Being Happy

Part Eight...

Part Eight...

Chase

I clutch onto her frail hand, her eyes fluttering as she starts to wake, I know I am risking everything staying here like this. I know I have to decide what to do when she wakes up, she will never forgive me, it's all my fault. If I hadn't have hurt her she wouldn't be lay in this bed, her ribs broken and cuts and bruises all over her beautiful face. Her hair a mop on her head where some of the blood hadn't been washed out and my heart pleading to see one of her breath taking smiles ghost over her lips.

"I don't want to say goodbye." I choke on my words, my free hand pushing her hair away from her face lightly, away from those eyes closed over the beautiful ocean and sea breeze eyes.

"Don't say goodbye, it sounds as if she'll never see you again."  Remy whispers, from the doorway, he had been here since the time the hospital had called on finding my name on Violet's emergency contacts. She looked so beautifully broken in the hospital bed, I couldn't stand the fact of knowing I had done that too her. But Remy was right. I won't. Never.

I had to let her go.

With tears welling in my eyes, I kiss her head, her bruised scarred cheek, her soft button nose and her full dry lips. I feel the tear run a path down my cheek to join our lips and taste the salt mixed with love, anger and sadness.

It's then that I pull myself away, I leave the room so that doctors can come in as she begins to wake up. It leaves me with this empty feeling, this cold isolated pressure building up inside me. There is an echoing silence filled with a telephone ringing, a machine beeping, keyboard tapping and in the distance a baby squealing. So now I wait. Just for a while, I tell myself, just till I know she's okay.

With a sigh I take a seat in the almost empty waiting room, I dig out a notebook and pen trying to find the words to say goodbye, and I begin to tap at the page in an anxious rhythmn. It's blank. I tap, I doodle and I sigh as not a single word comes to my head. It's hard to tell someone that you love that you are going to leave them, it's hard to do it when you don't even want to leave.

I'm interrupted in my tapping by the feel of breath against my neck. "Excuse me." I hear and I jump a little startled before I turn my eyes to meet the most intense marbled brown ones. I draw back a little, my breath caught in my throat in surprise and I see the girl's wide rosy lips spread into a smile and her small nose wrinkle up with it. She's pretty with raven locks that flick up and frame her face till it reaches her shoulders; no trace of make-up at her age is a rare sight and her pale skin is flush with a small blush on her cheeks. "My pen just ran out do you have one I could borrow?" she says gesturing to her crossword puzzle book as she leans across the seats.

Slightly embarrassed to be caught staring I look away to the black pen in my hand clutched tightly between my fingers and stutter my way through as I extend it to her. "Umm, urrh, sure, here." I say nervously as I offer her the pen wishing her to just take it before my hands start sweating. I hated this, I hated talking, I hated confrontation and even this girl had me scared out of my converse.

"Who are you here for?" She asks moving back to settle in her seat, she crosses her legs and moves to face me in the seat. I look around as her voice fills the room, not realising how quiet it was, everyone is so absorbed in their problems they don't seem to be moving a single muscle.

"My... partner... girlfriend was in an accident." I stutter awkwardly as I scratch at my neck looking away sheepishly, I never really liked talking to new people, she seemed a nice girl and sure I wanted children of my own someday but I wasn't in the mood to play babysitter.

"Cool, I'm here for my brother, he's having his appendix out." She cringes and rolls her eyes before looking down at her crossword again. "Appendix! Six down, eight letters!" She leaps out of her seat in glee. I had never seen someone so passionate about puzzles before, her enthusiasm is infectious because for a second I smile.

"She's going to be okay you know?" I hear, making me turn my head back at the girl. She couldn't be any older than 15, her kindness comes with innocence and naivety, a type I lacked when I was her age. "She's going to be okay, if she knows it's you that's waiting for her; then she'll be okay. The moment she sees you she'll be glad you stayed." And that puts me on edge. It makes me tense.

"Lucy?" I hear a nurse ask the girl coming from a far end part of the ward. "Your brother has been asking for you, he would like to see you now."

"That's me. I told you it's worth the wait. By mister." She hands me back the pen before skipping down the hall after the nurse.

I stare down at it. Like it weighs the weight of the world. And I know what I have to do.