Night Shift [h.s]

twenty

☁️ ALANNAH ☁️

"Lana- Lana... hey, are you even listening to me?" Niall's voice rings though my ears and I can hear him quite clearly, but I'm choosing to look straight past him, specifically staring at the baby that was curled up in somebody's arms.

It must've only been about a few weeks old, perhaps just over a month old. They were a tiny little thing, a little dot in their mothers arms. There was a whole family sitting together in the waiting room. A mum holding the baby, and then a dad sitting beside her with one hand on her knee and the other was clutching onto a toddler that must've only been two. She had a bandage wrapped around her head and salt stains down her cheek.

I couldn't stop staring at them. I couldn't stop watching how the mother and father would converse so freely. How the father would lean over to gently peck her forehead, or how he'd bend his head down to watch over his baby in his partners arm. I didn't miss how he was doing everything he could to keep their toddler in high spirits despite whatever was happening underneath that bandage. She was holding his phone for a little while, watching an episode of peppa pig which seemed to fill the noise of the quiet waiting room. They were practically the only people in here. Though she soon got sick of the phone and since then they had been playing with one another, a lighthearted game of peekaboo was keeping her giggling and I watched it all.

I couldn't stop watching all four of them. A perfect little family that were all just made for one another. They looked so happy together, they looked at peace, they looked comfortable, even in this gloomy hospital, they still managed to make one another laugh.

I admired them. I couldn't stop looking. I couldn't bear to take my eyes off of something I could only dream of having.

"Lana! Jesus woman, what is going on with you?" Niall gives me another nudge to listen to his story he was telling me about something ridiculous that had happened in one of his online lectures recently, I switched off the moment I caught sight of this beautiful little family in front of me.

"Hmm? What? What did you say?" I finally rip my eyes away from them to meet his ocean eyes that were full of confusion.

I was just as confused.

I wasn't entirely sure where my mind had been this past week. I swear I had been away with the fairies for most of it. Everyone seemed to notice that something was off with me but I done my absolute best to just slap on a smile and keep going.

After my initial reaction last week where I had snapped at Rosie and tried to push everything away, I had soon come to realise after spending a few hours sobbing on the bathroom tiles that I really needed to get a grip on myself before people got worried. I could break down at home, I could scream and cry when I was at home, but the second I stepped out of my door, I had to have it all together. There was no room for anything else other than being fine.