Make It Count | ✓

09 - heatwave

[ you & i ]
one direction
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—nine—

heatwave

MY HANDS CLENCHED.

I had been standing in front of her door a couple of minutes now, my fingers tentatively clutching around the doorknob. I was someone who almost instantly comes up with a decision, but today, I just couldn't bring myself to open the door. I wanted to see Belle yet there was that sharp pull holding me back that made me quite hesitant to see what lies ahead.

Or perhaps, I was terrified in a more dramatical sense. Too scared to open a whole can of worms. The moment of truth was here, I had to face the consequences once I step inside the room. I had to; Belle needed me now and giving myself the ultimatum was rather absurd, but it helped me in twisting the doorknob, at last.

And for obvious reasons, my movements were slow, gritting my teeth at once in pure restlessness, cautious as though not to disturb a sleeping dragon. Belle was peacefully napping, her hands entwined on her stomach. And for a moment there, I feared seeing her like that and that was even an understatement.

Pushing my negative thoughts into the utmost part of my brain, I shook my head. As I gulped, I felt like my heart fell into the pit of my stomach as I watched her breathing. Her chest slowly rising and falling.

No matter how much I tried not to think morbidly, I still couldn't help but put myself on the edge, paranoid her movements might just stop without warning. I wasn't ready; I didn't know if I was ever going to be prepared for what was what about to come. I just couldn't imagine my life without her.

I wouldn't say I couldn't live without her, I was born without Belle, I had lived my life without her. But it would be more appropriate for me to say that Belle was my reason of wanting to live my life in the most significant way possible.

Every time I looked into her eyes, I never doubted anything at all. My days before weren't the brightest of the brightest, but when she came into my life, I felt...whole. Belle, in some way, completed me, and now that the puzzle had been solved, I couldn't honestly envision myself without her. Now that I was so attached to her. One shouldn't just barge into your life, make you feel different and then leave you with nothing but a big wrecked version of you.

I sat on the chair next to her bed just as she woke up, perhaps noticing my presence.

"H—Hey," my voice raspy and strained, and she smiled. I would've returned that smile back, but it was hard seeing her that weak and melancholic. It was a punch in the gut, wrenching inside me a thousand times over.

"Hi," returned Belle, attempting to sound lively.

Unsure of how to start, I evened my breathing first, half-engaging myself with twisting a stray thread of my ripped jeans. When I pulled it absentmindedly, the effect of it scared me. That the moment you pull the thread as though it was sticking out like a sore thumb, all the nearby thread would give away and ruin everything.

Like now. That the second I would so much as ask her, everything will just blow in my fucking face and would rip me apart. It was absolutely hard, but it was time for me to face what I really was here for.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I managed, finally, as my lips began to quiver. Every word I said left a bitter taste in my mouth, and her keeping her illness to herself was painful and a major betrayal to me. It was as if she didn't trust me enough like I couldn't take her sickness like a man.