Bitter ⇒ zayn malik [au]

xxiv.

•twenty-four•

-----------------------

8 Weeks Later

The blisters of trying to hold on to what they had, grew painful. The more they were pulled apart, the more their bones ached.

Louis' face was stone cold, processing what was happening in front of him was difficult. Everything when it came to Ellie and Zayn was difficult now.

"Louis, I'm fine!" Zayn's struggled to get his words out, but when they finally did it sounded hoarse and strained, yet filled with so much pain.

5 Weeks Earlier

Ellie was in one of her weekly sessions with her neurosurgeon. She had been placed inside of a hospital for the past two weeks, apparently her rehabilitation centre said she "had to undergo a series of tests in order to be on the road to recover," this made her exceedingly roll her eyes on a day-to-day basis when the rehab would call to "check-in." She had been been in and out of MRI's, CT scans, and tested for diseases in her blood over and over again. Today was the day they found a diagnosis, she was enlivened to know something would be done to stop the delirium that worsened. It wasn't long after she began talking to her deceased cousin Harry, when she knew something was wrong. The only hope was to pray her case was not at a point of no return, she wanted to beat whatever curveball life decided to swing at her. Ellie dreamt of being successful and triumphant for once in her life and it would all start after today.

"Ellie, how're you feeling today? Any headaches?" a nurse that looked about her age asked. Her brown eyes looked like she knew something that Ellie didn't. Ellie was taken aback and couldn't further examine the nurse's action when the door swung open—she could only catch the miniature, blue-grey, rectangular name tag that lay atop the left side of her chest, "Melissa" it read.

Dr. Thompson, Ellie's neurosurgeon, walked in giving one look to the young girl and in an instant Melissa had disappeared out the room down an endless corridor.

Ellie was confused, "Am I dying or something Rosie?" she joked. Her doctor avoided the question, glancing downward. This made Ellie shiver in anxiety

"Do you see this," Dr. Thompson placed scans of Ellie's brain on a monitor, "it's your parietal lobe." The only thing Ellie saw was a disfigured assortment of clumps all clustered together. Perhaps the look that was spewed over her face gave the hint that the words coming out of Dr.Thompson's mouth were confounding.

"Ellie, this dark spot here," she pointed with her bony fingers, "is a tumour, one of our interns actually spotted it—apparently we were looking in all the wrong places," she said calmly.

"Did you say 'tumour', no I can't possibly have a tumour. You were supposed to tell me I had schizophrenia or something, I don't have... cancer," her voice broke into fragments that collected onto the mauve cotton sheets. Ellie's chest contracted and there was one continuous piercing ring in both ears, the only thing she heard were the words 'cancer' and 'tumour'. A chill ran up and down her spine, she couldn't hold onto air long enough to control her breathing.

"Ellie, you have to listen to me, we can remove it. But we'll have to perform the surgery today. Is that okay with you?" The ringing stop, so did her tremors, and she looked up at the woman speaking.

"Yes, take it out," she sounded mechanical.

"Good job, Ellie. Now would be a good time to call any loved ones you want to see before you go into surgery, once I tell you the list of possible outcomes and explain the procedure you can do that. A nurse will come in later to discuss with you the forms that are needed to be filled out and then I'll see you in post-op," Dr. Thompson smiled, it wasn't happy, but it was reassuring. Ellie was numb and void to the world around her. But, she was doing the surgery to get better and this was her only option.