In Pursuit of Perfection | Nalu | Collab with ofthefeels

| Chapter 12 |

Cold Water, by Major Lazor Ft. Justin Bieber

| Previously on Chapter 11 |

He stared at her for a few more seconds and she stared back. "Fine, but promise me you'll come and tell me, or someone else, if your relationship gets worse, okay?" She nodded. They started to dance, but something about that sentence kept nagging her, as if there was a needle poking her again and again. In the middle of a fouette, it dawned on her. How does Natsu know about Lisanna and I?

| Chapter 12 |

"Dad! Dad! Are you okay?" Lucy looked at her father, who was coughing non-stop. She grabbed her phone from a nearby table. He bent over, gasped, and finally stopped coughing, his face pink.

"Something's wrong," he said, wheezing. "I can't breathe. It-it hurts to breath."

"I'm calling the ambulance," she said, her voice shaking. With trembling hands, she dialed 9-1-1. Someone picked up at the other end and her father went into a fit of coughing again.

"This is the 911 emergency center, how can I help you?" a woman said.

"My dad-he needs to go to the hospital, he won't stop coughing and he says it hurts to cough. A few days ago he was detected with spine cancer and-" she broke off as tears welled up in her eyes. Her hand gripped the hem of her shirt tightly, her knuckles turning white. Breathe, don't forget to breath.

"The ambulance will be over shortly. Hang in there." The woman hung up.

"Thank you." She set her phone down and brushed the tears away. She couldn't cry, she had to be strong. For her father and for herself. He clutched his chest, heaving in short breaths. "Dad, the ambulance will be here soon, do you think you can wait a little?"

He nodded and stopped coughing. "Yeah, I'll try."

Minutes later, she caught the sound of the faint scream of sirens down the road. Lucy raced to the window and saw the red and blue lights illuminating the apartments nearby. The ambulance halted outside her father's apartment and a few men and women came out the doors, running to the back to retrieve a stretcher. Lucy ran back to the dining room and helped her father up to his feet. With his arm slung across her shoulder, they made their way to the front door. Thank goodness father lives on the first floor.

"Are you Ms. Heartfilia?" a man said, as the rest of his group lifted her father onto the stretcher. She gave him a quick nod, not wanting to dwell on the subject of her right now. There were more important things to worry about that who she was.

"Don't worry about your father, he'll be fine," a woman assured, as Lucy climbed into the back with a couple other nurses. As they sped off to the hospital, they gave him some water and slipped an oxygen mask over his face. Lucy held his hand. He stopped coughing so violently, but each second was still like torture. Every time they had to slow down because of cars in the way, she wanted to scream at them to move. Didn't they know it was a matter of life or death? That the line in between both worlds was very, very thin? Everything could turn upside down with just one mistake.

How? How could this happen? The doctors said last week that he was fine! Just a few days ago, he had gone through surgery! How had it spiraled so quickly out of control? Was it something she did that caused him to be more stressed?