91Chapter Eighteen
I'm in another place.
The cracking of my ribs have turned to light piano plinks that echo around the apartment. It sounds hauntingly beautiful. My gasps for breath are mere whispers of song. Instead of blood oozing from between my lips like thick, glistening red toffee, there is only soft and calm breath.
It doesn't last for long, the sound of his door slamming wakes me up and I am again aware of the pain that is shooting through my body. Every movement I make sends a new bolt of lightning that sears through my bones, every breath a heaving up of more blood. I remember wondering if it was his desire to change the stain of his wood to my blood.
I could smell metal mixed with vomit, taste where my tongue had gotten in the way of my gritted teeth.
I don't remember how long I lay there, it felt like days but was probably only a few hours. All I know was that I had passed in out of consciousness, and every time I was conscious my eyes had followed the path of the slats of light filtering in through the window. I watched it move painfully slowly. I dared not blink in case I missed it sliding along, a reminder that the world was still moving.
I next woke up to the flash of bright florescent lights overhead. Squares that beamed down on me, on my captor and my saviour who carried me in his arms and collapsed sobbing on the floor. People crowded around him as they pried me from his arms, looking at him as if he too, had been a blackness came around me again, trapping me.
I was startled awake by one of those dreams. The kind where you suddenly trip, falling as your legs flail for something to grip onto. I smelt antiseptic, heard coughing and groans. I could taste the sickness permeating the air and I suddenly felt the need to retch. A bucket suddenly appeared on my bed and I threw up, the acrid stench of what had been inside me invaded my nostrils and I threw up again. When I was finally done, I sank back on the white bed, turning to look at him. He looked back at me with a sad smile though I knew it was fake. It was his eyes, they gave him away. In the short time I knew him, I had learned to read him. I knew that he was not going to be happy about this.
"Seb, darling. I hate seeing you like this." He looked at me with pity, his lips twitching.
"I'm sorry." The words fell out of my mouth, my voice robotic.
"No, I am." He shook his head, "You gave me such a scare, Seb. Lying on the floor like that all hurt and curled up. My poor Seb." He shook his head and put his hand over mine. My fingers curled in like a fist, a reflex. He pretended not to notice. "I just wish I had been there sooner."
When I smiled at him, I remember it took all of my remaining strength just to do it.
"Not your fault."
I later heard that he had told the hospital that a mugger had attacked me. So in their eyes, that made him the one that saved me.
I hate the smell of hospitals. Always have since my father had been brought in so many years ago. The scent of antiseptic hangs in the air in an attempt to cover the fetid odour of fear that envelopes the place, a pretence that there isn't an invasion of death waiting around the corner. No amount of disinfectant bottles can prevent that constant reminder that suffocates every one of us.
"Daddy!"
I scream, rushing over to my father's prone body. Grasping his left arm, I begin shaking it and trying to get him to wake up. I don't understand why he's trying to sleep in the middle of the street, or why there is red stuff leaking out of him. "Daddy!" I scream, louder. In his face. In his ear. My dad smells different, like metal and something else I can't describe. He isn't waking up.
"David! David, sweetie! Look at me!" My mother is right next to me, cradling his head in her lap. I move around so I'm standing at my father's head. His eyes are still closed. Red liquid pools around my feet and stains my brand new white trainers. I watch as my mother's soft hands smooth his hair and skim over his face. "David, it's going to be okay, honey. Just stay with me. I've called the ambulance and you're going to be fine. Absolutely fine, honey. Okay?" I hear sirens in the distance.
I hear the squeak of plastic and battered black Converses enter my vision.
"She'll be okay. It happens." To any stranger, Dai sounds confident and sure of himself, but he can't fool me; I can hear the slight tremor in his voice.
Suddenly the doors burst open with a loud bang. I realise that I recognise the thin woman that rushes in with hollow eyes and limp blonde hair. She is with a tall man, chestnut-haired and handsome. I see the grooves of age beyond his years set in his face like stone.
"Skye Holloway, please. Sh-she came here in an a-ambulance. Wh-where is she? We're her p-parents." Her soft, tired voice kept catching and I swallowed the lump in my throat. As the nurse asked for names, she shook her head and looked down. Skye's father took over for her, his arm tightening around his wife as if he were afraid that letting go might mean she'd blow away.
I watch her as she tentatively lifts her head to gaze around the room, her eyes suddenly landing on me. She tilts her head and squints at me, as if trying to place where she had seen me before.
Dai nudges me and I see Skye's father looking at us as well. The nurse is nodding in our direction as she talks to them.
"Oh god." Dai whispers.
They start to make our way over to us and I don't know what to say. I've never really met them, never introduced myself. I mean, what do I say? Hello, I've been hanging around your little girl and we've become really good friends even though she's thirteen and I'm eighteen? How did we meet? Well, she stalked me at a diner I used to work at...
I shake my head. Yeah, that's going to go over really well.
"What do we say?" Dai hisses at me. They suddenly stop and Dai and I get up fast, as they stare at us. I wonder if Skye's mother remembers me and wants to hit me for letting Skye get hurt.
"Thank you." I'm stunned and look at Dai who looks surprised as well. "We heard you boys tried to help her, that you called the ambulance and have been waiting here since." Skye's father's voice is hoarse, almost choked. He smiles at us, a sad smile.
"We hope she'll be okay." Dai speaks for us because I can't seem to say anything.
"You're that boy, the one from the diner." Skye's mother finally recognises me but before I can say anything, her eyes narrow at me, "You're the one, aren't you? Both of you. You two are the ones that are hanging around my daughter." Her voice gets louder, "Why can't you just leave her alone? You boys are the ones that are causing all of this. She's supposed to be at home. With us. Resting! Not out, playing and hurting herself!" She screams the last part at us and I see Dai flinch beside me. Skye's father looked a little confused at first but then realisation dawns on him and his face becomes an impassive, impenetrable mask.
"Honey, calm down." His hand comes to cover her hand that is grasping at her elbow. "We are thankful for your help, but I think you boys better leave now."
I see Dai nodding out of the corner of my eye, shuffling away slightly. I bite my lip and look longingly at the emergency room, feeling a strange want to stay here.
"We're sorry. We were just trying to make her happy." It slips out. I look at them again before turning away and exiting the hospital. If you asked me today what their reactions were, I couldn't tell you. I don't remember much about what happened afterwards, just that I was holding Dai's hand tightly in my own. I had been thinking how it didn't fit mine at all and that was the way I liked it.
My mother won't stop pacing up and down. I watch her as she bites her nails, runs her hands through her hair. There are black streaks on her cheeks but I don't say anything. I look down — my shoes are still bloody. I wiggle my toes and swing my legs back and forth.
"Mommy?" I look up at her and she comes to a stop. Slowly she turns to me with narrowed eyes and a fingernail in mid-bite. "Mommy, where is Daddy?" Her face clouds before she drops her hand from her mouth and sighs heavily. She comes towards me and drops down in the plastic seat next to me. She smells a lot like metal and I wrinkle my nose although I know I smell like it too.
"Daddy...has been hurt. The doctors are helping him get better right now." She tells me and forces a smile on her face.
"Is he okay?" I ask.
"He will be, sweetie." She smiles wider and brings an arm around me to give me a hug. She buries her face in my hair and inhales deeply. Lavender surrounds me and I am floating in a bubble. "I love you, Sebastian."
to everyone that is still with me, that didn't give up, that have been kind and patient and understanding, that are still enjoying and reading this story: thank you so damn much.
i apologise if this isn't up to par, but i'm slowly getting my inspiration back — at least i hope i am getting it back. i hope to put the next one up quickly.