When Bluebirds Fly | ✔

Part One : Chapter Twenty

I sat grimly by the window in the waiting room of the insipid hospital, the pages of my diary fluttering on the window-sill. I had completed writing all that went down, right from fortuitously working at Bailey's Nuts with Isaac to quarrelling with everyone around me (Isaac, Tony, Lola, Ally, Sam, now that I was miserably counting, I believed that I deserved to set a Guinness record for the most number of squabbles) to possibly finding myself on regular porno sites. I couldn't bring myself to search my own naked body on the internet, the disturbing thought itself made my soul want to exit this goddamn body.

The kind receptionist had pitifully offered me a cup of coffee which I drained in one gulp, feeling no taste. She could have given me a cup of hot water instead and I wouldn't have been able to distinguish. She was solicitously watching me with droopy eyes the entire night, afraid that the pencil with which I was forcefully penning down all the reality distorted by my tendency to over-exaggerate, coupled with my lack of sleep, I would stab myself.

She had left when her shift got over, casting a worried glance at me and I managed to smile a little which seemed to pacify her.

"Ana?" Isaac's voice made me finally look away from the window and pain shot through my stiff neck. My heart thumped against my chest as I stared guiltily at him. Why was I baffled seeing him here? I had impulsively texted him to come here, but I didn't expect him to, after my rancorous behaviour.

In the end, evil triumphs.

Just like Abel, just like how I could bring Isaac here within minutes despite of the contemptuous way in which I had treated him all this while.

Isaac took a seat opposite to me by the window and gently placed his warm hand on my thigh. I knew that he wanted me to talk, he was waiting for me to talk and he rightfully deserved an explanation as to why he was here so early in the morning. Still I remained mute and he didn't push me, he let silence engulf us like large blankets on a chilly, tempestuous night.

I started playing with the empty cup of coffee, spinning it for a considerable amount of time. Then I accidentally sent it flying down the window and we could hear the plastic cup colliding against the ground. Isaac peeped outside and I burst out laughing irrationally till my sallow face ached. There were no other relatives of the patients in the room, only the new receptionist who glared appallingly at me from above the boring book that she was reading.

The tears instantly followed and I lowered my eyes to the tiled floor in a pathetic attempt to contain myself.

"Ana please, you have to tell me," Isaac implored and I abashedly pushed my diary kept on the window-sill to him. Before he could withdraw his hand placed on my thigh, I tightly clutched it, refusing to let go. He flipped through the pages with his other free hand, struggling against the gusts of wind.

I solemnly gazed out of the window again since I could no longer bear to see Isaac tapping his feet nervously on the floor. The sky was white with thick clouds without a patch of blue as if the clouds were suffocating this planet. There was not a single bird in sight and the trees were leafless, their pointy branches rising high up in the sky. It seemed as if the surroundings of the dreary hospital had absorbed the sickness of the people inside.

"I-I don't understand much about the end, the sentences are chopped off." Isaac frowned at the diary.

"I don't understand it either," I replied quietly. "That's the point."

"I read some terrible things here, Ana." He let out a shaky breath. "Is it true?"

"I don't know."

"You have to think properly and tell me."

"I don't want to."

He simply smiled pleasantly which lightened the darkness within me. "That's okay. You look tired, you need to rest."