The Heartbroken - S01 E205

Story 2 years ago

The Heartbroken - S01 E205

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 205

Some part of me still refused to believe the fact that

Seth volunteered to be a direct donor.

I didn’t bother telling Philip who the donor was, but

when he saw Seth standing half-hidden a few doors

away from us, I knew he recognized him. He must

have known that Seth was Isabelle’s son.

They excused themselves to have a private word

with each other, in which I decided to wait in the

lounge. It all seemed too much to take in for a single

night and I could feel a dull throbbing somewhere at

the back of my head.

I closed my eyes, waiting for it to pass, but I must

have been more exhausted than I thought because I

found myself drifting into sleep.

I had a dream, one where I’d taken my shoes off and

climbed into a white bed where a figure was already

lying down. I had a book in hand, a Dickens classic,

and I was already opening it to the page where we

left off on my last visit when Dad stopped me with a

slight shake of his head, a small gesture that seemed

to have taken him a lot of effort.

“Is everything all right?” I asked him as a wave of

panic rose from within me. “What’s wrong? Should I

call for the nurses?”

“I’m all right.” His breathing was labored, unsteady

and ragged, but there was a look on his face that told

me he was telling the truth.

“Then let’s continue,” I said and looked down, letting

my gaze fall back on the pages of the book.

He reached over and pushed the book away from

the two of us. “I don’t want to hear that. I’ve read

those enough to last me a lifetime,” he joked, but the

amusement in his eyes fall away to reveal a more

somber expression. “I want to hear your stories,

Kiddo. I want to hear about your life.”

The nickname tugged at me and it was then that I

realized I wasn’t the little girl I thought I was at the

beginning of the dream.

It was the present me, somehow transported back

to that hospital room with my dad, who wasn’t even

here anymore, and I realized that tears were already

streaming down my face, blotting the pages of the

book on my lap.

“Okay,” I agreed, snapping the book shut. For some

reason, I told him about Cedric—about the first day I

met him and everything else that followed after. “I

don’t think I can handle losing someone again and—

and I can’t do anything about it. I can feel him

slipping through my fingers no matter how much I

tighten my grip.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder and it almost felt

real. The warmth, the weight, the familiar touch. It

almost seemed real. “Kiddo,” he said, “sometimes it’s

about letting go.”

In a distant memory, I remember having this

conversation with him, so his words were nothing

but a mere echo of that day I caught a dragonfly. It

was a vibrant red and orange and black, with wispy

wings that continued to buzz even through the jar.

I wanted to keep it, but Dad said we couldn’t keep it

forever. His words were ringing back now, in the

form of this dream, and when I opened my eyes, I

found myself staring at a pair of electric blue eyes.

I looked around, blinking, for a moment forgetting

where I was until everything came into focus.

“You okay?” Seth asked me and I realized that the

weight on my shoulder was his hand gently shaking

me awake.

My eyes landed on the inside of his left elbow,

where a small patch of cotton was secured to his

skin with some medical tape. “Are you… are you

done?”

Briefly, Seth told me that in the thirty minutes I’d

been sleeping, they finished running tests and had

already gone through with the procedure, taking as

much of his blood as they can. They advised him to

get some rest.