Me before you

chapter 32

In the days after Sana's visit to the annex, Y/n scarcely thought of anything else.

She went to work, got coffee with Jisoo, took her pills, ate dinner with her parents at the main house, all with a feeling of lightness in her chest and flashes of brown eyes and half-hearted smiles running like white noise in the back of her mind.

Being apart from Sana had been like weaning herself off pills or something – and now she'd got another fix she was dizzy from it. Sana was back in her veins, and the truth was she didn't want to get her out. She didn't know when she'd see her again - she might be living off the fumes of that day for the rest of her life and it'd be worth it.

It was her day off when the time eventually came to schedule an appointment with Doctor Song discussing the potential surgery - or not, as was the most likely case.

She woke up late, thankful it wasn't an early nurses round today. They all knew about the proposed treatment, and, like everybody else in her life, wouldn't shut up about it.

It was infuriating, Y/n thought, laying there half-asleep beneath the covers, watching a bird hop between the budding branches of the tree outside her window. It was her choice – only hers.

The truth was, she didn't want to get her own hopes up, let alone everyone else's. If she went through with it, the talks, the tests, the surgery, then everyone around her would be depending on it turning out right. Including me.

If she went for the consultation, then she'd have to let herself think about all the things she hadn't for years. About writing with a pen in her hands, doodling around the edge of the paper. About laughing, trying to use the chopsticks that came with the Chinese takeout. Clapping her moms mayoral speeches. Brushing her hair and tying it back in a ponytail whenever she felt like. Pumping weights. Holding hands. Holding something. Holding her –

It wouldn't work. It wouldn't. Y/n didn't want to imagine her parents faces. Sana's. How could she do that to herself, to them? How could she, after everything?

No. There was no point setting herself up for more heartbreak. After all, she was doing fine as she was. She was working, she was seeing friends. She was fine. And that was all she needed to be.

Exhaling slowly, Y/n gave herself a few more minutes to watch the garden waking up behind her window. Daffodils were springing to life against the fence, and blossom was unfurling on the skinny tree branches. A bird hopped across the dewy lawn. Above, the sky was a cloud-spat blue, and the sun was already crawling high into the sky, beating down bright light through her half-open curtains.

When her dad came to bring her to breakfast, Y/n smiled and joked around with him and resolved not to think anymore about the operation.

That worked pretty well, for about five hours.

She'd lunch up at the main house with her mom (who hadn't mentioned it once) and that was nice. What they said at the hospital still stood. Sarah had retired not long after to go and sort some paperwork in her study, so Y/n had wheeled herself back down to her annex, thinking about watching a movie or something.

She was just flicking through the TV with her accessible remote when it happened.

Y/n's heart jumped when she heard the sound of the loose doorknob jiggling out in the hall and the sudden creak of the front door being pushed open. Her brows knitted slightly into a frown. Marco was doing overtime at the station, her mom was working in her study at the main house. What the hell...?

"Yeah?" Y/n raised her voice warily, stabbing her finger down clumsily on the button on her wheelchair, swinging towards her bedroom door and wheeling closer.