THE BEGINNING OF THE END L.S

2. F A L L I N G

C H A P T E R T W O

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TWO

DAYS

LATER

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What do you do when you finally think you know where you're going in your life, when you finally know who you are and what impact you are going to have in the world, then the world takes it away from you, tears it to pieces and says no?

Gemma Styles sat, motionless, in the chair next to her cold, dead-looking brother, thinking of the answer to that exact thing.

It was 3pm in the afternoon in St Marys Hospital in the centre of London. Harry had always told Gemma that 3pm was the worst hour. It was too early to start drinking and having fun, but too late to do anything productive. And in this cloudy day, on this uncomfortable blue chair in his hospital room, Gemma finally agreed with Harry. This was about to be the worst hour, ever.

N2 LUNG CANCER STAGE 4

The doctors had expected her to cry out when she found out. That's why they told her to sit down as they told her the news. They expected her to scream and cry and tell them that they were lying and that her brother wasn't going to die in 3 months, that he was perfectly fine.

But Gemma did not.

She allowed the news to fill her, she opened the door for the inevitable pain that was coming for her. She allowed it to twist itself into her system, her every move. She allowed it to manipulate her mind, taking control so she could not think of anything else. Just pain.

And Harry.

She never understood the people that didn't believe in love. If love wasn't real, then what was this never-ending pain ripping her heart to pieces? If love wasn't real, then why was she stuck in this nightmare with no escape?

3 months.

3 fucking months.

3 months and he would be gone. Erased from existence.

She had been a Christian her whole life. Went to church every Sunday, prayed every night. Wore a cross necklace everywhere. So when she looked up to the dotted white ceiling of the room, she wanted to know what she had done so terribly wrong for God to do this to her, to him.

Him. The one who would always take a bug outside instead of killing it, the one who would apologise the second an argument ended because he hated people being mad because of him, the one who would always say I love you twice, just in case they missed it the first time.

The one who had cancer.

Rare cancer.

So rare;

That it was incurable

Incurable

The word did nothing but swim around in her brain as if it was mocking her

He was laying, hooked up to about a thousand machines, looking like a stranger, not her brother. She couldn't quite believe that was him. Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe she had got this wrong and this was some ridiculous mistake because the Harry she knew didn't look anything like this.

Harry couldn't have lung cancer.

She knew he had a lot of things.

He had adoring fans. He had three best mates. He had tameless curly hair. He was hopelessly in love with his bandmate. He had a great singing voice. He had a love for poutine. He also had a smile that was so contagious it made her want to scream.

But he couldn't have cancer

The word flowed through her veins and deadened her mind. It was a poison to her spirit, dulling her killing off her other emotions until it was the only one that remained.

It was as if a black mist had settled upon her and refused to shift, the world was lost to her and she knew of nothing that would bring it back into focus.

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Her brother was going to die