The Gang Leaders Daughter

Chapter 18

Alex POV 

Doctor check ups were the worst. I hate needles. I hate hospitals. I hate the blood pressure thingy. I hate the cold feeling of the stethoscope on my back. I hate that the doctor asked Kyle to wait in the lobby. I told him Kyle had to come with if he wanted to check my stitches. Hospitals just remind me of bad times, and by the stressed look on Kyle's face and how tense his jaw was set, my guess was that he hated hospitals too. 

They had removed my stitches and drawn a small thing of blood to make sure I was perfectly okay. The nurse had brought me a small cookie to snack on so I wouldn't get light headed when I stood up. I was snacking on my cookie when I heard Kyle mumble, "I hate hospitals."

"So do I," I looked over to him to see his hands were clasped together in front of him; he was leaning his elbows on his knees. He was looking away from me, but slowly turned his gaze to meet mine. 

"Why do you hate them?" He whispered. Looking down at my lap, I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"It's a long story, but it was my mom. We were here too much because of her." It was silent for a moment, "Why do you hate them so much?"

"If I tell you, will you tell me the long story of your mom?" I sighed and agreed. "My sister. . ."

"I never knew you had a sister."

"Keyword being 'had.' She used to dance like you do. She danced a different style, but it was the same tune." I saw a small smile grace his lips as he remembered her. "She was a bit taller than you, and she had very long blonde hair and the most breath taking green eyes. She loved dancing so much, I built her a studio."

"The studio I use. . .Is that why you got mad when you found me there one day?" He simply nodded and looked down at his hands.

"She would dance in there everyday," His voice wavered, "Then she got sick. . .It started with a cough. We thought maybe she just had a cold. But it never got better; it only got worse as time went on. So, one day I took her to the doctor. They tried prescribing her with various medications to make her better, but none of them worked. So they did some blood tests and took x-rays of her lungs. They diagnosed her with stage 3 lung cancer. . ." 

I had forgotten the cookie by now and sat up. I gently touched his shoulder and turned him to me. He looked up at me with broken eyes. I placed my hands on his face and stroked his cheeks with my thumbs. He grabbed one of my hands before continuing. 

"She would still dance in that studio up until she couldn't. Then she would still go down there just to listen to music. Everyday, music was still blasting through that damn house." He chuckled, but it was a sad laugh, "Then, one day, it all stopped. The house went quiet because she had reached stage 4 and wasn't aloud to leave the hospital. It only went downhill from there. She worse twice as fast as before. She stopped smiling. She stopped laughing. She stopped humming along to the music I would play for her. . ." His tears betrayed him and hit my hands. "Then, one day, she flat lined. She died and the pain of loosing his only daughter caused my father to get sick as well. He was old anyways, but they say he died of a broken heart. The tendons in his heart had snapped in his grief, causing an irregular beating pattern, and eventually, heart failure." The tears were streaming down his face and my hands, but his voice was still strong. I placed a kiss to his forehead and hugged him to my chest. His arms wrapped around me and gripped at my back. 

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We reached the house and I had climbed up the stairs to our room. He was following behind me silently and sat on the bed as I searched in my drawers for her picture. When I found it, I sat next to him and handed it over.