Beside You

8//hospital

LUKE

"Bonnie?" I tried shaking her shoulder softly. "Please, Bon, talk to me." She didn't stir, so I picked her up gently and carried her to the car. I placed her in the back and got into the driver's seat, angling my rear view mirror so I could see her as well as the road behind me. I drove to the hospital, searching desperately for a space to swing the car into. I found a bay and backed in, leaving plenty of space on one side to pull Bonnie out, and I took her into my arms and sprinted to the entrance to the emergency room.

"Please, she went delirious and then she passed out, please someone help," I begged, summoning a nurse to my side. She dragged a gurney with her and I placed Bonnie gently onto the hard mattress, taking her hand as she was rushed into a cubicle. The nurse took her vitals, and moments later a doctor was with us taking a blood sample and asking questions.

"Is she on any medication?"

"Er, birth control I think for her periods."

"Any illegal substances?"

"She would never."

"Sexually active?"

"Kind of."

"It's a yes or no question, sir," the doctor prompted.

"Yes, I guess."

"I'll run this blood test. Should take an hour or so."

"Wait, what is it?" But the doctor was gone before he heard me. I turned back to Bonnie and grasped her hand. "I don't think you realise how much you mean to me, I got so scared thinking I lost you." She didn't stir. I sighed and buried my head in the bedsheets next to her stomach, silently praying to whatever god there was that she woke up soon. I started humming softly, a Killers song that had been stuck in my head for a couple of hours, and eventually the words started tumbling out of my mouth. "Daddy daddy daddy, all my life I've been trying to find my place in this world. Baby baby baby, I got all night to listen to the heart of a girl. What happened here? What is this world? It's too far from the heart of a girl. A ripple in the water, from the drop of a pearl, I'm on the shore waiting for the heart of a girl."

I heard a gentle sigh and watched Bonnie's eyes open groggily, and suddenly she sat bolt upright, on her face a look of terror. She looked around desperately, then tried to get out of bed and tear her IV out of her arm. I grabbed her and shouted for a nurse, trying to keep her from hurting herself, and moments later I was joined by a swarm of nurses and a porter who looked sort of like a bouncer. The porter picked her up like she was weightless and placed her in bed, and the nurses grabbed restraints to tie around her wrists and ankles.

"What's going on?" I asked, trying to see my girlfriend in amongst all the medical staff surrounding her.

"If she's delirious she's at risk of harming herself unintentionally. From what you've told us she's got no mental illness so we're not treating her like that but we need to minimise the risk of extra damage to anything in her body," a nurse replied, fastening a velcro tie around Bonnie's wrist. "The doctor should get back with your results within the next few minutes." The swarm departed, leaving me with Bonnie, shaking from crying so hard, fighting the restraints.

"Bonnie, can you hear me?" I asked, and she looked at me, but I felt like she was looking through me. "Hey, baby, it's me, you're going to be okay." Her beautiful lips fell apart, her face scrunched up, and I wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Everything's fine, don't worry."

"Luke?" she asked, her voice so quiet it was as if she hadn't spoken.

"Yeah, honey, it's me," I assured her, running my hand through her hair, the only thing adding colour to the drab room. "You're okay."

"I'm okay," she echoed, barely thinking about her words. The curtain of the cubicle was pulled back and the doctor walked in, the same one who had taken her blood before.

"It appears that it's a bacterial infection, most likely a UTI. We've seen a couple of these fast-moving ones over the last few weeks and we're currently trying to figure out how to prevent it, but for now we're going to get Bonnie on antibiotics and you should be able to go home by the end of the day." He produced a fresh bag to go into her IV from the pocket of his lab coat and attached it to her line before leaving us to sit together. After an hour or so, colour started to return to Bonnie's cheeks and when she looked at me, I knew she recognised me.

"How are you feeling?"

"Tired," she replied, trying to stretch out into a yawn.

"I don't blame you, it's nearly half ten," I told her. "Hey, let me see if I can get a nurse to get those restraints off you, hmm?" She nodded, so I stuck my head out of the cubicle and attracted the attention of an aide, who came to free Bonnie. She rubbed her wrists and sat up before opening her arms, indicating that she wanted a cuddle. I kicked off my boots and squeezed into the uncomfortable bed next to her, pulling her in close to my chest. The smell of her shampoo was right in my nose and I could feel her pulse growing stronger by the minute, her temperature levelling out. "You scared me, Bon."

"I don't know what happened," she admitted. "One minute I was fine, the next, I couldn't see."

"The way the doctor acted, it looked like it might have had something to do with what we got up to before," I whispered, and she turned to face me, her cheeks burning pink.

"Did that really happen? I thought it was a fever dream."

"It definitely happened," I grinned, licking my lips as I remembered her calling my name. "I can't wait to do it again."

"Luke, we're in public," she warned.

"Doesn't mean I can't talk about it."

"Yes it does."

"Can I at least kiss you?"

"Fine," she relented, and I placed gentle kisses all over her face before focusing in on her lips.

"I'm so glad you're okay," I told her in between kisses. Her face lit up in a beautiful grin and she pointed to my jacket, and, having known her for as long as I had, I knew she wanted her phone. I passed it to her and she went straight to Spotify, turning on music that she'd probably played for me before.

"It was June, I was ten. I still think of that day now and then. A parade, and a girl, and a crowd of thousands." Her lips parted as the story played out, the fantastical tale of a princess and a beggar boy, unwittingly reunited after years, and falling in love. And in that moment, I knew I was like that boy. I'd find Bonnie, I'd do whatever it took to find her, to save her, to make her happy. I prayed she felt the same - able to recognise me out of thousands of people from a vague memory from years past.

"I love you, Bonnie," I whispered, and she glanced at me, biting her lip as if she were checking if I meant it.

"I love you too, my Lukey," she replied, taking my hand gently so as not to disturb her IV. In that moment, my heart felt so full it could have burst.

*****
hi i really love anastasia the musical im sat crying the neva flows?? in a crowd of thousands?? quartet at the ballet?? shook

hope you all had an amazing christmas/nondenominational holiday, ya girl got fckin tea