Me before you

chapter 28

It was snowing again when Y/n woke up.

Her room in the hospital was on the second floor, but the deep-set window next to the bed gave a pretty perfect view of the car park – ugly black gravel and parking meters and not much else. It was a relentless, grey, sleet-like snow today, drifting down over the parking lot and melting as it touched the concrete. Beyond the glass, slushy ice piled up on the sill. Above the empty cars and scattered hospital buildings, the wide winter sky was turning the colour of bile.

She sighed.

Time seemed to stop in the hospital, despite whatever the clock on the wall said. Y/n had been in there for five days, but it might as well have been five months. Her sleeping pattern was messed up, she was tired and she was bored out of her mind. There was nothing for her to do but watch infomercials on the shitty hospital TV... And think.

The latter was definitely worse.

For the past six months she'd been evolving: constantly changing and unfolding like a caterpillar in a chrysalis. It was a shitty metaphor but it was the best she could come up with, submerged in the timeless grey bubble of the hospital. Anyway, what Y/n had eventually figured out was that she hadn't quite come out yet.

Sure, she'd grown. She'd grown a hell of a lot. But she wasn't... She didn't really know how to put it in words, but she wasn't whole. Not all the time, not on her own. Not yet.

And she was on her own a lot in that hospital. Her family came and went, Ten's shifts were better than the rest, Jisoo stopped by with flowers and a card at some point, but mostly Y/n was pretty alone with her thoughts.

It reminded her of how she'd been before Sana had barged into her life. Just sitting, all day, every day, stewing in self-pity, cutting out every single person who tried to do her right. The monotonous emptiness of the days in the hospital were the same as they were back then: except they were also the complete opposite. Now she was firmly in her chrysalis. Now she and her parents were... Getting somewhere. And of course, now there was Sana.

Sana.

Sana, who had left early the morning after she'd been rushed in, to see Louis and make sure he got to school alright. Sana, who came back an hour later with a lasagne and a pile of audiobooks. She left again in the evening to put Louis to bed, but came back again for the night shift despite Y/n's protests. Apparently her friend Chaeyoung was babysitting. Still...

Y/n couldn't help but feel awful about the whole thing. Ever since that first day, hearing her talking to Louis so softly and sadly in the middle of the night... The bottom line was, somewhere out there, that kid had needed his mom and his mom wasn't there. And for what?

God, she didn't know. Maybe it was dumb. But the whole time she was lying there, doing nothing, Mitsuko's voice kept floating back to her, echoing all these doubts she didn't even know she still had. What's best for her right now is to be with her son. Look after him. Healing from the last ten years. I fail to see how you fit into the picture.

Sana doesn't, Y/n had told her, back at the lake house, when she had had to be the strong one for once. But maybe that was the problem. Sana was too good and too selfless to realise, but Y/n could finally see. See what, she wasn't sure yet. All she knew was that it fucking hurt.

Whatever, Y/n thought, staring out at the dull grey snow without seeing any of it. Being alone with her thoughts was definitely the worst part.

+++++++++

Sana pulled up at her usual car park spot in the hospital ten minutes later than usual on the fifth day.

She sighed as she pulled out her phone and checked the time. She said she'd be in on time for lunch – Y/n hated the dry, undercooked meals the hospital cooked so she'd taken to bringing in an extra portion of whatever she'd made Louis the night before. Well. It can't be helped. Chaeyoung had an emergency with her dog and couldn't check in til ten minutes ago.