𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒓 ✞𝑡𝑜𝑚 𝑘𝑎𝑢𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑧✞

part fourty-one

"Tom, you've got to rest" Lena spoke as she approached him in the waiting room, a can of coke outstretched to him.

"I don't have to do shit Lena" Tom retaliated, snatching the coke from her as his knee bounced rapidly. Anxious, he sat poised on the waiting room chair, his legs bouncing up and down repetitively as his gaze remained fixed on the double doors.

By this point, Robyn had been in surgery for two hours and the nurses explained that she wasn't due out for another two. The band and Lena gathered in one seating area whilst Simone conversed on the phone with their manager. Outside, Jay was smoking a cigarette as he waited for Alicia to arrive.

"I know you're stressed but you guys have a press interview tomorrow and then you're straight on tour" she reasoned, kicking her legs over Georg's lap as she settled.

"You don't think I fucking know that" Tom snapped, taking an aggressive swig from the van before he shot up from his seat and stormed over to the desk.

"Is there any update on Robyn Cadence?" he asked agitatedly leaning over the desk slightly.

"Unfortunately there are no updates as of right now but I do need someone to fill out some forms" she smiled, sliding a collection of papers across the desk. Tom exhaled with a weak smile and took them.

Sitting alone, he pulled a pen from the side table and began: the basic questions- name, age, gender, ethnicity, height, weight ect. He struggled to simplify a girl so extraordinary down into these superficial labels.

"Where's that little shit gone now?" Jay's voice sounded through the doorway, immediately reminding Tom of how he had previously addressed him that night.

Standing up, he approached Jay as he turned and spotted him.

"Alicia's here" Jay introduced, stepping to the side slightly to reveal the girl.

Tom's insides shifted seeing her; she was a reflection of Robyn. Her eyes were rounded and her nose was slightly wider but besides this, the tinge of Robyn's feline cheekbones and warm smile remained.

"Hi," she spoke, the echo of Robyn on the garage roof sounding through his sleep-deprived mind.

"Hi" he replied with a weak smile.

"Are those the forms?" Jay asked, his breath heavy with the pungent smell of cigarettes and his eyes circled with purple shadows.

Tom nodded turning the forms towards him as Alicia leant beside Jay to see. The pair scanned over the thick black lettering.

Tom watched how comfortable they were with each other, remembering how Robyn had explained the extent of Jay's involvement in her life from such a young age.

"Do you even know Rob?" Jay almost chuckled, darting his eyes upward to him. Alicia stared at him suspiciously.

"What do you mean?" Tom asked, taking a step forward and cocking his head slightly to see.

"You don't know her middle name or her ethnicity?" Alicia pointed out, dragging her hand across her tired eyes.

Tom swallowed as his heart sank.

"How long have you known her?" Alicia questioned with narrow eyes.

"It's been two months since we moved. I met her on the first night" Tom spoke, his dynamic with Robyn sounding small and superficial when being encapsulated into a time scale.

Factually, he knew he couldn't not compete or compare to the experiences and time in which Jay had known her, but it hurt none the less to hear Alicia say it.

"I'll get another form" she huffed as she began to walk towards the desk "I think you should ask your friends to leave- I don't think she will appreciate six strangers crowding her when she's out of surgery" Alicia added turning to Tom.

His heart fell. It was true- Jay and Alicia were her family, he didn't know where he stood.

~*~

Tom thought he was imagining things when the double doors swung open, the familiar sea of braids trailing off the edge of the hospital bed being pushed through. The group were quick to leap up, all exhausted and stiff as they fled over to the nurses surrounding the bed. Pushing past the group, Alicia and Jay weaved through the band to the front, peering over the nurses to see Robyn before they were stopped.

"The surgery was successful but we're taking her to recovery, only immediate family can see her- she's very weak" the nurse spoke seriously, her hand pressed against Jay's chest as he attempted to push past her.

Jay's arguments turned to inaudible echo's as Tom stared down at Robyn, the world growing blurred and distorted as he saw her lying beneath the machines. Protruding from her neck, a thin tube trailed upward into a large machine pumping her blood upward and then into the mechanism that presumably cleaned it. Then, another tube lead from the machine down to a second incision on her lower neck to implement the clean blood back into her system. Shock washed over Tom as he saw her; pale and unconscious, she lay in the bed like a corpse drained of all it's blood.

"We're family" Alicia spoke, signalling to herself and Jay, her eyes desperate and anxious as they alternated between Robyn and the nurse.

She nodded before speaking "Follow me" the nurse spoke calmly, leading the pair down the hallway.

Tom watched in awe as she descended the corridor, Robyn's limp body being rushed further and further away from him. Picturesque, Alicia and Jay hurriedly followed either side of her; they really were a family.

"Tom?" Bill's voice sounded sweetly from beside him, snapping him from his state of shock. "I think we should go get some rest" he smiled at his brother.

Tom paused, flicking his attention between his twin and the girl being pushed away in the hospital bed.

"Here," Tom spoke quickly as he rummaged in his pocket for the keys to the car for Bill to drive everyone home.

Expecting to feel the cold metal of the loop of keys, Tom furrowed his brows as he discovered a small crumpled piece of paper stuffed in his jeans.

"What's that?" Bill questioned, seeing how his brother carefully revealed the paper in his palm.

Focusing his sleep deprived eyes, he cautiously unfolded the disheveled paper, straightening out the creased in his palm as he began to identify the lettering.

𝐺𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡, 𝑏𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑎𝑡 4
𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦 - 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑
𝑅𝑜𝑏

His heart ached as he read it, the familiar words of Robyn herself playing fresh in his mind like music. Remembering that night when she took him to the party, he smiled similarly to how he did when receiving it the next morning, images of Robyn smiling and the taste of her sweet lips appearing in his thoughts. His eyes traced upward to the blank corridor where she just had been, seeing how she had now disappeared as the nurses pushed her around the corner. She was gone.

His mind circulated over the decision as he read the final words of her note, their sleek black letters staring back at him.

𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦