Heal // z.m

80.

Rose

The days after we had the good conversation up on the eighth floor, he had started to become weaker. It had gotten to the point where he was almost sleeping all day long, only waking up once or twice in my full eight hour shift. He would use the toilet- chair- which costed him a lot of energy- and would go back to sleep.

We had no choice but feeding him while he was asleep. We knew that if he was awake, he wouldn't want it. And no matter how much I hated to say it, we all knew he was close to losing the battle he had once won.

Caroline dragged me out of thoughts when she tapped on my shoulder, "Zayn's awake. Do you want to help me and put him on the toilet- chair?" She asked.

At first I didn't know what do to. To me, it was kinda intimate, something I didn't want until I was married. But I knew this was different. He was sick, he needed care, and I was going to take care of him no matter what I had to do. So I nodded, "Yeah.. if he doesn't mind."

"No, love. I have asked him about this before. He told me that if he needed the care like this- he'd want you to be the first one to help him." Caroline smiled as she rolled the chair over to Zayn's bed.

I smiled at that and felt the warmth glow inside of me, a feeling only Zayn could and had ever given me. "Okay, let's do it then."

Walking over to Zayn's bed, I noticed he was already staring at me with sleepy eyes, a very small smile on his face. He stretched his arm out to me, but it fell down rather quickly again. He couldn't hold it up like he used to do, he didn't have enough strength for that at the moment. But his eyes said more than his physical actions.

His eyes followed me all the way over to the bed as I sat down on it. "I'm going to help you, yeah?" I pointed at the chair and Zayn nodded, his small smile never leaving his face.

"My Rose," He whispered as I removed the duvets off his body. I looked at him and smiled. For some reasons, I loved those words so much. I wanted to hear him say it all the time.

Caroline and I helped him sit up and it took him a few seconds to gain his balance and stay like that on his own. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and his smile grew a little wider, and I knew a joke was coming because he always did that. It made me happy. We all needed his humor.

"I only have to pee, so you're lucky." He said, his voice hoarse from the hours of sleep.

I pretended to wipe my forehead in relief, "Well, pfew." I chuckled, stroking his bald head and making him smile even more.

"We're going to help you up, Zayn." Caroline said. We both placed our arm underneath one his armpits and we held him up as his arms were around our shoulders.

His face fell and an expression full of pain replaced his smile. It broke my heart, but we had to do this. He tried to hide it, but failed as Caroline noticed it too. She gave me a sympathetic smile and as she pulled down his pants, I sat him down on the chair.

We closed the curtain to give him privacy and after we heard a small 'done' coming from behind the curtains, we opened them again and walked over to him.

Zayn stretched his arms out to me and as he wrapped them around my neck, I pulled him up so Caroline could pull up his underwear and pajama bottoms again.

I felt him breathing in my ear as she did so as his face was really close to mine. I could hear how much standing up already took him much energy. His breath hitched when Caroline softly tugged at his pajama pants to bow the small ropes that were on his waistband, because he was pulled from his place and it took him energy to stand up straight again.