Picture perfect ~Zaynmalik (completed)

Chapter 18

Fan Fiction - Picture Perfect Chapter Eighteen

PREVIOUSLY:

"I let this happen to you Marielle, this is all my fault!"

A voice inside me screamed.

She rested her head on my chest.

"This time, it'll be perfect."

---

The sun burnt my face as I refused to move as Aubrey slept on my chest. She looked so angelic and free, contrastive to her life of lies and detainment. She became attached to me, refusing to move when I nudged her slightly as my arms were numbing. It truly was like she was my other half. I felt a connection.

With nothing to do but to stare at her flawless ability to look amazingly better than myself, I began run my pale slender fingers through her brown locks, sliding my fingers from her forehead down to the back of her neck, travelling my first finger behind her ear, tidying her fringe away from her shut eyes. I was ever so gentle with her, like a little baby sister. Although we aren't years apart, we were for years apart.

At her awakening she smiled at me innocently straightening her dress.

"I'll get some breakfast from the bakery and I'll be back, I promise."

Aubrey never wanted to go through the distance she suffered and everything ended with her promise. Her swear she'll never leave, she'll never let anything happen to me and everything will get better. Just like perfect.

She followed me through all my examinations, testings and medication. From the hit outside and a mental state of depression to my synopsis and her donor blood. We had signed the last batch of papers and tomorrow the last litre of blood will be drawn out of her securing arms. I only suffered a grazed shoulder and sprained wrist and could leave the cold, dead hospital after the blood transfer.

As I packed my last few belongings the medication towered beside me. Each one for each problem I had faced since arriving here. Only one person knew when I said I was fine I was lying. I missed their presence but nonetheless I shook the surface of their memory and moved on. Tonight I'd go home. Whether home here or there. Whichever. It'll be just like Aubrey promised.

I sat on the bed, the doctors surrounding me flicking syringes with their gloved fingers. My heart rate flashing on a screen and bags of red hooked to the pump. I muted the doctors warnings and cautions staring at Aubrey. Her bubbly happy attitude still phasing over her, happy and longing the moment I leave, with her by my side. I refused to look at the doctor as her pushed the syringe through my arm and felt around for my vein, pinching it sharply.

She never lost that sincere look on her face, throughout the process, all two hours I had suffered already. The pump reacted hyperactively sending my only lifeline through me. It had been just under the third hour of the transfusion and I had begun to feel sick.

Instead of having life put into me, I felt like my soul was breathed out of my body. Aubrey's expression changed, her happiness becoming worry and panic. She gripped my arm hard shouting at the doctors.

"What's happening?"

"What are you doing?"

"Why is she like this?"

"Stop it, make her stop."

"Don't let her go away."

Aubrey's promise was like a demand, her priority being to fulfil it.

But she couldn't.

Doctors were hesitating and my only instinct was out. I tugged the needle from my arm and threw it on the floor. I held my arm asking for a bandage, but they objected.

"What? Are you going to leave me to bleed to death?" I cried.

"Get her a blooding bandage you helmets," Aubrey protested pluming in the face.

The nurses tied her down as she threatened to punch them out.

"You better calm down before we send you out," the doctor exclaimed, "her white blood cells are attacking and she needs to let the air out!"

I felt like heavy weight was taken off my chest and I looked to Aubrey. Her head was buried into her hands as she shook her head violently.

"I always let this happen," she said hitting her foot on the floor, "I panic and worry and get everyone around me knackered with my nonsense. I ruin everything. I shouldn't be here."

She took off, her boots sliding across the floors as she refused to pick up the weights that held her down to this miserable earth.

Again.

I failed to keep anything good in my life. This time my eyes did not tear dwelling over people I had no interest in but my heart cried and ached.

The nurses took the machines and covered the crevice the needle made. The world sped before me, the machines being towed out and the doctors leaving until all that was left was a naked bed.

I stood there with my dark lifeless blank face; my bag slouched across my chest reminiscing on the moments that happened in this very room. None of them I was happy to remember. None that brought me satisfying joy. I inhaled deeply and left. Moments later I was outside again in London's rains walking to the train station my jaws chattering.

It was a long ride, maybe only because I was noticing every single pleasant thing I never had.

A group of young effervescent girls walked in with paper shopping bags to their elbows. Laughing out loudly and blushing at the boys in the next cabin.

The next station brought older tourist couples painted with souvenir-wear of their enjoyable trips together. Their cameras around their necks holding the last pictures they took near Big Ben and the London Eye and pamphlets thickening their 70's bleached jean back pockets.

In every corner a young pair nestled in each other's love. Their fingers intertwined with their promise rings clanked together. He'd plant a small kiss on her forehead; mature love says I need you because I love you.

At my last stop I almost feared going back to the apartment. What had happened after all the smoke and what they did. Maybe I've been evicted, maybe I don't have a home to return to. This is when I needed Aubrey. I needed Aubrey to promise me everything will be fine.

I'd left the Subway, and was walking pass CostCutters staring at my feet and the cracked cement below them. I knew this route like the back of my hand from the times I stormed in and out of the white complex.

With every step I took I got more and more anxious. At some point I stopped resorting to run back but my head was lowered at the thought that I had nowhere else to go. I tried staging my walk back as far as possible, walking slower, stopping every few metres to untie and then tie my shoelaces again and stop as frequently as I could to have an artistic vision into London's grey skies.

But after all I attempted I arrived at the glass doors of the building. I pushed the heavy barricades with my weak upper body strength to find those long flights of stairs. I hated them, not because I was a scrawny weakling but because at every level I pass I witness a person who tried to help and I ignorantly muted.

I dared not to look up, or around just staring at might feet avoiding any eye contact. I tripped occasionally and sighed in frustration. I hated this, I hated that, I hated it all and I knew now I would do anything to leave.

I reached my door and gazed at the brass door knob covered with an inch thick layer of dust. I blew into the keyhole and reached for my back pocket. My key wasn't there. I ran my hands down the sides of my jeans and into the pockets looking for the single key tied to an Eifel Tower keychain.

I dropped my bag and fell onto my knees as I poured the contents onto the red suede carpet and pulled everything in search for the key. I opened every zipper in every jacket and had no luck until I saw something reflect the dim down lights of the doorway.

I grabbed the key and pushed it through the keyhole but before I could turn it, I was stopped.

I felt someone grab hold of my arm violently, straining my movement. They pulled me around and pushed me against the door. I saw him. Someone I thought I'd never see again.