Moments Passed (With Every Moment Left Sequel) Book 7

Chapter 25

 

Faith’s POV

The first thing I’m aware of is that I’m sitting on a hospital bed, watching Spongebob and shouting out the theme song to it. I immediately cut it out, my face turning red. My head still felt funny, and I could feel a slight ache in my hips, but I look around the room to try and figure out where I was. I see Hope sitting near me, an IV drip in her arm and looking like she was about to bust a gut from laughing so hard.

“Where am I?” I ask.

“The hospital,” she says slowly, as if unsure of my mental state. Oh yea. The hospital. The transplant.

“How’re you feeling?” I ask.

“Apparently not as good as you,” she teases.

“How… how long was I singing along?” I ask in embarrassment.

“Two episodes. You started yelling at me whenever I tried to change the channel,” she tells me with a grin. I want to curl up in a ball of embarrassment and die. Unfortunately, that’s when Mom and a doctor walk in.

“Feeling better? I see we’ve calmed down a bit,” the doctor says with a warm smile.

“Yea, a bit,” I say with an embarrassed nod. He nods, pulling out a pen light and checking my eyes before moving over to check Hope’s IV.

“We’re looking good,” he announces. “Faith, you should be good to go in about an hour. Hope, you’ll be here for a few days until your white blood cell count rises and we’ll go from there.”

“Thanks Doc,” Hope says warmly. The doctor leaves and Mom comes over to me, giving me a big hug.

“I love you so much,” she tells me as I hug her back.

“Love you too Mom,” I tell her. Something crinkles under me and I pull back in confusion and grab the piece of paper I’d rolled onto out from under me.

“Why do I have Niall’s autograph?” I ask. Both my mom and Hope start cracking up and I have to grudgingly wait

“You begged him for it.”

“And then insisted on giving him yours when he told you who you were,” Mom adds.

“God he couldn’t even tell the story without cracking up,” Hope continues.

“Wait, what?”

“I told you he’d come,” Hope says smugly. I duck my head, trying to hide my smile as I look down at the piece of paper. He’d actually come. Granted, I don’t remember any of it and I was petrified of what I might have said to him, but he’d come.

“Here,” I say, offering the signature to Hope, knowing it’d mean more to her than it would to a sane Faith.

“No, that’s alright,” she says with a shake of her head. “Well it’s kind of weird for me to be crushing on him now, isn’t it?” she asks when she sees my look of confusion.

“Well he likes you… It’d be weird to crush on a guy who was crushing on my sister” she says in a ‘duh’ tone. I’m about to protest, but the words get stuck on my lips and I snap my mouth shut. I’d never told her about our date… Had he told her he did?“

“We’re just friends,” I say firmly. Until he was over Rachel, we weren’t even going to discuss that subject.

“Mhm yea, well, he said to call him when you get out. He had some post-tour meeting he had to get back to London for.”

“Ok,” I say with a nod, looking back down at the signature. “Can you toss me my phone?” I ask, gesturing towards the pile of clothes that was in the corner. She nods, standing up and wheeling the IV over so she can dig through my jeans pocket before she finds my phone.  She tosses it the short distance, but my reflexes and hand-eye- coordination are impaired and the phone bounces off my fingers and off the bed. “Shit,” I mutter wincing as I lean over to try to reach it. She gets to it first and hands it up to me and I start inspecting it for cracks. Phew, nothing.

I heard you came to see me, I text him. The reply isn’t immediate like I hoped for. It’s only after I’ve changed back into normal clothes, been discharged, and Mom’s helped my clumsy self into the passenger seat of the car does my phone vibrate.

Yeh, you were pretty out of it

Hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself, I text back.

Nah you were fine. Are you at home for long or are ya comin back to london soon?

Home for a while. Wanna be with Hope, ya know?, I respond.

Yeh, alright. Well can I come visit?, he responds almost instantly. I bite my lip as I reread it. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want him getting any ideas. I shouldn’t have worried. Before I even have time to respond, I get another.

Just as friends

 

Niall’s POV

 

The next day I’m on a plane back to Ireland. These past few months, when we were on break, I’d found myself flying back and forth a lot more than often. I knew it was to see Faith. There was no point pretending it wasn’t. I suppose I could say it was to see the lads from home or my family, but for every week I was home, I’d see them one or two nights, while I saw Faith the other five or six days. Straight off the plane, I head to her house.

“Hey,” I say with a grin as she answers the door holding a bag of ice to her side. “You alright?”

“Yea, just a bit sore,” she says, standing to the side to let me in before heading back to the couch I imagine she must have been laying on. She winces a bit as she lies back down and I catch a bit of bruising where her shirt lifts up.

“Ouch, is that normal?” I ask, eyeing the bruise. She glances back to see what I’m looking at before looking down at her skin, tugging the shirt down again.

“The doctor said some people bruise, some don’t. Lucky me, I look like someone took a few kidney shots,” she says, grimacing as she puts the ice back under her side. “You don’t have to stay. I was just planning on laying about and watching TV. It’ll be pretty boring.”

“TV sounds grand. Maybe we could order takeaway. Friends do that, right?”

“Yea,” she smirks, nodding her head. “Friends do that.” With that, I shed my coat and shoes, carefully climbing over the couch to wedge myself between her and the back of it, trying not to hurt her as I do so.

“Friends can cuddle,” I tell her with a grin when she raises an eye at me. And that wouldn’t be the last time I used the ‘friends can’ excuse that night. Everything from paying for dinner to running out to get a pint of ice cream to taking her hand as we cuddled on the couch, even to persuading her to let me spend the night. She seemed to find my excuse increasingly humourous and increasingly a lie, yet she let me use it anyways.