voicemails (a.i.)

five

        I don’t know how long I stay that way but Michael wakes me up when he returns, handing me a hot coffee. I take  few drinks and make myself comfortable in the chair then I grab Ashton’s hand.

-

“It’s still your birthday you know. We should do something fun.” Michael says pulling up a chair next to mine. “We could go bowling or have a Harry Potter marathon or we could watch Frozen for the 8,000th time!” he suggests. I let myself laugh a little.

“All of those sound brilliant, what what if he wakes up while we’re gone? What if something happens and we aren’t here?” I say, looking Michael in the eyes. His eyes search mine for a moment, wide, green, confused and concerned. “What?” I ask.

Michael shakes his head and gets up, leaving the room. I sit in an almost silent silence, holding Ashton’s hand for a few minutes, but then Michael comes back in the room with a nurse following him. She’s what looks like an old cell phone in her hand and she extends her arm towards me, like she’s expecting me to take it. “Here.” she says, taking my hand in hers and placing the object in it. “It’s a pager, this way you can leave and we can contact you as soon as something happens. It will help, you can sleep at home, you can go to work, you’ll always be a page away.” she explains.

I nod my head. “Do I have to sleep at home?” I ask sadly, looking the nurse in the eyes. She looks deep into my eyes and gives me a gentle smile. “No, of course not sweetie.”

Michael grabs my arm, pulls me through the door and into the hallway, leaving the nurse to check on Ashton. “Come on it’ll be ok Hayles, you have to keep on living, Ash would want you to enjoy yourself, especially on your birthday.” Michael says. I know he’s right but something feels so wrong about this. I stop, forcing Michael to do the same.

“You’re talking about him like he’s dead.” I whisper, my face losing all color as I look past MIchael. He pulls me gently into his warm embrace. My head rests on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” he says into my hair.

I hug him back tighter than I thought I would, and for a long time. Michael pulls away and kisses my forehead, slinging an arm around my shoulder he leads me to the elevator and hits the button for the lobby on the bottom floor. I glance at him but he just smiles, we don’t usually exit through the lobby. When the elevator stops and the doors open Michael pulls me towards the front entrance and I can see a crowd of girls waiting outside the doors. I hate crowds and pushing so I cling to Michael’s arm tightly, like I would normally do to Ashton, and as the automatic doors open I hear Michael say “There are some people who I want you to meet.”

I expected ear piercing screams to erupt from these girls the minute they saw Michael but they all stay calm. Instead of screams I’m greeted with a chorus of “hi”’s and beautiful faces. Michael steers me towards a smaller part of the group. Two girls with gorgeously curvy figures greet me like an old friend. They both hug me tightly. They know more about me than I do, but only because I’m with Ashton. “Hi, I’m Kinley,” the blonde one introduces herself. “And this is Ari,” she says gesturing to her redheaded friend.

“You’re both so lovely. Your hugs were so appreciated. They mean so much to me.” I say, smiling as best I can. I turn to find Michael, finding him right behind me, and attach myself to his arm again. The two girls look at each other.

“How have you been holding up?” Kinley asks, a genuine smile mixed with concern appearing on her face. I look to Michael. “No, you Hayley. We know how Michael’s been, he’s spoken with us before. How are you doing?” Tears spring to my eyes before I can say  much of anything, Kinley hugs me again, this time I hug her back. “You have so much support right now, not only Calum, Luke and Michael, “ ash she mentions Michael I grab his arm again. “but all us us too. and thousands, if not millions of twitter users. We’re all here to help you get through this the best we can.”

I’m kind of hugging Michael again at this point, that awkward side hug, but still. “Alright, thank you girls so much for this, she needed to hear it, but because it’s this ones birthday we’re gonna go snag some chinese food somewhere and then marathon some Harry Potter.” Michael says, everyone says goodbye as we start to walk away.

Michael stops and turns around, smiling at the small crowd gathered behind us at the entrance of the hospital. “Hey girls, do me a favor and keep him safe for us, will ya?” he says, and they all shout “okay!” in response, forming a protective ring around the hospital entrance.

You are so loved Ashton, so loved.