugh slowly died out and I realized he was looking straight at me, his mouth still full and looking like a cute chubby stuff toy, "What?" I asked him smiling.