Hurricane // Matty Healy ♣ The 1975

48. still

I went to bed about twenty minutes after George's family got back, only able to manage a limited amount of their pity. They were lovely people, but I couldn't handle it. 

I found my way to the spare bedroom that George had directed me to.

It was bland and seemed to make me even more tired than I already was. The only mildly wonderful thing about it was that George had said Matty had stayed there on many occasions in the past.

I was lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling with my phone, now fully charged, right next to me with the volume up to the top on the ringtone, just in case I got a life destroying call in the middle of the night. 

The presents that Matty had planned to give me the day before were at the foot of my bed, practically begging to be opened. 

I shut my eyes and thought about the lines on his back and the scars on his body and his tattoos and his lips and hair.

Tears welled up around my eyelashes and I sat up suddenly, turning on the table lgiht and peering out of the window next to me. 

The street was dimly lit below me. The only thing keeping the road from being completely black was artificial light, just like how the only thing keeping Matty from dying was pretty much artificial life. 

I looked at the presents at my feet and sighed, feeling selfish as I picked the first one up. It had a card attached to it, so I opened that first, taking off a layer of the Christmas wrapping paper decorated with pictures of puppies in Santa hats.

I struggled to tear it open and stared at the picture on the card, laughing a little. It was some stupid cartoon about cats and turkeys, I forgot it quickly, but I loved it at the time. 

I opened it and braced myself before reading it. 

'Dear Lizzy,

You are so, so beautiful and I love you so, so much. 

Shit, that's really cheesy, isn't it? Sorry. I guess I'm good at writing songs, but not letters. 

Happy Christmas. 

I love you, 

Matty.'

I sighed and wiped my eyes with my rough fingertips. 

I shut the card and set it dow next to me and moved onto the present. 

I dug my nails into the wrapping paper and tore it off. Beneath it was something wooden, wrapped in pink tissue paper. 

"Oh god..." I whispered as I pushed the tissue paper away from it and stared down at the photo frame. 

Suddenly I felt my heart jump, like it was trying to get out of my body.

I'd never seen the photo inside it before, I guessed Adam or someone had taken it when we weren't looking.  

I was sitting in Matty's lap, backstage at one of the venues we visited when I had joined them for the tour. 

He had his hands wrapped around my waist and my head was against his shoulders. His eyes were shut and his face huddled into my neck.

I slept okay after that. 

----

I woke up at eight in the morning to the sound of my phone buzzing. 

My eyes widened as I pulled it to me and turned it on, but it was just letting me know that it had charged properly. 

I sighed and looked at the photo I had put on the bedside table. 

My arm hurt like hell, along with everything else, but my arm just seemed to top the physcial pain off nicely. 

I wanted to have a shower but I didn't want to leave the room unless it was for Matty, also I had no idea what to do with all of the bandages. I had been pretty out of it when the nurse had told me. 

I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to get my shit together for a moment. 

I grabbed my suitcase that was next to my bed and tudded it across the floor towards me. I took out a pair of jeans, some underwear and a Sonic Youth t-shirt that I had stolen from Matty. 

It took me about three quarters of an hour to get dressed, fifteen minutes of that was spent struggling to do everything with one arm, and half an hour consisted of me just messily sobbing into his t-shirt. 

I sat down on the bed and peered down at the photo that was next to me on the bed. I suddenly picked it up and put it under the pillow because I was scared that I might throw it at a wall.

Everything felt... stagnant.

I didn't feel like myself, I didn't want to move and get up and do anything, but I guess that was never really me. I could easily count out on my hands how many times I had done something useful. 

I managed to make myself stand up again and walk to the bedroom door slowly. I leaned my head against the wood for a moment before taking a deep breath, grabbing my toothbrush and washing things from the cabinet next next to me, and making my way to the bathroom. 

I could hear George's family downstairs, getting ready for breakfast, but I knew George himself was still asleep because when I passed his door I could hear his shallow but steady breaths.

I sighed and pushed the bathroom door open. I did everything I needed to do, then I put my things back in my room and made my way downstairs into the kitchen.

I felt numb to everything that was happening and being said. 

"Morning Elizabeth, how are you?" His dad asked me. 

"Fine, thank you. How are you?" I replied sullenly. 

"Don't ask her that, dad! Her boyfirend is in a coma!" George's sister wailed. She was older than me. Maybe I would have gotten on with her if it wasn't for everything that had happened. 

"I-it's fine." I said as I pulled a chair back and joined them at the table. 

"Where's George?" His mum asked. 

"I think he's still asleep." 

"You could have woken him, he wouldn't have minded." She said, putting a generous stack of pancakes onto my plate. 

"I thought he needed some rest. Thanks." I said as she spooned out a large lot of strawberries onto the side of my plate. 

"I suppose so." She admitted sadly. 

You'd have thought somebody had died.