Healing

Chapter 26

~Anna~
I made a wrong decision. I did the wrong thing and I knew it the moment I walked away from Niall and heard a muffled cry come from behind me. It took every fiber of my body to walk away, my heart breaking. Nothing seemed as if it was right anymore. I was letting go of the boy I knew I loved. The same boy that comforted me after my father died, but only because I knew he needed to fix the situations between him and Liam. I wasn't about to let that band break up over me, I loved them too much for that.

I smiled weakly to some ecstatic fans screaming at me as a bodyguard walked me to my set in the VIP section, and tried to keep my head down as the giant tears filled my eyes and waited for my permission to fall over onto my cheeks. I had a feeling that this concert wasn't going to be as exciting as any of the other ones, and in fact it may be quite disheartened. I didn't want to see the way Niall looked from crying earlier. I definitely did not want to his eyes swollen and red like they were that night.

~Flashback •2 years earlier•~

The constant beep of an Iv machine bothered me in the background as I laid stiffly in my bed. Something wasn't right. I don't remem-

"Give me all the money you have!" The remembered snarled and gravely voice echoed through my mind.

"I have no money. I'm sorry." My father's sweet and calming voice replied despite the situation in front of him, almost as if he knew if he did something wrong his daughter's life would be jeopardised as well. He didn't want that, and wouldn't let that happen. He loved his only daughter too much....

I watched in horror, shaking and my breathe racing as the whole event replayed second by second in my mind. The terror, shock and the pain in my arm. Wait...pain in my arm? How did that get there? Thoughts started to swirl around in my mind unrelenting and panic started rising like water overtaking a drowning soul. I couldn't breathe or concentrate and it was almost as if no one ca-

"Ms. Anna, sweetie." A gentle calm voice slowly pulled me from the drowning world around me and pulled me back into reality. The nurse softly rubbed my good arm until I looked sadly up into her eyes.

"Hey. It's alright, love. You're safe and no one is going to hurt you." She consoled me with a gentle, loving smile. I didn't want it to be okay. I wanted to be the way it was before. My father's wrinkled smile as he belted out his laugh, his gentle yet firm and comforting grip around my small hand compared to his. Everything about him just seemed to stay in my mind, never leaving and constantly reminding me that he was gone, or was he?

"I-Is papa okay?" My voice broke and tears started falling down my cheeks slowly. The nurse looked down gently, pursing her lips tightly before looking up to me and shaking her head. She knew they had already told me and I did too, but I was hoping maybe, just maybe, there would be another report this time. 

"I'm sorry sweetie. We did everything we could to try to save him but we couldn't." I raised my hand to my mouth, sobs shaking my whole body as I laid in my bed. The tears falling quicker and harder than I had time to breathe, my chest heaving and searching for oxygen that my sobs would not allow my lungs to find.

Curling up, I turned onto my side and sobbed even harder into my pillow. This couldn't be true. He had to be alive. He was my anchor in my life. He was the reason I wanted to be a nurse, him being a doctor. I curled up tighter into myself as I cried harder. A gentle hand rubbed my back and held me in place from moving more onto my mysteriously injured arm. A soft whisper of condolences calmed my sobs slightly but nothing was able to calm me down.

"Ma'am? Is she up for visitors?" The nurse looked down to me and raises my watery eyes up to the doorway where Mr. H and his family stood. I nodded slightly to her and she gently squeezed my arm, walking out of the room. The man that saved my life came over to me and pulled me into a big hug. He smelled of sweat, it took all that I could not to turn my nose up at the smell.