The Last Wish

13. Troubled souls

"I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity"

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310.

Jamie stared at the three numbers etched in black over the silver slate, hanging innocently on the oak door.

She gritted her teeth in anger and frustration. Her balled fists concealed beneath the material of her coat, she took out her apprehension onto the fur of her coat.

She moistened her dry lips for the hundredth time, a habit she had gotten accustomed to when she felt at conflict.

Now her conflict came in the form of an arrogant boy, behind these closed door. She was stuck between her decision of either overcoming her unease and open the door to come face-to-face with him or give into her fear and turn around and leave.

She was definitely not scared of him, she could twist his ear without a second thought of the consequences that'd follow. But her apprehension was of his grave situation and most importantly, his behaviour towards her.

She had initially thought of knocking the door, as per the etiquettes Miss Nancy, her discipline coordinator had thought her. Knowing his 24/7 moody attitude, she very well knew he wouldn't care to say 'come in'.

Taking a deep breath, she twisted the handle and opened the door.

She was welcomed with a gush of extremely cold air scented with a strange blend of mint and lavender.

She entered the room with measured steady steps and stopped in the centre. Despite the cold, sufficient enough to freeze her veins, sweat beads got formed on her forehead and she hastily wiped it off from her tissue.

She spotted him, his body limp on the hospital bed. She walked to him, with the sound of a butterfly flutter.

His eye lids were closed and his lips set in a permanent line, which occasionally would turn into a frown or scowl, nothing more. His hands rested on either sides of him, his body showing a slight rise and fall with every breath taken.

She gazed at him fondly, uninterrupted and with peace. This time, she needn't worry about him catching her staring at him or wouldn't question her rather subtly.

Tanned skin, not from sunbaths or any sort of tanning but from the grave work he indulges in, high cheekbones, a slightly bent nose, presumably from all the trillion fights he had since petty childhood ones to current day, death fights. His dark eyelashes touched his under eye bags with a feather touch.

She frowned upon seeing the slight pink skin around his eyes, which was definition the aftermath of an angry red bruise from a hard punch.

She touched it lightly, but withdrew her hand with lightning speed when he stirred.

Knowing he wouldn't wake up soon, she decided to wait. She opened the mini refrigerator in the right corner of the room for something to drink. She had difficulty finding something 'drinkable' from all the bottles of beer that replaced juices, soda cans and bottles of water, which was proper hospital drinks.

"What a teetotaller," sarcasm well intended.

She found small cartons of apple and orange juices pushed behind the beer bottles, thankfully though. She had been starving and the apple juice should probably soothe the tornado in her stomach, till she reached home for a super late supper.

Grabbing one of the chilled cartons, she closed the mini fridge slowly, making sure to not make any sort of sound.

Shivering, she sat herself on the plush sofa opposite to his bed, one of the many perks of a deluxe suite definitely. She'd transferred him from the emergency ward to the deluxe suite, immediately after his treatment had completed. Now all he needed was rest.