Country Girl's Dream ©

Chapter 187

Little Do You Know- Alex & Sierra

All of the Stars- Ed Sheeran

Amnesia- 5SOS

Back To December- T-Swizzle

Boom Clap- Charli XCX

Till Death Do Us Part- Kait Weston

Nobody Compares- One Direction

Scarecrow- A&S

Sparks Fly- T-Swizzle

Towers- One Direction

You & I- One Direction

You’re Mine- Lea Michele

Lauren's POV

Three agonizingly long weeks in that hospital room went by as slow as Christmas Eve. The original time limit was supposed to be only a few days- at max- but an infection had settled in on one of the deep surgical gashes on Harry's right shoulder. The diagnosis was revealed by the hourly-rising fever that broke through his body in the form of chills on the second day of admittance. This required him to be admitted back into surgery almost immediately. Luckily, the issue was resolved almost as quickly as it was discovered, but the recovery process was longer than any of us anticipated.

His family arrived the following day after his surgery, allowing- forcing- me to go home even if I did not want to. Over the expanse of two weeks, we created a schedule. I generously offered to stay with him during the night, allowing his family to sleep a hotel about five minutes away. Occasionally, Gemma would stay with me during the night as well, considering she did not get to see her brother often and she was willing to take what she could get. Even though my "shift" was only at night, I found myself staying long past sunrise. Normally, I would stay until Harry or Anne convinced me that I actually needed the rest which usually occurred at about lunch. However, without their knowing, even that rest was spent sleeping in the backseat of my car until it was time to go back inside. I could not bring myself to leave. In my mind, I knew that it did not matter if I went home or not- I was not going to get much rest until Harry was home.

Meri willingly stayed in my apartment, taking care of Belle during the expanse of time I was not able to be there for her. Guilt ate me alive at the thought that she had been spending more time with her lately then I had been given time to. She and Niall never failed to bring meals for the six of us- excluding Harry- to share every day at Harry's scheduled "lunchtime". No matter how much he pleaded and bargained with his routine nurses, they were not permitted to allow him to intake any meals that were not "hospital-ordained". He eventually gave up, and began to torment me, knowing that I would eventually give in and sneak him a small bite of whatever the meal was that day. It slowly became like teaching a dog to beg for food. Giving in only made the begging worse.