You Can't Sing Without Air- Harry Styles Fanfic

29. We Choose Loneliness Instead of Hope

New Text: To Harry 

Hey

I'm awake. How's New York?

Hello?

They're taking the ventilator out tomorrow.

Hello?

I'm sorry.

Please, Harry I can't do this without you.

I miss you.

..........................

The days pass slowly. I sleep as much as I can. Still, there are many hours of empty silence, with nothing to do but watch my chest rise and fall and think about how much I've lost.

Who I've lost.

Niall refuses to leave my side. Despite my anger at what he said to Harry, I'm glad he's here. It gives me a reason to hold on.

He's worried about me now more than ever before. I can see it in his eyes. It's all I can do to avoid them.

After a week they take me off the ventilator. It's terrible, I gag and dry-heave as they force the tube out of my throat. When I finally speak my voice is scratchy and sore.

"Say something, sweetie!" The nurse says.

"Hi." I scratch out. The word feels weird in my throat after almost two weeks of silence.

"There's your beautiful voice!" Niall says in a voice too cherry for the occasion.

I give him a weak smile.

After they extubate me, breathing takes all my waking energy. At night I sleep with a Bipap machine over my face, the steady whoosh of air forcing breath in and out of my lungs. I dream strange dreams, but none of them of water.

I dream of falling, of roller coasters and getting lost in the dark.
I dream of Harry, but instead of his face I see a blur, a fog obscuring his features.  

I am Psyche, desperate for a view of her lover's face. I am Orual, doubtful that it was ever really real.

Sean visits me every day. He tries to cheer me up, sharing stories of our childhood. Occasionally he is able to coax a laugh out of me. Laughing is hard for many reasons.  

I see the worry and his eyes too- the knowledge of what end-stage CF looks like. I try not to think about what he's going to do when I'm gone.

My CF team decides it's best for me to begin physical therapy in hopes of regaining some of the lung function I lost. I'm 9% down, which wouldn't mean so much if I wasn't at 36% to begin with. I remember as a kid the doctors explained CF as feeling like you're breathing through a drinking straw, one that gets smaller as you get older. If that's true I'm breathing through a coffee stirrer.

Physical therapy takes my mind off Harry, one of the only perks of working my body to the breaking point in order to recover. 

Unfortunately after two weeks of extensive physical therapy, my numbers only go up 2%. Niall is disturbed by the results but I can't say I'm surprised. CF is a progressive disease, and I haven't exactly done my best to preserve myself.

Eventually Niall has to prepare for tour. He almost calls it off for my sake but I talk him out of it.

"Live your life, Niall. Just because I can't live mine doesn't mean you should too." I say.

I know he's scared that I'm running out of time. I just can't watch him throw away his future to sit around and watch me decline. At least Harry isn't around to watch it.

Selfishly though, I wish he was here. It doesn't matter that I'm angry at him, or that he abandoned me when I needed him the most. I still want him. I want him next to me, holding my hand telling me everything's going to be okay. I want his silly jokes, and his loud laugh. I want him to wash my hair in the hospital sink, to kiss me gently on the lips and make me feel like I'm human. I want to watch him breathe. I want to kiss him until he's as breathless as me.

But he's not. He couldn't handle the reality of failing lungs. 

He couldn't handle me.  

My greatest fear came true, just like I knew it would. So I'm focusing on the people that are still here for me. I focus on breathing, because it's all that I can do.