Here Comes The Sun

ten

I stood in front of room thirty-four, and it was dead silent. The only thing clearly audible was the coughing from the man in room thirty-three, and my very own breathing. I knocked onto the door and waited for a response, but I heard nothing. Knocked again, nothing. I decided to quietly open the door. Just to check up on him, nothing creepy, we don't want him to die in his sleep, do we? Keep telling yourself that.

To my big relieve, he sat up straight with two earbuds in his ears, staring blankly at the wall across from him. The sarcastic, but overall happy Hart he had pretended to be, was replaced by the young man who had no idea how to continue his life after losing his father and locked himself up with the only thing that made him feel – his music. I saw right through him, it was obvious, there was not a person in this world who could act like that after losing a loved one in an indescribably horrible accident. He must've felt so scared, helpless and . . . lonely.

Just when I wanted to leave him be, because I thought he was the person to just figure out things on his own without wanting help from others, he turned his head and looked at me. After a few seconds, the corners of his lips slowly curled up.

"What are you listening to?" I softly asked.

He gestured that I needed to come to him, and so I did. Once I stood beside his bed, he pulled out an earbud and handed it over to me. I held it close enough to my ear to hear it, but Hart ruined the music by laughing.

"You're seriously not even going to put it in?"

That's what she said. Not now, Nova.

"It's nothing personal," I defended myself, "it's just very unhygienic."

"Nurses," he sighed dramatically.

I focused on the music and recognized the song, but didn't remember the name. I listened to the French lyrics and the voice which sounded so familiar, yet I couldn't trace its name and singer. The vintage song with the beautiful violin enchanted me, and I closed my eyes while I felt Hart looking at me – probably waiting for my reaction.

"Tu comprends?" he asked.

"Un petit peu," I smiled, where after I opened my eyes only to see his beautiful eyes from up close, "tell me, what song is this?"

"La vie en rose by Édith Piaf, naturellement."

"Do you speak French?"

"Oui, ma mère est française et elle m'a appris quand j'étais jeune." His smile turned into a teasing one. Him speaking French did something to me, it was incredibly . . . sexy.

"Hart, do I look like I speak French?"

"Definitely not, you don't even look like you speak English. Anyway, my mother is French and she taught me how to speak it when I was younger. But I haven't spoken French in quite a while, so it's not that good anymore."

"I wish I was bilingual, communicating would be so much easier. When I'm older, I want my children to be bilingual."

He nodded. "Wise choice."

There was a little silence for a moment.

"I thought you weren't going to show up," he said eventually.

"I wasn't," I teased him, "until I heard that you lied about your crutches. Barbara hasn't even spoken to you about crutches, liar."

"You really believed it, dingus," he laughed, "you know how much I hate that fucking wheelchair, Nova. My leg's fine, I'm telling you."

"You're not going to get out of your wheelchair until I tell you so, is that clear?"

He frowned his brows at me, but then – of course – his facial expression turned into a devilish smirk. "Calm down miss dominant."

"I studied this, Hart, I can't believe you're just not listening to me."

"Are we really having this conversation again?"

"And it's not going to stop until you fucking listen to me."

"Woah," his jaw dropped, "I've never heard you say the f-word ever before. How dare you? You know that my brain's still developing, and you're being a bad influence. You studied this!"

I mentally face palmed myself, and physically exhaled deeply. "What are you doing up so late."

"How about you sit down?" he nodded at the empty space in his bed. I did as he proposed. "I was just thinking, you know. Today was rough. It's beautiful how some get cured, and some just suddenly die – it keeps the earth balanced."

I nodded, and thought of Elisa happily leaving the hospital, while being sad at the same time. I thought of how she had hugged me, and told me that she definitely was going to come by to visit me, and I told her that she should've been happy to leave the hospital and never come back.

Hart looked at me with wide eyes as tears piled up, but soon after he smiled and opened both his arms, insisting that I was very welcome to hug him. Without hesitating, I fell down in his arms, and the happily emotional tears fell down onto his shirt.

"It was such a beautiful moment, Elisa's a wonderful child," I cried.

He wrapped his arms around me, comforting me by gently stroking my head as his chin leaned onto the top of my head. His voice suddenly was very soft, and intimate – I had never heard him talk so vulnerable before. "I know, I know. She'll miss you too."

Édith Piaf's singing still filled my ear, and I closed my eyes. Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas; je vois la vie en rose.

"I see life in roses," he whispered.