Have a Little Hope

28. Have a Little Honesty

Hiya! So please do let me know what you think of this chapter. Song on the side is PERFECT for Hope and Cole and the quote is pretty true as well :) enjoy...

I didn’t say it back to him.

I couldn’t say it back to him, even though deep down, I know I’m falling in love with him with each passing second. Cole loves me. My boyfriend loves me. Isn’t that what every girl wants to know? Something girls dream of hearing, that their boyfriend loves them and values them in their life? I want to feel on top of the world. I want to feel delighted, I want to feel electric, but I can’t, because more than anything, I’m scared. It scares more than anything knowing I practically have his heart and feelings in my hands and yet I could so easily lose him.

Once back home, I go through to the kitchen to see a pile of letters addressed to Hope Rigby. I open the first one, managing to give myself a paper cut, which causes me to mutter swear words at the shooting pain. Pulling the letter out, I see it’s from Southampton University and momentarily pause.

Damn it, why is everything suddenly piling up on me? How can I possibly think about going off to university in a week’s time whilst Cole is still in hospital? My thoughts flick back to Cole.

Cole loves me.

He’s in love with me.

That’s more than my heart can take and I feel in complete limbo with his health situation knowing that. I never knew feeling love could be this painful, but it is, it’s hurting me right to the core.

I glance through the letter and see it’s about the moving in date to flat I’m due to be moving into next week. The following letters are about loans, fresher’s week, and various letters from the department of Midwifery and course books that I need to buy. I can practically feel everything piling on top of me.

Would everything be easier if Cole wasn’t ill?

Of course it would, I mutter darkly and it kills me that his health is putting a strain on our relationship. It was fine to begin with. In all honesty, it never really dawned on me the severity of his health situation; I was too pre occupied with losing my Dad and Cole was also doing so, so well it never clicked that he was going through so much, but now he’s taken a downward spiral and I have no idea what is going to happen in the future for us.

Will he have to spend the rest of his life out in hospital? Will the rejection turn chronic? Will he have to have another transplant?

Will he die?

And that is the thought that is plaguing me the most. It’s been niggling in the back of my mind from the moment I stepped foot in that hospital from his first time after not taking those pills. No one wants to admit what could happen and yet I can’t help but notice a change in him, as if he is worried about it too. His usual optimistic self cannot help but see what could be imminently approaching.

I know the internet is the font of all knowledge, but it could also be my worst enemy and make me even more paranoid, but I need to know. I need to know more about the prognosis of having a heart transplant. I’ve avoided researching all this time, because as they say ignorance is bliss and I didn’t want to know the outlook, but now, well now it feels like I have to, need to know what’s going on with Cole. The doctors are making no sense to me. No one is making sense to me, nor will they give me a clear cut answer about what is happening or what is going to happen and it hurts knowing so little about what my boyfriend is going through.

Despite it being 10pm and the fact that I am physically exhausted, I turn my laptop on and load Google, a desperate urge to find out what’s going on with Cole. My phone buzzes and funnily enough it’s from him.