Soar // Hamliza

• chapter 10 •

• Eliza •

The fact that Alexander had fallen back into his habits of cutting worries me to no end.

I originally came to tell him what I was going through myself, but as soon as I saw him there, all thoughts of my own problems left my mind.

I know it's not a very good thing that I'm hiding my anxiety from him, but I feel like I have to. He's going through more, and he needs me more than I need him right now. My problems aren't the priority.

But it's not like he makes me think that. I know that Alex will always be here for me not matter what, and he wants to know if I'm feeling badly. It's me whose willing to push my demons away to help him with his. That's just what you do when you love someone.

He's asleep on my shoulder right now, eyes still as red as the fresh cuts on his arms. I can tell he has a headache, because he scrunches his face up the tiniest little bit when he has one.

My fingers are entwined with his and I can feel his breathing on my arm. If the actual situation we were in wasn't so terrible, this would've been a really sweet moment.

Lately, those moments have been quite few and far between.

The circumstances that surrounded us were probably some of the worst imaginable. Him, fighting stage four brain cancer along with his previous mental health issues. Me, trying to just pull through school and life without having a panic attack every second. It seems like nothing compared to Alex's situation, and I felt guilt rise in me everytime my brain tried to feel sorry for itself.

The way I think of our situation is that we're both in the middle of the ocean. But I'm in a much calmer spot, and he's being dragged away by the currents.

We're both trying to keep our heads above the water, but what we don't know is that we're already drowning. And there's nothing we can do but let the water pull us down, because we used all the energy we had to fight the waves earlier.

Sometimes, there are moments when you're in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down.

A doctor opens the door and walks in, eyes trained on the clipboard in his hands. He doesn't even notice me there or Alex sleeping until he sits in the chair next to the bed, scribbles a few things down, and then sets it aside.

"Oh! I didn't even notice you were here. Is he asleep?" The doctor says a bit too loudly. Alex begins to stir against me and wakes up after a moment.

"He was." I mumble, looking at my boyfriend and his tired, pained eyes. He sighed softly and rubbed at his temples, laying against the pillow behind him.

"Alright. Well, since he's up now, we'll just go over a couple of things. I'm supposed to check up on his levels of pain and such, and see how he's feeling both physically and mentally." He doctor explains.

"Can I stay here for that or do I have to leave?" I asked, unsure if his explanation meant I was getting kicked out of the room or not.

"It's up to Mr Hamilton." The doctor said. Alex tightened his grip on my hand and nodded a little bit, telling me to stay.

"Alright then, let's get started? On a scale from 1 to 10, how bad have your headaches been lately, Alexander?" The doctor asked.

"Um, probably an 8 or 9?" Alex replied, glancing at me. He had a tendency to ignore his pain instead of telling someone, so hearing how badly he was hurting made me feel like a bit of a bad girlfriend.

"And how about everything else? Any soreness or other pains, throwing up? A lot of times that kind of stuff comes along with the chemotherapy." The doctor said.

"Yeah, both of those. It sucks, honestly." Alex said. The doctor nodded a bit, writing on his clipboard more.

"Ok, moving into more mental and emotional type things. You still want her in the room for this, correct?"

"Yes." Alex said firmly, resting his head back on my shoulder. I squeezed his hand once as a reassurance.

"I understand that you seem to be struggling with some jealousy and anger problems recently. You've become a bit more snappy according to what you've said about yourself a couple days ago, and you said that you 'hate this whole situation and everything about yourself within it.' Has that changed at all since the conversation we had a few days ago?" The doctor asked. Alex's cheeks turned pink in embarrassment as he sighed and shook his head.

"You don't need to be embarrassed. It's alright." I whispered to him. He forced a smile onto his face for a moment and his eyes spoke for him. Thank you.

"That's perfectly alright. You have the right to be angry and upset, and the medication you're on can increase those feelings. Now, moving into another topic similar. I understand that you were diagnosed with depression, generalized anxiety, and PTSD a while back. Can you tell me how you've been feeling with all that?" The doctor asked him. I felt Alex inhale sharply, fearing that he'd be found out for what he did to himself. I half expected him to be totally honest about it and say what happened, just to get it out there. But he didn't.

"I'm sorry, do we have to talk about this?" He said instead. The doctor gave him an odd look.

"Is it because she's in the room? We really do have to talk about it, since your other doctors want to be sure you're alright in all aspects. When you don't want to talk about things, it worries us and makes us jump to the conclusion that things aren't alright. We're just here for your well-being. We're on your side, Alexander." He said.

"It, um, might be easier to talk about if we were alone. Um..." Alex mumbled. I stood up immediately, kissing his cheek and walking out the door.

I couldn't help but fear that Alex was in something far too deep for me to save him from. He had never kicked me out of a counseling type session before, which like the doctor said, lead me to believe that something was really wrong.

But all I could do was sit outside the door and wait, hoping that what he was going through wasn't too much for him to handle without collapsing into himself.

a/n: i feel like this book is too repetitive... what do you guys want to see in this book? Please let me know!!