Desirable

~25. Idiot

Clementine stayed at the hospital all night. She slouched down on a small armchair beside Louis' hospital bed and held his hand as she soundly snoozed. She woke up every time she thought he moved but he only ever stayed in the exact same position, with his chest rising and falling unsettlingly slow.

In the morning, the girl is awoken by the door behind her opening then clicking shut. A tender hand is placed on her shoulder and she sits up straighter in the armchair.

"Hey Clem," Joyce stands beside her and peers down at Louis.

"Hi." she briefly smiles at the woman then looks at her hand which is intertwined with the boy's limp one. "Can I know what happened to him?"

Clem spend the whole night there but she still had no idea what happened to him. She had asked a nurse that came in earlier that morning to check on him but she started thoroughly explaining what arteries and organs in his body had been damaged, she didn't give a general and understandable answer.

Joyce lets out a sigh and walks around to the other side of the single-size bed, she rubs his bare shoulder and Clem notices her bottom lip quiver.

"The doctors said it was a stab wound- two stab wounds. But the second one was a lot worse, so it must have been three in total. Who on earth would do such a thing?" her weak voice breaks upon the question.

The remains of Clem's shattered heart sink down to her feet and a lump forms in her throat. She had an idea of who would do this. The thought of her ex-boyfriend hurting Louis would have made her blood boil, if only her body wasn't so internally drained and exhausted.

An irritating buzzing and chimey ring tone echos throughout the ward suite. Joyce jumps into action and fishes her phone out of her pocket, pressing a button then holding the device up to her ear. Clem looks at Louis again and subtly eavesdrops.

"Hello? Where are you?" Clem could hear a quiet mumbled response on the other end of the phone, however she couldn't pinpoint who the voice belonged to. "You said you were going to be done with that meeting an hour ago! I'm in the ward with Clementine... yes, Clem."

She could easily work out that it was Brad on the phone from the way Joyce hisses the last two words, as if she were scolding him for being rude. She knew he didn't like her, but it never bothered her - she didn't like him back.

Joyce's voice lowers to a whisper and she paces around the room.

"He's our son, the least you can do when he's in hospital is be there for him." the tired woman sounded broken, lost even. Clem couldn't help but feel bad for her. "Fine. Okay... I'll see you later then," with that, she hangs up and slips her phone into her pocket.

"Is everything okay?" Clem turns her head and their eyes meet.

"Yes, Brad will come to visit him later. I better go clean up the house a bit before he throws a fit," she lets out a humourless chuckle and places a light kiss on the top of the girl's head.

"I'll text you if anything happens," she sniffs and weakly smiles.

Joyce returns the smile and silently leaves the two alone again.

Clem's glossy eyes trail down to the white mini table next to the bed; there sat a glass vase of daffodils and two Get Well Soon cards addressed to Louis, her phone, and a singular orange on a plate. Her eyes lingered on it for a little longer as she was deep in thought. The fruit stood out to her among everything else on the bedside table, she found it strange.

She shifts her eyes to her phone, she had checked her it earlier that morning but the only notifications she had were from Lee, Carley, Brody and Marlon, Violet and James. All of which said something along the same lines: