Love & Courage [one direction]

ONE.

ONE.

Jesse May.

August 10th 2013, 10:13 pm, London.

_____________________________________________

"You promised," I whimper. Mum shakes her head in an attempt to answer my pleading, but it isn't enough. She knows it, too. But she doesn't have enough time left. She is about to leave me forever.

"Mum, please," Jonah says. He's my little 12 year old brother.

"Don't leave us. Don't go, we don't have anybody left." I whisper, my knees shaking. I hold her cold, sweaty hand in mine whispering her name over and over again.

"I..." she takes a deep breath, and goes again. "I love you both." Jonah is crying and shaking, holding mum's other hand.

"Mum," I tell her. "Mum, we know you can do it. Don't go to heaven yet."

"You can't see dad yet," Jonah says, his voice cracking.

The door flung open and in come the doc workers and nurse. Jonah runs to my side, throwing his arms around me, not daring to let go.

"Ma'am, we're gonna have to ask you to leave." The nurse tells us. I can't budge. She can't just tell me to leave my own mother who is about to die.

"Take him outside," Nurse says, and Jonah grips my waist tighter.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

My heart sinks, and Jonah starts screaming and kicking, and then he throws his body at mum's bed and it smashes against the wall, her dead body bouncing.

I can't stop him. My mind hurts. There are hands on my shoulders, tugging me, pulling me away. It is the docs.

Jonah is crying so hard, his body shaking against mine. I brush my fingers through his hair to cool him, even though all I need is a big ass hug. But I am the bigger sister, so I have to take care of him.

"Ma'am." it's a doc worker, and he is holding sheets of paper. "This your brother?" he nods down at Jonah who is hugging me, sat on my lap.

"Yeah. What about him? Where are we going?" I ask. Jonah sits up, awake now.

"You've no Godparents." the guy says, sympathetically, and I put Jonah on the seat next to me.

"Sir," I say. "You can take us to our Aunts. She lives about 5 hours away," I tell him.

"Is she with a husband?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any other kids? Is she currently pregnant?"

"No." I answer, as Jonah takes a hold of my hand. "No, Sir."

He cracks his knuckles and looks over his shoulder at the room in which my mother is in.

"Whatever you do, don't say goodbye. She isn't really dead. She's just sleeping up in heaven," he whispers in my ear, and I give him the slightest smile.

"What's your Aunts name?"

"Sharon," I tell him. "Sharon Fields." Although we've met her only about five times, I can't let Jonah and myself be separated and put into an adoption centre to be collected by random people we don't know.

As I walk into the hopsital room, again, my eyes dart towards the doctor. He is sitting by my mum's bed, his head in his hands. I go sit by him, and put my arm around his shoulder, my hand on his arm.

"Sir." I say. He looks up for the first time, and wipes his eyes. "It isn't your fault,"

"It is." He whimpers.

"Without you, my mother would have been dead years ago when she was first diagnosed, Sir,"

"Alex." He tells me. "My name is Alex,"

He sniffles back a tear and we both look up to see Jonah rubbing his thumb across my mum's palm. Alex nervously glanced across at my little brother and I too wait for him to realize mum can't ever see him grow up, but he doesn't seem to notice.

Nor Alex or I say anything, because you can never rush someone. So, I scoot closer towards mum's bed and hold her hand in mine, so her touch chills me. The door slid open, and the doc comes in, that sympathetic look darting towards me again.

I knew that look far too well. Teachers did it when I came to school, looking skinny and pale because I refused to eat, and when I had bags under my eyes because I hadn't slept in ages since Dad died. My old friends from primary school who would look at me in class when I didn't get picked for the sport team, because who would pick me?

I knew that look so well, I'd give myself a sympathetic look every morning in the mirror.

That look lived with me, everyone knew our name because we are the kids without parents. We are the kids who's dad died from suicide and who's mum died from breast cancer. We are the kids with nothing but dead hearts.