Direction Dreamer

Chapter Fourteen

It was two weeks before One Direction would begin their 2013 World Tour, and I hadn’t slept in days. My heartbeat was racing, and I’d spent days planning and plotting. I slipped out of Harry’s bed, sprinting to my own room. It took four trips for me to get everything from my room to my Porsche. My fifth was to Harry’s room. He was laying there, sound asleep, so peaceful and handsome. He had this cute smile on his face and was snoring ever so lightly. I kissed his lips gently, running fingers through his hair one last time, whispering “I love you Harry” which made him stir a bit. I pulled on a pair of his boxers to pair up with the T-shirt of his that I was already wearing, threw on his Jack Wills that I’d returned, and my own pants. His boxers were always more comfortable, I never did understand why, but that’s irrelevant. I pulled my hair into a messy twisted bun on top of my head, found my car keys on his dresser and walked out of the door, got into my car and never looked back. Maybe it was too painful to, but I just kept driving until I reached the airport, throwing my phone’s sim card under an airplane tire before boarding. I was leaving London behind me, and leaving the love of my life with it.

The tabloids all spilled with the news of my disappearance. Rumors of kidnapping, murder and secret affairs spread like wildfire. That was all so ridiculous. I got to New York, never returned to Juilliard and changed my license plates. I left my past behind me. I drove out to Texas to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center where I resided while going through my next round of chemotherapy and radiation. I had high hopes that I could move on past Harry, but I didn’t. He was my rock, my anchor. He kept me grounded. My heart was like a house, and he was my home. I never took off the engagement ring. Chemotherapy made me sick as a dog, and soon enough my hair began to thin again before falling out in clumps. I ended up getting it all shaved off so I didn’t have to feel myself pulling out clumps when I showered. I was miserable, my back hurt and my body ached all the time, and the nausea from chemo was unbearable the majority of the time. My fear drove me from those who I loved, and they were searching for somebody that was long gone.

At the cancer center, I watched spouses, children and relatives watching their parents, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles dying. They had to sit there and witness those they loved perish before their eyes, because they knew, and in knowing and not being there for them, was unheard of. I never understood how they could allow it. How broken the family was after the patient passed away, how much it tore them up inside. I swore that I’d never let that happen. How could I let Harry or the boys or my mum or sisters watch me die? I thought that was a valid excuse for running away, I was protecting the people I loved by hurting them. I was independent and afraid, and didn’t need to worry the people I cared about. I couldn’t sit here in the hospital bed while Harry watched me become ugly, sick and bald. I wouldn’t allow him to see me so weak. I couldn’t break his heart like that. I’d never forgive myself. I couldn’t marry him only for him to watch me die. How can you even do that to somebody you love? How could they even cope? I never could, and I knew he wouldn’t either. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t.

I was going into the halfway point of my first round of chemo and radiation when blood results came back from the lab and the doctors told me that I was pregnant. Pregnant by my fiancé  who had no idea where I’d vanished to, pregnant with a baby that was my last connection to Harry. Pregnant with a baby that I began loving with everything I had immediately. He or she was conceived on Harry’s birthday, meaning I was only two months along, and this baby meant the world to me. I read it stories every night before I went to bed, took care of myself as best as I possibly could, and prayed to a God that I didn’t believe in that this miracle was a sign of hope for my future. It explained my abnormal cravings though, and why I had major mood swings early on. I got my first ultrasound and my first thought was to call Harry. He was on his tour though. I bet he’d forgotten all about me by now, moved on, found another girl to give all of his love to. No Mikaela, no, no, no. Don’t think about him. You have to clear all thoughts about him away. He’s not a part of you anymore. The sad thing about that though was that this baby growing inside of me, he was. He always would be.

“Mikaela, could you like, stop yelling!” my roommate screamed at me. It was the middle of the night and I was having major sharp pains in my lower abdomen, and I woke up in a screaming fit, bawling my eyes out. I turned on the nightlight much to my roommate’s dismay, pulled the blankets off of me and looked down. My entire bed was soaked in a crimson red and the pains were only increasing. “CORINNA GET THE DAMN DOCTOR OHMYGOD I THINK I’M DYING OR SOMETHING GET THE MOTHER FUCKING DOCTOR GET OFF OF YOUR LAZY ASS AND GET HIM NOW!” I screamed. I think she got the message, because she ran like a mad woman, and the doctors and four nurses rushed in to find me screaming like there was no tomorrow. “She’s losing a lot of blood, somebody get me --” and I blacked out.

I was 17 weeks pregnant with a little girl, my little princess. The doctors told me that I had a major placenta abruption. They delivered her, but she was a stillborn. There was no chance of her surviving.  They told me radiation too close to my uterus and the fetus could have been a major contributor. I didn’t name her, I couldn’t without Harry. That day I lost everything I had of Harry, I lost my entire world and everything came crashing down on me. The walls crumbled and I was broken in more ways than one. I was alone, completely and entirely alone in the world. I wanted Harry, I wanted Louis, I wanted my boys and I wanted my baby. I never healed after the loss of my daughter. There were nights I spent crying myself to sleep for weeks on end, maybe months. Some days I woke up in a crying or screaming fit, screaming for her. My roommate never complained. She didn’t have the heart to. I sat there, wallowing in my pity. I didn’t speak, and when  I ate it wasn’t very plentiful. I shut the world out for a long time, and I never felt like I had anything more to live for. My therapist diagnosed me with postpartum depression, and she wasn’t incorrect. There were times when I just didn’t have the will to live. I’d given up everything I’d ever loved, and lost the baby because of my own stupidity, and the only person that could fix me I walked out on. I would never be anything but a screw up.

Once my first round of chemo ended, the doctors put me through another. Early July. My roommate, Corinna, was discharged in late June. She beat cancer for the fourth time since she was eight years old. I wasn’t feeling so lucky, but I tried. The second round was cut in half, I went into remission again, but I was too weak still to leave. It took another couple of weeks to build up the strength I needed to be discharged, mid-October. I was finally out of hospital beds and into the real world again, and freedom did me some good. I left the hospital with a new outlook on life. I needed to make something of myself. I took to college again, this time moving to California to work with journalism at Stanford University. I re-kindled old hobbies, and began making YouTube videos singing, playing the guitar and piano with original songs and covers in the hopes of being discovered. I wasn’t amazing, but I wanted to work in the music industry. It was one of those dreams that I held inside of me, and I wasn’t about to get back in contact with the boys to ask for their help. That was my past, and I preferred to keep my past in the past, no matter how painful it was. No matter how much I missed my former fiancé.