Jizzie | Hand on Heart

Chapter 30 | Love again?

Four days.

Four days of incessant beeping.

Four days of having to rate how I feel on a scale of one to ten.

Four days, of watching the doors.

Four days of waiting for them to open.

Four days of my heart rising and then sinking as someone else walks through those doors.

Four days of hoping.

That he'll come back.

Hand in hand,

With four days of disappointment, when he didn't.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Jessie says, one hand on my back and one gripping my hand.

"If I wasn't fine, I wouldn't be leaving would I."

She doesn't look like she's listening, intently focused on the task at hand.

Getting me out of bed.

I push her away in annoyance, hauling myself up and shooting her a triumphant smile.

My stomach feels normal now, the sharp pains gone and the headache distant.

My back is a little sore but just bruised, no major damage done, or re done I guess.

"Let's get out of here." I say happily, glad to be far away from this hospital.

Hospitals brought back bad enough memories, but hospitals in America, even worse.

Nothing against them, but personally, they held too much grief.

"You know, you didn't have to collapse to try and get out of school." Jessie jokes, lightening the mood.

I giggle, pulling on my jacket, "oh don't remind me, my grades are in a place worse than hell at the moment."

Jessie loops her arm through mine, "if yours are in hell I can't bare to think of where mine are."

We start walking out the room.

"Oh shush you're like a freaking genius."

Jessie snorts, "hardly."

"Me on the other hand, let's just say you'd have a better chance of teacher a dog to drive a car than me with maths."

We both break of into hysterical laughter as Jessie opens the door.

"You know sometimes I think that..." I trail off, noticing that Jessie has stopped paying attention.

I turn towards her, eyebrows raised, "I know my conversation isn't sparkling but you could try to pretend to pay attention." I try to joke to get her attention.

She still takes no notice, focused on something behind me.

I wave a hand in her face, "hey what are you-"

I stop immediately.

Those footsteps.

It takes me a moment to collect myself, force myself not to cry, not to break, before I turn around.

"Joel." I breathe out.

He smiles anxiously at me, his hands in his pockets, his thumb fiddling with his belt loop, something I know he does when he doesn't know what to say.

"Lizzie."

And my resolve crumples.

A tear slips down my face, and I throw all sense and commitment I had, and instead throw myself at him.

Wrapping my arms around his torso and crying into his shoulder.

I expect him to push me away, to put space between us, but he wraps his arms around me, kissing my forehead.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about." I sniffle into his shoulder, "it was my fault, I lied to you."

"But I wasn't there for you, you were hurting and I pushed you away, I knew you were hurting and I pushed you away, I let my anger blind me and for that I am so so sorry."

I cry harder, "I'm sorry for lying to you, I never should've done it, I understand if you could never forgive me, what I did..." I can't go on as sobs wrack my body.

"Hey," he says softly, putting both his hands on my head and looking into my eyes, "nothing you do, will ever be unforgivable, I love you, and that will never change, I want to be there for you, I want to help you, I wasn't angry because of what you did or what happened years ago, I was angry because I felt like you didn't trust me, and it hurt.

But I don't hate you, not even close. I hate that you didn't feel like you could tell me, I hate that you were hurting and I couldn't help." His voice breaks as tears start to fall down his cheeks, "I hate that you had to go through that."

I smile through my tears, nestling into him as he wipes the tears off my cheek.

"But I don't hate you. I love you, and I never stopped, and if you can forgive me, I want to help you."

More tears fall, but happy tears now, my heart filled with joy.

"I'd love that."

We both laugh, hugging even more.

When we pull away, I take a deep breathe, plucking up the courage to say the words I didn't want to say.

"But there's one thing." My heart is screaming at me to stop but I know I need to do this, "I still don't really know who I am, and I need to figure that out, I need to find what happened so I can finally have peace."

Joel nods, in agreement with what I'm saying.

"But that means." I bite my lip, "we can't be together."

I see the hurt on his face, and quickly amend my statement.

"I want to be with you, more than ever, I want what we had before, but I can't do that until I know who I am, I can't drag our relationship into that right now. So if it's okay with you, for now. Friends?"

I can see in his eyes this is not what he wants, but he nods, a fake smile on his face.

The happiness that came earlier has dissipated and I curse myself.

I know this is the right thing to do, I know I can't drag him through it like that.

It's selfish of me to even put him through it as a friend, but I want to be a little selfish now.

I need him by my side again.

My heart screams that this is all wrong, that I want to love him and be with him like before again now, but I push it away.

We can't be more than friends right now.

This is the right thing to do.