hanahaki // borderlands

chapter sixteen

Yvette had been afraid of the doctor her entire life.

Well, not her entire life. She was alright when she was younger, but once she found out what diseases were, what could happen to a human in under a day with the proper circumstances, she was terrified of going to the doctor. She had this constant paranoia in the back of her brain that she was going to go to the doctor for a head cold and end up having some incurable sickness or a tumor that she wouldn't live through.

What she was going to the doctor for wasn't any of those things, however; she had put this procedure on the back burner for a while, despite the pleading from her family, despite the advice of her therapist, despite her better judgement. She waited, and waited, and waited, hoping that maybe she could fix it herself if she just had a bit more time. The situation, had it arisen on its own, could've been handled and it would've ended happily for all parties involved.

At least, that's what she thought at first. But then again, that's what every girl thought when she got the Hanahaki Disease for the first time ever. She'd fall in love with a boy that fell in love with her, they'd admit it to each other, they'd be together forever, blah blah blah. For a second there, Yvette was really hopeful that it was gonna end that way for her, but that plane had crashed fast.

Yvette had been thinking about the past a lot lately, and especially right there in the patient bay at the hospital: the day she fell in love and the day she decided she didn't want to be anymore. The day she fell in love felt like a movie now, a keepsake from a life that wasn't hers; the day that she realized she didn't want to be in love anymore felt all too personal, like someone had dived into her deepest, darkest, subconscious fear and brought it to life right before her eyes.

The day she fell in love was just like any other: she had been sitting on the bleachers around the practice field of their high school, waiting for band practice to be over...

--

Vaughn had said it was only gonna take another twenty minutes. Another twenty minutes when they had met near the bathrooms about an hour before, and she was yawning, wanting to get home already. Freshman year had been a bitch so far, and she had an Honors' Biology project waiting for her at home to get her ass onto already.

She didn't mind waiting on Vaughn when she remembered to bring her homework with her. She could just work while she waited, and everything would seem to go by a lot faster. But she left her textbooks in her locker (like a dumbass), so now she was just sitting listlessly and waiting for Vaughn's shit show of a band practice to be over.

She pulled out her phone and went to the text message app, ready to text both Vaughn and his mom. She needed to get home, so someone needed to come get Vaughn, since they couldn't walk home together. She had shit to do, and this couldn't get in the way--

A boy suddenly dropped down onto the seat beside her, and she was blindsided as she turned to look at him.

It was almost like being visited by an angel: chestnut hair that curled ever so gently at its ends; pretty brown eyes that looked like pools of warm maple; skin that was so pristinely pale that he looked like he was made of porcelain. The sunset dusted him in gold, and in that moment, Yvette could've swore that God was real and He had sent this angel sitting right beside her, for some reason, at this high school sports field no less, to restore her faith in Him.

"They're still not done?" the boy had asked, sounding exasperated. "They might as well keep them here until school in the morning. It's already so late."

Yvette was dumbfounded, her tongue being fastened to the roof of her mouth by awe. "Um... uh..."

The boy looked over, then he smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry, did I scare you? I didn't mean to." He offered his hand for her to shake, his smile warming. Yvette saw his braces glittering in the sunlight, which would normally turn her off; but somehow, on this heavenly boy, they looked dazzling. "I'm Rhys. Rhys Bennett. What's your name?"