I Wasn't Expecting That • {r. m. l}

8.0

Then you closed your eyes
You took my heart by surprise
I wasn't expecting that

(Two Weeks Later)

Ella

The white walls of the large, private room gave me a slight headache. I didn't really notice though, not with the weakness in my bones and the numbing feeling caused by all of the medicine I had been given.

They knew that it was going to end very soon. I had heard the doctors talking to the family and the plastered smiles on the faces as everybody walked in. Like I wouldn't know. I could feel myself drifting away more than I ever had.

I was scared. Very scared. I didn't want to leave the world, I had never really realised that the day would come when I would but now it was and I didn't want to leave my family. But I had to and I knew it was time to say goodbye.

Riker, Rydel and Maisie came in first. I shook my head and they realised to remove their fake smiles. "I'm not stupid. I know this a goodbye. It has to be."

"Oh, Ella." Rydel sighed, walking forward quickly and sitting on the chair next to the bed. She hugged me gently, tears already falling down her face; the face so different to when I first met her, but it was there, behind all of the age. Riker and Maisie sat down on the chairs beside her.

"Our families getting smaller and smaller by the minute." I said it in a jokey tone but it caused the faces in the room to become even sadder.

"You're like a sister to us, El." Riker shook his head. He had became harder after we lost Stormie and Mark, then Savannah, then Ross and Ryland. I think he felt that because he was the oldest he was supposed to protect everybody but they were all going before him. He ran a bony hand through his grey hair and I thought back to the years his hair was long and blonde and he used to flip it all the time. Many, many years ago.

"I never could of imagines a better family than we have. I just need you all to keep going." They nodded. "Do you remember that time, when we were in that theme park and it began to rain and we were just running around in it with that man who was dressed as a dinosaur."

"Oh my god. We were all in our twenties then." Rydel laughed, a piece of hair falling into her face.

"That was the first time I went out with all of you guys. Ryland won me a teddy bear." I saw the pain that still resided in Maisie's eyes.

"I'll say hi to him for you" I looked at the others. "And everybody else. Just please, please, look after Rocky for me."

-

After the time with Riker, Rydel and Maisie all of my nieces and nephews had came in, we even video chatted Lola in England. It was lovely. We were all so close in this family and seeing all of them with tears fall from their eyes hurt me deeply. That was until all of their children ran in so I could say goodbye to them, obviously in a less morbid way.

And then they left and my ten grandchildren ran in. All happy and joyful. They jumped on my bed and I struggled to hold it together when they asked me where I was going and why they wouldn't see me for a while.

I had never liked to lie to my family and telling them that I was going to a lovely place in the sky called heaven and that I would see all of the people in our family who had already went there. The oldest ones understood and they sat crying in the corner sadly and hugged me tighter that the younger ones.

Then Rosie, James, Jake and Katelyn came in, their eyes red and faces puffy.

"Mummy!" Katelyn said running over to me and engulfing my frail body in a hug. It reminded me of when she was little and she would latch onto me every chance she got. She pulled away and sat down next to me sadly as the others hugged me and sat down too.