Teen Helpline [#1 of the Helpline Trilogy]

2: 30 a.m

His pulse is so faint she swears that sometimes it stops.

There are many occasions where she nearly panicked, freaking out when she couldn't sense the soft thrumming of his heart, then remembers if his heart had stopped beating, the machine would've beeped in alarm and there will be swarms of doctors stampeding into the room and nurses shoving her out of the door. She will be barred from the hospital room, abandoned to wait outside for the news. 

One of her worst memories in hospitals floods into her brain- flashes of blue and white surgical gloves, nurses telling her to wait by the lounge and then the horrible, sweeping nervous breakdown of anticipating news; waiting and waiting, hoping. It was great to hope, because the inevitable haven't happened, but when it does, it was horrible because then the doctor would approach, grave-faced and sad-eyes, "Your mother is dead. I'm so sorry, Miss Adams." 

She shakes memories out of her head. There is no point dwelling in the past. So she tentatively approaches his closed hospital door after the receptionist has led her here, waiting to see Mr Fanceh- no, Damien, for the first time and wondering what he will look like. She couldn't believe how stupid it sounds, really. This is the boy who holds her beating heart in his fingers, totally in the vulnerable position of being squashed by him,  and she doesn't even know what he lookslike.

She opens the door by twisting the handle and pushing it slightly, letting light pour out of the gap. Then she takes the plunge and swings the door into a wider arc and sees him in a mass of white sheets. He doesn't look like anything she has  imagined. 

Because he looks more beautiful than she could ever picture; especially when sleeping. Graceful intakes of breath, seeping into his lungs as his chest rises and fall languidly. Dark as midnight, coal black hair fan against his pillow like a gossamer curtain of thick black drapes and pale skin, paler than hers even, colourless lips- like the dead. He's almost dead, she reminds herself, because of you. Though his lips are white and the rest of his skin is cold as ice, there are remnants of the faint blushes of colour in his cheeks. They are rosy red, faint but there, like soft watercolour brushes of pink. Lids of skin hides the colour of his irises- a bit of a mystery there, which is good because she doesn't know if she could handle it. 

She sits by the waiting chair and fondles with her phone, then glances back at Damien and goes back to her phone- trying to decide whether she should text her stepmother about her whereabouts. As if she cares, snorts Eva, knowing her stepmother and her habits of jetsetting around the world, throwing parties and galas to show her abundant wealth while Eva's real mother, who actually cared about her, is rotting six feet below the ground. Eva slumps into her seat and decises she would wait till morning, until Damien was awake, because she owes him. She owes him ten thousand saints. 

So she waits.

And wait.

And wait. 

Until her eyelids grow heavy and her body starts getting tired of sitting upright, she collapse into the comfort of her chair and the comfort of unconsciousness. 

_____

be sure to see some of my other works! thank you for always being so supportive! <3