Handling Glass | ✔

Chapter Thirty - Five

Beep. Darkness. A desperate voice.
"Where is she?! I need to see her!" Footsteps. Darkness. Beep.
"Please, baby, you have to wake up. Beep. Beep. Darkness.
* * *
Light flooded in as I forced open my eyelids. I was in a white room, laying down, I felt tubes up my nostrils. Where was I? How did I get here? I heard a machine beep faster as my heart raced faster and fear flooded me. Tears pooled in my eyes. It was suddenly very small in the room with little oxygen. I gasped for air as my chest felt tighter.
"Hey, hey, it's okay baby." I heard a voice comfort me, a voice I knew, a voice I could rely on. I looked to my right to see Ron who had obviously just woken, in a chair.
"Ron." I breathed. He placed a warm hand on my arm and I felt my breathing regulate.
"Your awake." He gave a relieved sigh.
"What happened? Why am I in the hospital?" I croaked, my throat sore from whatever the hell happened to me. He looked down and ------ our hands.
"What do you remember?" I scanned my memories, what was the last thing I remembered?
"I - I was in a store." I trailed off, racking my brains for something else, anything else, how could the memory go just like that?
"Do you remember anything else?" Ron persisted. My eyebrows scrunched together in confusion but a minute later I shook my head, tears gathering again. Ron noticed and squeezed my hand.
"Hey it's okay, the nurse said this would happen, it's the shock." I went to lean forward but regretted it when a sharp pain shot through my whole body. I leaned back again.
"Ron, what happened?"
"There was a suicide bomber in the store." Ron choked out, I could see the tears in his eyes but I wasn't in the mood to comfort him. I wasn't put together enough to comfort him.
"The whole place burst into flames and three people died." His hand shook in mine.
"You were so lucky." He was on the verge of crying.
"I thought I lost you." He made out before the tears rolled down his cheeks. He wiped them away with angry swipes. Despite the pain, I leant forward and held his head in my arms.
"You haven't though, I'm right here." He lifted his head to look at me. "And I'm going to continue to annoy you for the rest of your life, don't worry." He gave a weak smile and drew my hand to his lips to plant soft kisses on it.
"How long have I been out?" I questioned and he looked slightly nervous to give me the answer.
"Two weeks." My eyes widened.
"What? What happened to the trip? Where's Harry and Ginny?"
"Harry and Ginny are still in France but they've gone back to the hotel to get some sleep. The rest of the class has gone back to England." He informed me. My heart warmed as I heard that the three of them stayed for me.
"You stayed." I stated. He gave a half smile.
"Of course." Another pain shot through me and I winced.
"The painkillers must be wearing off." Ron explained to me then stood up.
"I'm going to go tell the nurse that your awake." He placed a kiss on the top of my head before walking out the room. As soon as he left the room, the calmness that he had washed over me disappeared and I felt the heaviness in my chest again. I tried to take deep breaths as I willed myself to look down at my body. I forced my eyes to direct downwards. A gasp made its way through my lips as I drew the covers off my legs. My body was glittered in bruises, the purples and blues merging to make a kind of brown. My arm was wrapped in a white cloth and tied against my chest. I lifted up my short hospital gown to find more bandage, hugging my waist. How could this happen? This felt like a dream, it only happened in movies or books, it would never happen to me. But it had.
"Okay, they should be -" Ron walked into the room but stopped mid sentence as he noticed me scanning my bare, scarred body. I looked up at him and he exhaled a breath. He walked up to me with an unreadable expression on his face. He stroked a single finger down the side of my body, defining all the curves. He pulled the dress down and tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. No more words were uttered as he pulled me into a hug. The tension evaporated as I breath in his familiar homey smell.
"Lets go home."
* * *
"Hermione!" I heard a voice call down the corridor as I tried to balance on my new crutches. Ginny was running towards me and Harry wasn't far behind. They both launched at me and pulled me into a hug, pain stabbed at my body and I flinched but I didn't mind, I needed a hug from my best friends.
"Careful." Ron hissed. They both stepped back and uttered a sorry.
"I'm so glad your okay." Harry smiled at me and I sent one back.
"Okay I'm going to go sort out the paperwork at the desk so we can leave." Ron told us all before landing a kiss on my head and disappeared down the corridor, Ginny following him, leaving Harry and I alone.
"How are you feeling?" He asked. I shrugged not wanting to lie to him but not wanting to worry him either.
"Right, stupid question, you were just blown up." He muttered.
"I wasn't blown up, the shop was." I corrected him, not liking the bluntness Harry used to describe it.
"Sorry." I sighed and watched Ron as he spoke to the woman at the desk at the end of the corridor.
"You know if you had... left, I would have lost two best friends." Harry said as we watched Ron. I gave Harry a confused look.
"He was a mess. He didn't sleep or eat, he couldn't function at all and didn't take his eyes off you." My heart shattered. He shouldn't have gone through that, why the hell did I go into that stupid shop?
"He blames himself you know?"
"What are you talking about? He never could have known that that person would blow them-self up."
"He didn't tell you?" I shook my head and Harry released a sigh then opened his mouth.
"We all heard the explosion in the hotel and Ron ran down to see what it was. He noticed you lying on the floor and ran to you..." he hesitated. "You weren't breathing. He recesitated you and you were breathing." My heart warmed. "Then he heard screaming coming from the building; there was someone still left in the building. Ron went in and saved the person, the nurses have told us that the woman would not be alive if it weren't for him." Harry shook his head in disbelief. "He saved that woman's life." I looked at Ron, signing some papers; my boy had saved someone's life.
"But... when he came back for you, the ambulance had come and taken you away and when he spoke to the nurses, they told him that you weren't breathing when they found you. So Ron thinks that you wouldn't have stopped breathing if he had stayed with you."
"That's crazy." I said mostly to myself.
"I know, I've tried to tell him." It pains me to hear about all the hurt Ron went through, and it was all because of me. I felt a hand slip into mine and realised it was Harry's.
"I really did miss you Hermione. I have no idea what I would have done if I had lost you." The corners of my lips pulled up into a smile and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
"I love you Harry." He hugged me tight.
"Love you too Hermione."
"Who's ready to go home then?" I heard Ginny's voice and I pulled away from Harry.
"Definitely."
* * *
To say I was exhausted would have been an understatement. We had just gotten back to school after the flight and I collapsed onto my bed, wincing a little from the impact. Ron dropped the bags that he had that were mine and fell down next to me. I looked at him, expecting him to look back at me too, but he didn't.
"Ron." I said in a low voice due to our close proximity.
"Mmm?" uttered from his lips but he didn't look at me.
"Ron, look at me." It came out more as a whisper. I watched as his jaw tensed and then he stood up.
"I should get back to my room. Hardy's probably wondering where I am."
"No, he knows your with me and we left him with the food in the dining room, remember?"
"Well... still." Ron said, groping – for whatever reason, for an excuse to leave.
"Ron." I spoke again but he still avoided my eyes. I stood up and advanced towards him. He took a step back away from me. I frowned and grabbed the collar of his t-shirt, pulling him toward me. Ron continued to look at the ground. I placed my hand on his cheek and forced his face to look at mine.
"Ron. Its not your fault." His head snapped up and tears immediately filled his eyes which created a horrible feeling in my stomach.
"I left you Hermione, I put you in danger –"
"You were saving someone's life." He shook his head and started to avert his eyes again. I grabbed his chin and tugged his head up.
"Hey. I'm alive because of you." His demeanour softens a little. "And I love you." He fell into my shoulder.
"I love you too." He lifted his head and gives me the first kiss since I woke up from the hospital, and just like that, everything was right again.
* * *
just got back from camp and then I'm off again tomorrow but it was fun and I met a lot of new friends. i really liked this boy and ive never properly liked someone before and i told my friend and now she's really close to him and he likes her and i cant say anything because she met him first and now i have to spend the next two weeks with them at the camp and it sucks. also i had my first kiss the other day and it was a real let down, books have made my expectations too high, i think I'm just going to stick with books now. i made a snapchat so i can talk to you guys its @/fangirltherapy1 you can ask me questions and i can keep you updated with new chapters.