36 Questions to Fall in Love...in 36 days!

Chapter 72:Shower and Bucket lists

I'm pulled from a deep sleep. The comfort of 'no thought' , of safe darkness is shaken off. Crumbling. Sunlight pours into the room, brightening behind my eyes.

Someone shakes me awake, I jolt up, delirious, a blissful ignorance. Until the pain of knowledge, the weight of everything crashes over me.

I quickly turn to my side, relief floods my heart when I see Mkhulu breathing steadily, the heart monitor reaffirming that he's out of danger.

Doctor Dlamini looks angry, he slowly moves me from the side of the bed I was laying on. “You can't sleep here. He's got broken ribs, we don't need anymore fractures.”

“I'm sorry.” Is all I can find to say, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

“ I need to check his vitals and condition.” Doctor Dlamini says, his eyes elaborating that I should step out.

I don't waste any more time. I step out of the room. The hospital is busier than it was hours ago. Doctors and nurses walk up and down the hallways. Alex and Bina are still seated on one the line of chairs in the hallway. Bina has fallen asleep on his shoulder wrapped in his embrace.

Alex looks exhausted, the eye bags underneath his eyes have gotten darker. When he sees me, he smiles.

“You're awake.”

I nod, looking at my wrist to see the time. It reads, 7: 49.

“Where's Lisa?” I ask him, looking around.

“I told her to go back home, take a quick shower and come back. We're all taking turns. Bina's going next.”

I take the seat next to him, wordless.

“You should go too Leo. Take a shower, eat some food. It'll do you good.”

“I'm not leaving my grandfather.”

“I'm here.” Alex reminds me, holding my gaze.

“What if…what if something happens while I'm gone?”

There are three things that could happen while I'm gone. One: Mkhulu could wake up, regain consciousness and probably start asking for me. I want to be there when he wakes up.

Two: Mkhulu could die while being in his coma, not even given the chance to say his last words to us or even open his eyes again.

Or three: Mkhulu could simply stay in his coma.

“—It’ll be alright son.” Alex reassures me, a comforting smile forming on his lips.

Alex has been trying with me. His lips are dry, his eyes bags darker and his eyes swirling with inner turmoil. It isn't easy to comfort me, to help me. He doesn't know which words to say, which ones not too.

He also doesn't completely know where he stands with me because even though he's known my grandfather for years and apparently knew me when I was a child, to me he's still a stranger.

His words sound off. Like they don't belong on his lips. If Mkhulu would have said the exact same words he did, they would have had a different ring to it. Mkhulu has always been the one to comfort me from the pain of this world. No matter where I was, as long as I was in pain, Mkhulu wouldn't be too far from me, ready with words of wisdom and his presence.

But now that Mkhulu is gone, now that he's the cause of my pain, I don't know how to truly receive comfort from anyone else.

Alex looks on the verge of having a breakdown on his own as he waits for me to say yes to his advice.