Concerto - A Sonata Sequel (Harry Styles FanFiction)

5. It Isn't Up To You

Darien Grace

Jesus, antiseptic. I despised that smell; it drove me into immediate nausea. I knew exactly what that scent meant—I was in a hospital. I'd spent more than my fair share of time in varying hospitals over the years. Whether it was with my mother during her last few weeks, the emergency room the McKenneys had rushed me to following their discovery of my eating disorder, or the mental health facility I'd been forced into immediately after my release from the previous.

The entire concept of a hospital sickened me and I wanted nothing more than to get out. They smelled like death and despair. I'd promised Caleb and John that I wouldn't end up in one again. I'd promised them that they wouldn't have to worry about me anymore, that I had learned how to manage the devilish voice in my head... And, to an extent I had. I'd managed the old voice. I'd finally learned how to turn down the volume and ignore it, but I'd never once anticipated the surfacing of a new devil whispering in my ear. How could I have ever prepared for this. I hadn't ever imagined the possibility of "Otherwise" or anything of that nature even being in the cards for me... clearly that expectation was rightly conceived.

I hadn't been lying to Harry when I'd told him that our entire "relationship" had been a game, because it had been. We might not have been the orchestrators of it, but we were the main players. The Universe was in charge and we were the pawns. I hadn't entered into it with the intention of hurting him—h.ell, I'd never even planned to be a part of the game in general. It had snuck up on me and I was too far invested in the outcome to bow out before it all played through. We'd been chosen and I'd lost. But losing hadn't been enough for the Universe, now it had to torment me—reminding me daily of everything I'd been robbed of. The hospital was just the icing on top of the cake; it was the latest in a long line of tortures planned out for me from now on into infinity.

Closing my eyes, I did whatever I could to block it all out, to pretend that I was anywhere but here. That only made it worse, though. Without my sight, everything else was amplified. The sickening stench of excess bleach, the invasive pressure of the IV in my right hand, the growing ache in my left arm stabilized beyond movement, wrapped in its new plaster cast. There was no escape; the only other option being that d.amnable eternal twilight. I couldn't go back there. Instead, I was forced to decide which was the lesser of the two evils. Unlike the nightmares lurking in the shadows, I knew how to deal with hospitals. There was comfort in familiarity, no matter how unwanted it was. I'd made it through the worst a hospital had to offer before, and I could do it again. I had to.

"Hello, Darien." I jumped at the sudden voice, my eyes flying open, searching for the source. The warmth encasing my right hand flared, acting as a beacon, leading me to my ultimate destination. One strong hand was wrapped securely around a smaller one with bones clearly showing through a thin layer of skin. It was weak and depraved and with a stomach churning sickness, I realized that it was my own.

Reeling, I forced myself to look away from the evidence of my abandon. Slowly, I let my eyes follow the hand holding mine. It wasn't much larger than my own, but the past few weeks had worn on my body. Pale skin was stretched taught across slender bones, the flesh full with youth and good health. a strange familiarity settling through me from the sheer sensation of skin on skin. Whoever this was, I knew them. I knew them in my soul.