Should I Stay?

Chapter 22

It's morning.

In some ways, the hospital never goes to sleep. The lights stay on and the nurses stay awake, but even though it's still dark outside, you can tell that things are waking up. The doctors are back, yanking on my eyelids, shining their lights at me, frowning as they scribble notes in my chart as though I've let them down.

I don't care anymore. I'm tired of all this, and it will be over soon.

The social worker is back on duty again, too. It looks like the night's sleep had little impact on her. Her eyes are still heavy, her hair a kinky mess.

She reads my chart and listens to updates from the nurses on my bumpy night, which seems to make her even more tired. The nurse with the blue-black skin is also back. She greeted me by telling me how glad she was to see me this morning, how she'd been thinking about me last night, hoping I'd be here. Then she noticed the bloodstain on my blanket and tsked tsked before hustling off to get me a new one.

After Niall, Liam and Zayn left, there haven't been any more visitors. I guess Diana has run out of people to lobby me with.

I wonder if this deciding business is something that all the nurses are aware of. Nurse Ramirez sure knew about it. And I think the nurse with me now knows it, too, judging by how congratulatory she's acting that I made it through the night. And Diana seems like she knows it, too, with the way she's been marching everyone through here. I like these nurses so much. I hope they will not take my decision personally.

I am tired as fuck right now. Now that I can barely blink my eyes. It's all just a matter of time, and part of me wonders why I'm delaying the inevitable. But I know why.

I'm waiting for Harry to come back.

Though it seems like he has been gone forever, it's probably only been an hour. And he asked me to wait, so I will. That's the least I can do for him.

My eyes are closed so I hear him before I see him.

I hear the raspy, quick rushes of his lungs. He is panting like he just ran a marathon. Then I smell the sweat on him, a clean musky scent that I'd bottle and wear as perfume if I could.

I open my eyes. Harry has closed his. But the eyelids are puffy and pink, so I know what he's been doing. Is that why he went away? To cry without my seeing?

He falls into the chair, like clothes heaped onto the floor at the end of a long day. He covers his face with his hands and takes deep breaths to steady himself. After a minute, he drops his hands into his lap.

''Just.. Just listen,'' he says with the haviest and lowest voice I've ever heared him talk with.

I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen.

''Stay.''

With that one word, Harry's voice catches, but he swallows the emotion and pushes forward.

''There're no words for what happened to you. There're no good sides of it. But there is something to live for. And I'm not talking about me. It's just... I don't know. Maybe I'm talking shit. I know I'm in shock. I know I haven't processeed what happened to your parents, to Louis...''

When he said Louis, his voice cracks and an tears starting to tumble down his face.

I hear him take gulpfuls of air to steady himself. And then he continues:

''All I can think about is how fucked up it would be for your life to end here, now. I mean, I know that your life is fucked up no matter what now, forever. And I'm not dumb enough to think that I can undo that, that anyone can. But I can't wrap my mind around the thought of you not getting old, having kids, going to Juilliard, getting to play that piano in front of a huge audience, so that they can get the chills the way I do every time I see you play, and every time I see you smile at me.''