Hey There, Delilah - A 5 Seconds of Summer story

Chapter 13

The smell of sickly sweet medicine assaulted my nose. I wrinkled it and pinched my nostrils together, but the scent still lingered.

I was walking down a hospital hallway. The floor was squeaky clean, white and polished, matching the walls.

There was a door marked: Do Not Enter. For some unfathomable reason, I opened it.

There was a single bed there, with a long lump covered in a sheet.

Curiousity prevailed and I crept forward, gently tugging the blue sheet backwards to reveal the familiar blonde hair and serene smile of my dead mother.

I screamed, lurching backwards and scrambling out of the room. My mother wasn’t dead, couldn’t be dead! She was just here; she’d taken me to the hospital!

I raced down the hallway, but the window at the end was getting further and further away and the walls were pressing in on me, the fluorescent lights scraping the top of my hair.

“No!” I screamed hoarsely, as the lights flickered and faded, and the tiny speck of window shot further and further out of my reach. Suddenly, it vanished completely, leaving me in utter darkness.

“NO!” I sobbed, jerking up into a sitting position, my head colliding with the top of my bunk. I groaned in pain, slumping over almost double, my throbbing head on my knees.

The quiet snores above me stuttered.

Sweat was cold on my skin, and tears stained my cheeks. I fumbled for my phone on the bedside table.

The little numbers winked at me: 2:47am.

Too early to be awake. I rubbed my eyes, drying the tears that hovered on my lashes.

“Who was that?” Came a sleepy voice from above me.

I stayed dead silent, unwilling to let anyone know I was awake.

After a moment, the soft snores resumed.

Unable to stay in the suffocating silence, I unzipped the cover in front of my bunk bed and slipped out, not bothering to put any shoes on.

I grabbed a grey cardigan and pulled it on over my sleeping singlet and shorts. The bus was moving at a slow and steady rate as we made our way to Adelaide.

I padded down to the very back of the bus, past the bathroom, to the tiny private window-seat at the back.

I pulled the curtain across so I wouldn’t be and sat down on the seat, hugging my legs close to my chest.

Then I stared out of the window at the starlit sky, tears trailing slowly down my face.

“Delilah?”

Although the voice was soft, it was close and I jumped, my heart pounding in fear. Then I paused. “Luke?”

“It’s me.” I saw the curtain twitch backwards to reveal Luke in all his bedhead glory. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I responded, softly.

“Budge over.”

Hiding a smile, I did so, scooting to the very edge of the window-seat and dangling my feet onto the polished floor.

Luke sat down beside me, leaning back against the window with a tired sigh.

“Go back to bed, silly.” I said, smiling in the darkness.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

I bit my lip. “It’s nothing, Luke. Really. I’m just homesick. I miss my dad.”