Heal // z.m

47. baths & hugs

Rose

The day after, Zayn was still far from being well. With the fever still present, his temperature wouldn't go down. He was in pain, you could see that from the look on his face and lost some weight, even though we gave him food through the tube. He still had a chemotherapy to go through, but they had postponed it because he was way too weak for it now.

Barely having gotten any sleep last night because of my feelings from yesterday, I did have time to think everything through and clear things up, especially in my mind. I had decided to push my feelings aside at work completely and just take care of him like a nurse would do. Like a nurse had to do.

The realisation had come to me that I hadn't been professional yesterday when I hadn't wanted to watch him anymore because of my own feelings. It had been selfish, I knew from the beginning that there would be a chance that he would die. He was a cancer patient- I couldn't ignore the thought.

Deciding to begin today with a fresh start, I simply wanted to let Caroline tell me what I had to do.

Guilt washed over me when I walked into his room, feeling disappointed in myself for leaving him like that yesterday. He was nothing but helpless, vulnerable in the state he was in now. He hadn't done anything wrong to me yet I chose to do something else because I couldn't handle it for a moment.

Caroline looked up when I walked over to her, giving me a warm smile. "Rose, good morning!"

Smiling back as I felt relieved she didn't seem mad about my behaviour from yesterday, I answered. "Good morning. Still not okay, I read in the reports?" Walking over to his bed, I noticed how dark the skin underneath his eyes were, even though he slept all the time. Noticed how flushed his cheeks were.

Caroline sighed softly, gaze falling onto him. "No, sadly. No improvements. He's asleep right now. He seemed to be better yesterday evening, but he was in the same state as yesterday morning when he woke up. Pain on several places, not hungry, exhausted, warm."

"Goodness." I breathed out in sadness, pressing my hand to his forehead. It was warm, sticky from sweat.

"He told me he was disappointed that you weren't around him anymore." Caroline said quietly, filling a bucket with warm water, adding some soap into it. Perhaps, she was going to wash him.

Another flood of guilt came over me and I looked at him in pure sadness. I didn't like myself for what I had done, but I couldn't change it. I was relieved he didn't know the exact reason why I had left- I would never forgive myself if he came to know.

Looking down at my jeans, I pretended to remove a fluff off it, which wasn't even on there. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

"Rose, don't apologize. You have to know that I completely understand your feelings. You have days where it gets too much. It's okay, I have them too. It's not an easy department." Caroline assured me, making me feel slightly better.

It was just the way you looked at it. She was right. It could get too much and it wasn't a bad thing. It was my first internship and it was already pretty hectic, losing patients such as Nathan and the little three year old girl, Sarah going home then meeting a sweet guy who's getting sicker each day.. She was right. It didn't take away all my negative thoughts about my situation, but still. I tried to look at it the same way as Caroline did.