War

Chapter Thirty-Three

A/N - gone 4am but who cares I love everything about this 🥹🥹

Enjoyyy❤️❤️❤️

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Marco
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Aniyah had been in the hospital for two days now, and I could say with a huge amount of confidence that I hadn't left him alone for longer than fifteen minutes.

I'd been showering in the attached bathroom, sleeping beside her in a makeshift bed; and despite my brothers telling me to just go home and rest, I wasn't daring to leave her alone anytime soon. Aniyah had given up telling me to do the same, we were both as stubborn as each other and it was showing.

She was slowly but surely healing, still only getting out of bed for the bathroom and to freshen up, but I was just beyond grateful that she was still here.

"I can't wait to be in an actual bed", Aniyah sighed, sipping her coffee that I'd just bought, "that can't be comfortable either". It wasn't, but I kept it to myself that I'd barely slept either way; not when I was sitting beside her as she tossed and turned in her sleep, murmuring incoherent words under her breath every now and then.

She hadn't brought it up, so I assumed she didn't realise it was happening, or she didn't want it to be discussed.

"The nurse said you should be able to move to bed rest at home in the next few days", I reminded her and she smiled, I knew she couldn't wait to get out of here almost as much as me.

"How's your wrist?", she asked, stealing a glance at the white plaster cast covered in small red hearts drawn in marker pen- her choice, not mine, "you're worrying about me twenty-four-seven, you were hurt too". And I was still having flashbacks to the excruciating pain that had been caused when my hand was stamped on, but I was trying to push it to my subconscious along with everything else.

"Better today", I told her honestly, "the painkillers are helping". I was due to be wearing the cast for six weeks, with an X-ray scheduled at the three-week mark in order to check if things were healing correctly.

If not, I'd be returning to the hospital for surgery, and I couldn't think of anything worse.

"Good", Aniyah smiled, sipping her drink again, "where are the guys?".

"Emiliano has gone back to work for the day, Ezekiel is with Rio at home, Elijah is nowhere to be seen", I reeled off, clenching my jaw, "nothing new there".

"You're worried about him", a statement, not a question. Elijah was the one who put on a front the most, and while his disappearing acts were nothing that we weren't used to, but they were becoming more frequent and it was in my nature to worry about them.

"Again, nothing new", I told her, "it feels like a cycle- I worry about Milo, then Zeke, Eli...sometimes it's all three at once".
"I can't even imagine", she sighed, reaching over and squeezing my arm, "you've been carrying it for so long, and I know you might not wanna hear it, but I think you're just wired that way at this point".

If someone asked me to sum up Aniyah in a word, one of the ones I'd use would be my validation; in the five months I'd known her she'd never not shown me that what I felt was valid, it was as if I could do no wrong in her eyes.