ᵀᴴᴱ ᴮᴼᴼᴷ ᴼᶠ ᴸᴱᴵᴳᴴ

⤷ 🇴​🇳​🇿​🇪​

Sorrow and Regret

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Nathanael was storming through the streets of the upper bay area. Brightfield Bay was nearly as crowded as New York City. It was a weekday, after all, people going on with their lives without giving the people around them a second glance.

He felt numb, didn't want to do anything or see anyone. Walking straight up to his dorm he unlocked the door. Fortunately for him, his roommate was out, he took off his shoes and threw himself on the bed face first.

The boy didn't know what the time was. It felt like he had been laying for days, but he probably had been laying for minutes maybe even a few hours. He didn't feel like doing anything, Nate just wanted to sleep.

As he turned to his side on the bed, the door opened.

"Ey Nate, what you up to?" It was clear who the deep voice belonged to, Ahmad. Usually, Nathanael would answer, so he didn't seem rude, but right at that moment, he didn't feel like doing anything.

"... ok, well you have a visitor. Which by the way shocked me when I heard, but shocked me, even more, when I saw it was a beautiful girl." His enthusiasm wasn't normal. "You go, man, I was starting to think you may have been gay."

There was nothing wrong with being homosexual, not at all. However, it frustrated Nate that he needed to act or do certain things for people not assume anything about him. He knew Ahmad didn't mean it in any bad way, but most people in school had the same thought.

Was it wrong that he didn't want to spend time partying and hooking up with girls? The boy had a tight loan, only being paid off because of his scholarship.

Letting the slender female in, Ahmad left the dorm letting them be alone, not before yelling a "Stay away from my side of the room, and oh don't forget to use protection" before shutting the wooden door.

She stood there fiddling with her fingers and the item she held in between them. Glancing at the door she came through, doubts started filling her head, maybe she shouldn't have come.

"ok and?" He wasn't the usual sassy or irritated type, but today must have been an opposite day or something, because she certainly didn't act like the Leigh he had gotten to know.

"Oh yeah, you..." Her voice was just above an octave and it was hoarser than normal. "You forgot your hat." She coughed, and it sounded painful because of her dry throat.

Thin fingers were gripping a familiar black hat, he had forgotten it at the hospital. "Was that it?"

She was taken aback by his hostile tone, never had he talked with her like that.

"I'm sorry... for everything I've made you feel and made you think."

"You don't have to be sorry, really it's my fault. I'm the idiot that believed there could be something at all." His tone didn't waver from the hostility.

"Stop it, you know it has nothing to do with you. Every girl would love to be with a guy like you."

"Oh stop, please stop with the cliché. I don't care what every girl would love, because the only girl I care about doesn't." His eyes showed how hurt he was, slightly tearing up.

"You know my reason. I don't want to hurt you anymore, I don't want to hurt anyone." She was trembling, she knew what was about to happen to her.

"You know what you don't get? I don't care about what's gonna happen to me. I want to be there for you through everything. Stop thinking about what will happen, live in the moment, live your life right now."

Nothing came out of her, not a word. He snatched the hat from her hands and put it aside. "Just forget it, I don't care anymore. Please go if you don't have anything to say." He turned his back to her not wanting to see her face. Because after everything, after all the things she had done and could do, he deeply cared for her.

Again, she was silent, not a word. He turned back around when it was eerily silent. Nathanael faced her right as her eyes rolled back and she fell. He wasn't able to catch her in time and her body fell limp on his carpet, head hitting the floor.

The tears that were on the verge, fell freely now. He shook her, tried to wake her up in any possible way. Looking for his phone while trembling he called the hospital, and then her father right after.

From what her father told him, Leigh had discreetly gotten out of the hospital hours after Nate had left. They had been looking for her until Nate called.

The curly-haired boy checked her pulse and her head, luckily there was no blood and she had a pulse, a small one but it still was there.

In around ten minutes doctors swarmed his dorm and took her away. His hand was covering his mouth tears running down freely, sweat covering him and his curly hair sticking to his forehead.

After standing in the middle of his room in shock, he had gotten out of his trance when people swarmed him and asked questions. He ran out of the room and outside, sprinting to the hospital to see how the girl was.

When he had finally gotten there he was out of breath, sitting in the waiting room felt like decades. He could see the devastation on Mr. Auclair's face. Alexis was drained, sitting beside him with an emotionless face. They had been sitting there for hours, their heads in their hands.

The doctor came out and told Mr. Auclair that she was alive, but in a medical coma. There was internal bleeding from when she hit her head.

Her body had been worn out before she ran away from the hospital. The doctor said she had been mentally weak and had gotten physically weak when she arrived at the dorm buildings.

Hours, days, weeks had gone by. The color had drained from the man's face, he had lost his loving wife and now his precious daughter was in danger. Nate had gone to work and visited the orphanage, the school already being done for the year, summer vacation was on for most people.

He had stayed beside her most of the time, and been there when Mr. Auclair had things to do. He was no longer the funny charismatic man with the French accent, he was just a hollow shell of that man. Both Alexis and Nathanael tried to be there for him as much as possible.

Nate had gotten to finish his book, now only the editing remaining. A big inspiration was the quote she once had told him: "If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets." It was a quote from  Haruki Murakami's book Kafka on the Shore, a book Nate had suggested to Leigh.

The young aspiring author had promised to let her be the first one to read the book when he had finished. Now he was afraid she never would get that chance.

Multiple times a week, when he was alone in the room with her he would whisper that he did care, that the last words she heard from him weren't true. Maybe, just maybe she would hear him and answer back, say that it was ok and that she'll be ok.

But something deep inside him told him nothing would be the same.

I'm afraid that I can turn into a vegetable any second. Leaving people I care about alone, leaving them just so I can be surrounded by darkness.

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