Harmless Things (Jean Hobbs AU)

Part twenty-two

Dean P.O.V.

Three weeks later.

Scarlett had taken a turn for the worst and to put it bluntly, ultimately, she was dying. I became too scared to fall asleep because waking up was terrifying in case I woke up to even more bad news. I became paranoid that we would miss a phone call from the hospital when we weren't there about any progress so I changed the ringtone to something more attention-seeking and turned up the volume so it could be heard all around the house and some nights I would just sit on the stairs, staring at it, but there was something in the back of my head saying 'I won't have to do this for much longer.’. 

I felt awful about it, of course I did, but there was the tiniest bit of relief with it. My sister's illness was controlling my life, even though it was unintentional. She was too weak and wasn't stable enough to have any radiation, but it was being questioned by the doctors if it would benefit her anyway. It felt like we had been given up on, the word 'hope' was passed around almost constantly two months ago, but now it was used scarcely. 

Could it be possible that you knew in yourself that you knew you were going to die soon? As much as tried to stay positive for Scarlett, she had given up on herself too, but I feel like that was the worst thing I could do as a brother. 

"I just want it to all be over," she whispered to me just the other day. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I just want to die... I am dying, aren't I? It's all just taking too slow, I want to go now." 

"Don't say that," I roughly wiped the tear that had escaped but my heart broke at her words, because a six year old shouldn't be saying that. 

"I'm sorry." 

"Don't worry, you know you can tell me anything," I carefully took her hand in mine, and now I think I understood why Dan was now so scared to touch her. She was so weak and fragile that even I thought I could break her if I wasn't careful.

Scarlett was tearful a lot of the time now and needed us constantly, not even to talk to but to just know we were there next to her. I think because of this we all made a unanimous decision that me and Dan would stop going to school and just spend our days next to her hospital bed. We hadn't really discussed it properly but it's not like we needed to, school was a horrible place for both of us and at least this way I didn't have to worry about my growing collection of bruises. 

The only downside to not going to school that I despised myself for thinking about was that I wasn't going to see Jack anymore. Even if I was in the hands of his friends totally useless, I could still stare at his shoes and know he was there. I knew his shoes in a weird, ridiculous amount of depth. They were also falling apart; I could see the changes in them every day. 

Jack. 

The tall, blonde, quiff-styled-haired boy that I fallen so hard for. The one that hugged me close to him when I broke down and played with my hair when I rested my head on his lap. The one that mimicked my position behind me and put his arm around my waist when I was cold and pretended to hate me when I came 1st on a Mario Kart race. 

Why did everything have to come to an abrupt end when things were going so perfectly and we were both happy? All because of one kiss? Wait, didn't he only kiss me because I got upset? Was this all my fault? 

"Dean?" 

"Huh?" My head snapped up at the sound of the voice and for once I was thankful for it, I didn't need to have a soppy heart-broken breakdown in the middle of the hospital. 

"Can I talk to you outside?" It was Doctor Ellis but we were now on a first-name basis since we saw each other so much. 

"Sure," I followed him out the room, assuming it was for the MRI scan that Scarlett had recently. It was for a check-up to see how the tumour was going and although it was the exact same procedure as last time, it was scarier this time round.