Speak Now & Surprises [Hunter Hayes fanfic]

Chapter 30

“Your sister will be here in an hour or so.” She said from the corner, stirring slightly. I looked up silently, surprised to see her there.

Without the make-up and hairdos, Andrea Swift looked a lot older. For the first time ever I noticed her uneven skin tone, the blue-purple bags beneath her eyes that shadowed their red rims, and how blotchy red her cheeks were. She’d stayed up all night crying for me.

“Thanks, Andrea.” I whispered softly, “Thanks for staying.”

Neither of us said anything for the next hour, but exchanged our glances between the needle taped to my hand, the full body restraints on me, and the gap where my left leg should be.

I heard Amelia before I saw her, just like you could always hear her before you saw her at home: dropping the television remote in the living room and having to move the furniture to find the batteries, accidently kicking the switch on the computer and shocking herself trying to plug it back in, leaving the tap running over the bath and forgetting about it – even the neighbours would hear the almighty heave of water over the edge of the tub.

She clattered into the ward in some silly sounding high heels, probably the Laboutin’s I’d given her for her twenty-third birthday...

“How is my baby sister!” she exclaimed quite positively as she threw back the navy blue curtain. She was dressed to the nines in silk black jumpsuit accompanied by her favourite black watch and beaded necklace. Her eyes, so similar to mine, shrank until her pupils were at a startling ratio to her Columbia blue irises. I guessed nobody had told her about my unexpected amputation. Oh well. Nobody had told me either.

“H-How do you feel, Shel?” she stammered, trying to put on a brave face. I couldn’t help but feel bad for her – I mean, she’d come all the way from California to visit her little sister in hospital only expecting something to be mildly askew, nothing like the life-changing deformation I was now burdened with. I bet nobody had even told her why I was in here.

“Itchy.” Was all I could answer in a flat monotone. Amelia nodded and told me she’d talk to a nurse, before bolting out of the ward unsteadily on those ridiculous shoes.

“She’s just having trouble adjusting.” Andrea tried to ease me as I stared at the spot my sister had been. My big sister, the one I could always depend on, was terrified for me – so terrified that she couldn’t even cope being in the same room as me.

I wondered how long she would stay for, before deciding that I didn’t want to know. I rolled over as best I could and begged for the calm and comfort that washed away all trace of pain, all trace of suffering and all trace of fear, even if only temporarily.

I begged for sleep.

“What a beautiful day.” I commented. It really was.

The sun shone strongly through the glade of greenery and onto the surface of the clear creek, creating a kaleidoscope of colours. Hunter and I were sat beneath the shade of the overhang where the water level rose to during floods, peach and cream coloured seashells dotted all around us.

“Almost as beautiful as you.” He replied.

“Aw shucks,” I said in a New York gangster accent and kissed him on the cheek. He dug his toes into the moist sandy ground in front of us and so did I.

“I bet the water isn’t half warm today.” He told me quite directly, raising one of those perfect eyebrows at me.

“Are you daring me to go in the water?” I asked him. I’d always been a good swimmer, this wouldn’t bother me. I reached down to take off my clothes, only for my hands to meet an itchy band stretched taut across me.

These flashbacks really needed to stop.

I was vaguely aware of a cool liquid pulsating through the veins in my left hand, presumably more morphine – but then what was that smooth, rhythmic sensation that repeated itself over and over on the back of my left hand? I lay quite still with my eyes closed for a while, trying to decipher what was making that feeling on the back of my hand, until curiosity got the better of me and I squinted through my eyes.

One masculine left hand rested in my left hand, running its thumb across the back of mine. I recognized those hands – I’d probably recognize them anywhere I’d come to know them so well. I could tell you right now how they’d nervously grasp each other in times of an interview or whenever an awkward question arose, how they’d be mottled and stiff after a long night of performing, how they’d snuggle at the base of my head after entangled themselves in my hair, and how smooth and finesse their touch was on me.

Hunter’s hands.

He was sitting at an angle to the window so that a peachy dawn-light was cast over him, bringing out that youthful boyish look on his cheeks. He gazed back at me, unmoving except for his hands.

After an eternity of sorrowful gazes he swallowed almost nervously, and straightened up. Tired of the elastic band that prevented me from the world above, I fumbled with my right hand for a way to undo it. I hit a few buttons that I located at the side of my bed and began to be tilted upwards. I wanted to sit up the full ninety degrees, but Hunter hit pause after ten degrees or so, indicating at some x-rays that were stuck on a whiteboard to the right of my bed. I wondered how long they’d been there because I hadn’t noticed them, nor did I remember being x-rayed. A bundle of my ribs appeared to be fractured. I lay back down.

“For you.” Hunter murmured, handing me a plastic square. I opened my mouth to ask him a million questions, but he silenced me with an imploring look to the plastic square. I sighed and decided to study it with my still fogged vision.

It was a CD to the soundtrack of a film I didn’t recognize: Footloose. I immediately located Julianne Hough on the front, after meeting her at the after-party at Taylor’s estate so many months previous. Julianne was dancing with an actor I couldn’t name, so I flipped it over to look at the track list. I skim read the artists and recognized a few: Zac Brown, Blake Shelton and Whitney Duncan were amongst them, but the two artists on track eight brought tears to my eyes – Hunter Hayes and Victoria Justice.

“I’m so sorry.” Hunter and I both gasped in unison.

“I should’ve told you-”

“I should’ve let you explain-”

“I wanted to make you a surprise-”

“I wanted to know why you were acting weird-”

“I love you Shelby.”

“Hunter you know I love you, I’m so sorry.” I choked, reaching for his arms around me; within seconds they were.