The Distance Between Us - A Shawn Mendes Fanfiction

Chapter 9: Good-Bye

I sit in silence for a long time hidden beneath the sheets, thinking back to the words I said. What did I just do...? I wanted to stay, now that the moment was coming that I can finally leave, it is all bittersweet. I don't want to go. All I really want to do right now I curl up against his chest and fall asleep, but instead I am here all alone, attempting to hold back my tears.

Turning over again, I look to the tray with a now empty plate and with the note still placed next to it. I reach to it and pull myself up to a sitting position. I wave of nausea hits up as I lean forward to pick up the paper. Unable to control the mess about to occur, I attempt to stand and my feet fall beneath me. I desperately reach for the garbage can, releasing my morning breakfast into it. I fall to the side after the last wave ends and I rest on the ground. A pain erupts within my chest and my stomach aches. The world becomes dark for a while. I try to open my eyes but the lights are too bright and I drift in sleep.

Caramel eyes stare down at me. A haze drifts over my view, but all I can see is his eyes, they blink slowly as they stare down at me. The eyes drift away and I am staring at a white wall. There is nothing in front of me other than that white wall. I try to move, but my arms and legs are lost to a deep numbness. My mind is screaming and I am snapped back into darkness. It feels like it has been hours, days, years that I am stuck in the white world, unable to move. Those caramel eyes always occasionally visiting me in this land. I want to reach out to them, desperately wanting to leave this place. Then the world turns red as if blood is drenching the lands before me. I try to scream to stop this horror. I want to be out of here. I don't want to be here. I just want to be home with him and never leaving his arms. I want to feel his lips on mine. I never want to leave him.

My eyes burst open and I am back in the white room, with the beeping next to me and a warm hand wrapped around mine. I squeeze it as hard as I can, but does barely anything, my body too weak to do anything but blink. A tube is placed into my throat and I cannot speak, air is pushed into my chest, and pulled from it. The person next to me stands up slowly and moves his face to mine, playing a gentle hand on the side of my face.

"Annie?" His voice trembles as he speaks. Other faces appear, wearing white and blue, but the world begins to blur and I'm back in the dream world, except it is no longer white, but the deepest black.

When I wake again, there is no longer a tube in my throat and I am breathing on my own. The warm hand is gone and I am in the room all alone. I see him standing outside, talking to the same doctor from only a day ago. His head drops and the doctor places a hand on his shoulder.

I attempt to sit up but I cannot even lift my arms and I fail miserably. When I look back through the window,  he and the doctor are both staring at me. Then enter the room slowly and shut the door behind them. The doctor takes his place standing at the end of the bed and asks. "How are you feeling Anna?"

I just nod and turn to Shawn next to me, his hand lacing with mine as the doctor continues to speak. My bones ache deeply and my chest burns.

"You will only be allowed to leave tomorrow morning. I will give you both a moment alone." The doctor exits without another word.

I turn to Shawn who is attempting to smile, but there is a shine in his eyes as he looks at me.

"Shawn," I finally say. "What is it?" I squeeze his hands and his forehead falls against our interlocked hands.

"Annie" he whispers, "I don't know how to say this other than just saying it."

My stomach turns in knots as he whispers. What is he going to tell me? What do I have? Can I go home? Am I okay? Thousands of questions pour into my mind as he pauses, the words trapped behind his lips.

"You have stage four cancer."

I laugh, not sure of what he is telling me, but when he looks up to me with his cheeks soaked and his eyes glistening.

"That's impossible. This must be some sort of joke."

He gets up and wraps his arms around me, sitting on the bed next to me.

"I completely understand if you want to go home."

Home, my small apartment with no one else there. Not even my best friend came to even see me, she most probably doesn't care. I have no family, I have no siblings, I have no friends. I am all alone. Do I want to go back to that place? This all still feels like a joke. He must e kidding, but when he pulls away, those tears are real. But why would he be crying? We barely know each other, but then again, I feel as if I've known him my whole life. The dream comes back to me. My deep desire to be wrapped in his arms, and now that he has pulled away, I just want him wrapped back around me and to never let me go. But could I do that to him? If I am going to die, why should he have to be with me, when there is no possible future?

The doctor re-enters the room and asks Shawn to leave the room nicely. He holds the paper in his hands, and stuffs it into his back pocket as he leaves. 

"I just want to go over all the details of your case." The doctor begins. I am lost in his words as he tells me everything I need to avoid, the things I can no longer do, the things I should do. If I had any plans, I should do them now, while I still have strength. He discusses what I have, and that it is a slow paced cancer, that will take a couple of months to a year to take over... I stop listening and he takes note leaving the room silently.

I turn over in the sheets, and I cannot hold back to the pain in my heart. This is no longer a joke. My life was coming to an end, and no matter how much I want to be with Shawn, I cannot take his life away.