Timeless

Chapter 8

31st October 2012

"Happy Halloween!" Lisa yells, jumping into my room. She has a little ghost badge pinned to her uniform. She comes in and hangs a plastic pumpkin by my bed.

"Now my day is complete," I mutter.

"Boo! You're boring!" Lisa pokes me as I pull myself up. "You should come down for Halloween lunch in paeds."

I shake my head. "I don't think so." I haven't done anything since my surgery. I'm sure I could, but I'm unmotivated.

"Suit yourself cranky pants," Lisa says, and then leaves me be.

I decide to mix it up, reading a book instead of watching TV. It's quite enthralling, until I'm disturbed by Lisa just before lunch.

"You have a visitor," she announces with a smirk, and I'm confused by her face until my visitor walks in.

"Julian!" I exclaim, very surprised. I pull myself up, wincing at my too quick a movement.

"I'll leave you to it." And Lisa is gone.

"Hey, how are you?" Julian asks, his voice low and husky as he comes to stand by the bed.

"Pull the chair over." I motion to said piece of furniture, and he obliges, sitting beside me. "I'm good, I guess. I wanted to call you last night, I just... I don't know."

"It's ok. I didn't want to just show up like this, but Wednesdays are my only free days."

"So you decided to come to a hospital? Good choice." I give him a questioning look. "Oh, thanks for the flowers too. They're gorgeous." I look up to where Julian's flowers out-glorify everyone else's bouquets.

"That's ok. I got you something else too." Julian holds up a gift bag.

I give him a stern look. "You shouldn't have."

Julian shrugs. "It's just something to pass the time."

I open it up and my jaw nearly hits the floor. "Julian it's too much. I can't take this." It's a new blue iPod touch.

"It's really a present to myself if you think about it. It can connect to wifi and send messages to my phone, so we can message anytime. So I'm actually being pretty selfish." I smile a little bit, but he can tell I'm hesitant. "Just say thank you and take it graciously. Or you'll hurt my feelings."

I sigh. "Thank you. I love it."

Julian takes it, unlocks it, and shows me it's already connected to the hospital wifi. His number is stored, and when he opens the music app, all of The Collective's performances are in there, along with some other music.

I laugh. "I love it even more now." I take his hand give it a squeeze. If I could move to kiss him, I would. But then I remember that talk I promised myself I would have with him. "Julian are we... I mean, um, what are we?" I flop back on my bed. "Shit."

"What?" Julian leans on the bed, closer to me.

I laugh a little. "I don't know. I feel like an idiot. We haven't even known each other for a week and being in this whole situation," I motion to my surroundings. "And now I'm asking you what we are. You don't need this pressure."

Julian smiles, his eyes holding a cheeky glint to them. "Trust me, this is far from pressure. I... It doesn't feel like a week to me. It's stupid, but when I'm with you, it's like time goes on forever, while passing way too quickly as well.

"When I'm with you, I feel like I've known you my whole life. But every time is like the first time I met you too, because I get nervous and surprised by how beautiful you are. "Julian shakes his head. "That doesn't even make sense. But it's pretty much like time doesn't exist when I'm with you."