The Chance

The Disappearance

My eyes fluttered open then closed again. I felt cold. I could smell medcine and clean sheets. Where was I? What happened? All I could remember was something about a show....with Diversity...and Natasha...Ashley had been there...Jordan had definately been there...and Perri...Perri!

I suddenly flung myself to life at the thought of him, I wretched my eyes open and yanked myself up, getting slightly tangeled in my sheets on the way up.

"Perri!" I called, my eyes searching the room widly, only to find several empty beds and a rather startled looking nurse coming towards me.

"Shhhhhh, shhhhhh" She hushed and placed a firm hand on my chest to push me back into bed, but I yanked myself back up.

"Now, really!" She said in a high pitched voice, looking a bit surprised that I had managed to heave myself up so quickly. I guess she underestimated my strength that I had obtained through dance and the determitation I just naturally possessed.

"Where's Perri?" I demanded, looking at her straight in the eye.

"Do you mean the small boy with the Afro?" She said as she gently tucked me back into bed, careful not to use force this time. "He's downstairs, getting something to eat, he hadn't had anything for two days, poor boy" I foze. He was here.

I expected him to perhaps visit once, when I called for him I wasn't thinking straight. I just wanted to see him...

"He was waiting for you to wake up" She added as if that wasn't clear enough. She also seamed to be glaring at me like it was my fault that I hadn't woken up yet and I was doing it on purpose.

"So...he's ok?" I asked, slightly stunned.

"He's absolutely fine" She confirmed. She had finished tucking me in and now taken to rearranging the flowers on the bedside table. I looked around the room, thinking they must be complimentary. No-one else had any.

"Where did the flowers come from?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Oh, your boyfriend bought them for you" She said airily. I blushed.

"He's not my boyfriend" I mumbled. She gave me one of those looks and raised her eyebrows so far they nearly disappeared under her cap. "Uh-huh" She said. I blushed furiously, she noticed.

"I'll jus go and get your friend then" She said, putting particular emphisizes on the word "Friend" and with that she walked quicly out the room, her black heels tapping loudly behind her on the white tiled floor.

***

Nothing seemed real. The hospital, the nurses that drifted in and out and, perhaps most impotantly, the flowers beside me. I resolved to just do my best to ignore them, I felt my brain had enough to worry about without trying to untangle the web of feelings I felt everytime I looked at the bunch of tulips and roses. Everything felt like a dream, the nurse had left only five minutes ago but I already wished she was back already. I needed someone to help me seperate dream and reality. Suddenly, like a prayer being answered, the two white doors swung open and in she marched, a mask of worry on her otherwise stern face. Whats wrong, I wondered. Then I realised. Perri wasn't with her.

"Where is he?" I asked as soon as she was in earshot.

She looked very awkward and avoided looking into my eyes, instead choosing to stare at the distinctly unremarkable turquoise hospital floor. "I'm afraid he's erm...dissapeared" She said. "But don't worry!" She carried on quickly; "I'm sure he's just popped out for breathe of fresh air or something, I left a note at the reception to say that if anyone sees a small tanned boy with an Afro, to tell him your awake" She finished, thinking that would reassure me.

"His name...is...Perri" I said through gritted teeth, but the nurses sive-like memory was the least of my problems at the moment. Where was he? He hadn't just given up had he? Maybe thought he could just leave some flowers as an apology then walk off and everything would be fine? Did he know how much I would worry? How much of an idiot can you get?!!

These questions ran round and round in my mind for the next three hours. At six O'clock I simply gave up waiting for him, deciding that he had in effect 'ditched' me. I sighed and snuggled down in my leopard-print PJs that my parents had bought me earlier along with a few books and magazines. Now I wished I hadn't hurried them out quite as quickly as I did, just in case Perri walked in and my mum started fussing. Well now I know there was no danger of that. It looked like my days of Perri 'fangirling' were over. With this depressing thought I snuggled under the covers, laid my head on the soft white pillow and fell into a deep, deep Perri-less sleep.