fight for us ↠ harry styles [b2] ✓

CHAPTER 36

36—Harry Styles

When my daughter was born, I began to think of hospitals entirely differently. It became a place where happy people went to welcome a new member of their family, a place where you leave with an addition of you and your partner. I thought, maybe this place isn't so bad, after all, right? The distinct smell of iodoform living in the hallways mixing with the gentle lemon scented cleaners and visitors' perfumes was a combination I could stomach because the focus of my mind was pointed at Leila Grace.

And then this happened.

A call in the middle of the night.

Usually, phone calls didn't wake me. Often, I'd miss important things because the ringing of my phone fails to shake me conscious. This time, it shot through me and my ears rang, even after the call ended and I was dressed, ready to leave. As soon as I got here and I stepped inside the hospital, the smell engulfed me and overwhelmed my lungs, my nose burned. Panic didn't set in, just fear. Pure fear. I couldn't remember the last time I felt so helpless because the shock was much stronger though as it settled in more and more, I got speckles of the past coming back to me. At one point, Renleigh spent a while in hospital, simply because she overworked herself and that was the only place she'd stay still. It brought a bitter taste to linger in my mouth, making me want to throw up. Suddenly, the positive connotations to hospitals thinned into nothing and I was back to negatives.

There was an ache in my legs and a thin layer of sweat soaked my clothes. I was sure my daily steps were up a thousand or two by this point though I couldn't check. The battery of my phone died after I picked my brother up from his university house. When I noticed, we were too far from it to go back for a charger. I also lost the cable in my car which made it impossible to charge the device.

Somehow, I knew that the happiness from the proposal would only last so long. It wasn't me being negative, it was simply the way life worked. Mine, anyway. One good thing happens, and it's followed by a thousand bad ones. It's happiness and warmth, sunshine and rainbows, then it's heartache and bitter cold, gloomy skies and heavy rain. You either see the signs or you don't but it's coming and you can't stop it because it's out of your control so all you can do while it's happening is take it and deal with it as it comes. You don't know what will be the end of it or if it will ever end so you hold on and you hold on tight because if you don't, then you lose yourself and the small amount of control you have left.

I had experience with terrible things but it didn't make my life easier. I knew I could go through the worst of the worst but the next horrible event would still weigh me down, test my emotions and my control over situations and myself. Naturally, my position in my family has always been to keep it together and solve everything as fast and as seamlessly as possible. Having two younger siblings comes with responsibility you don't ask for but you are given because it's built in you and you can't take it out or push it away. When shit hits the fan, it jumps to the front and overwhelms every other emotion, it's like protecting them is only possible if you become their human shield. That's what I have done for the past nineteen years of my life, from the moment Mason was born and then Olivia. Neglectful parents can turn the first-borns—in my case, anyway—into an older sibling and parent mixed, it's something that they shouldn't have to deal with but they do, anyway, because if they won't be there, then who will? It comes with responsibility and emotions that can be strange and frustrating and it may be never ending. It leaves you—me—feeling helpless and out of place, it brings up questions like am I overstepping in this particular situation? Do I have the right to the upper hand?

My mind was my biggest enemy. It was something that constantly worked against me and I had to work against it to make it out alive and somewhat sane. Walking around the hospital to think of other things, worked for a while and then I passed the reception and my feet rooted into the floor.