Dusk and Dawn

9 : Heart

I decide to act like an adult , stepping foot in the hospital like I have some serious business to discuss.

"I'm here to see Leah Ione."

"Are you related?" the lady behind the desk with the fluorescent fuchsia nails asks. And of course , how could she guess? Unfortunately , I look nothing like my mum,

"Yes," I sigh , "yes I am",

I look to my right ; a whole family is waiting , some of them holding bright balloons with stuff like 'Congrats on the girl!' written on them with uneven letters. I wait for a little while before the lady says,

"I'm sorry but it says here that miss Ione checked out a couple of hours ago." she says confused , tilting her head to the side,

"Excuse me," my eyes open wide , "what did you say?"

"Miss Ione checked out -"

"It was a rhetorical question," I say losing my adult persona along with my patience , "what I want to know is what the hell happened to my mother and who took her cause I didn't."

"Miss , if you would please calm -",

"I'm not going to calm down!" I cut her off raising my voice and causing some heads to turn towards me, "how could you let someone take my mother?!"

"She left with a man called Brad Brane two hours ago. I'm sorry but that's all I can say." she looks awfully mad at me ; under different circumstances I would feel bad but right now all I can think about is my mother and the fact that she left with Noel's father. At least she's in safe hands , right?

Right?

I storm off the hospital. I quickly find my car and get in , trembling hands try to turn the key. The engine roars to life eventually and I start driving , realising soon enough that I have no idea where Noel's house is. I think about calling him but then I remember that I don't have his number. I am very slow today.

With nowhere to go and no idea what to do next I black out. I reach for the bottle of rum underneath the passenger's seat and take a sip without thinking twice about it. A burning sensation stains my throat and warms up my stomach. I take another one and another one after that. I don't want to get pissed drunk , just relax a little bit , as much as I can anyway.

I don't know if it's ironic to drink outside a hospital but all I know is that I'm a very ironic person.

I lit a cigarette as well to double the irony and pondered over my next move.

I could wait until tomorrow since Noel invited himself over for breakfast but I don't know if I should wait when I don't know where my mother is or how she's doing.

As if a light bulb appears above my head I quickly put the bottle back to its place but keep smoking on my way home and to my mum's phone.

I think about my grandma and remember a random thing she had told me. She was cutting lettuce in the kitchen , iceberg to be exact and I was sitting across her on the table. I used too hate iceberg then but I would always listen to her when she told me to eat the "heart of the lettuce". After she had stripped it she gave me that last piece saying ,

"Always choose the heart, Keira, always the heart".

But unfortunately I think my head is not letting my heart feel anything.