breathless // billie eilish

Prologue

"Can you still breathe?" I hear an unrecognisable voice say in a whisper-like manner. 

I groan, putting my palm on my forehead, immediately feeling more terrible than when I sat up, trembling underneath the hospital clothes' translucent fabric.

"Can you breathe?" The nurse repeats, looking at me with trouble in her eyes. I shake my head.

She puts her palm on my neck, feeling my warmth. My breath hitched as she slipped her other hand on my bare back, tugging unto the clothing as if asking me to remove them.

"I need to lower down your temperature with a damp towel. Go on now." My cheeks blushed in a bright shade of pink.

"Don't worry sweetie, I won't do anything to you." She reassured me.

_______________

"37.5 degrees celsius. Enough warm water on your body for today." She said, taking the basin and towel with her as she walks out.

I laid down, huffing and puffing, as if have been on a triathlon the whole day.

"I want to rest." I said as I drifted to sleep. Hearing the growling on my chest and the irritating whistling of my lungs.

_______________

"Sweet Belle, for you." A beautifully arranged bouquet of flowers have been set on the room's bedside table.

As soon as the business was done, my eyes still closed, just sensing what was happening without sneaking a peak, the owner of the soothing voice left, gently closing the door, keeping it unlocked.

My eyes fluttered open, and my excited grin turned into a hopeless frown.

Lilies.
I detested them.

I despised them for being associated to death in one glance. It is somewhat like the pure innocence of the thought of one person being in complete slumber, only, sadly, forever.

And now, they're brought here for me, as I suspect since I'm the only patient in the room.

You who brings flowers that represent death to a patient who has asthma attacks worse than death itself, is a complete asshole;
nothing but what a dick or your middle finger can fit into. 

This settles it. The world wants me dead too.

"Enough breathing for today." Is what the nurse should've said to me if she'd let a person who brought a symbolism of such to a patient, go in to my room.

_______________

Serving food, washing used utensils and mopping the floor of a restaurant two stations away from my humble apartment complex.

Helping bake cheesecakes, brewing coffee and tending students who're always on their books or laptops at a café three kilometres of walking away from my place.

One hour of helping a problematic student with his or her studies a couple of hours after my own class at their own homes or at the same café I worked at.

Father tells me, a deep sigh always helped him think; the only time that mindset brought him down was when he allowed mother to not put me up for adoption.

Mother tells me that no one should ever bully me, saying that I shouldn't have lived- the reason for my parents' unfortunate divorce; for they don't know that when I stop breathing, life hasn't been the only thing I've lost.