Unfamiliar Ceilings

Dean didn’t keep still the whole way to the hospital. He hurriedly told the maître’d we had to cancel and hailed a taxi once we got outside of the little park. One minute, he’d jiggle his leg uncontrollably, the next he’d play with a loose thread on the cab seat, and then next he’d stare out of the window and tap his fingers anxiously on something. I grabbed his hand when it started getting annoying, and held on tight, letting him know I was still there.

As soon as we got there, Dean was out of that taxi faster than anything, walking quickly through the automatic doors opening up into the accident and emergency wing of the hospital. I opened my purse and paid the driver, telling him to keep the change before I slipped out after Dean. I heard him shout his best wishes to us before he drove off. I stopped and saw Dean arguing with a male nurse at the reception desk.

“I’m here to see Charles Owens,” he said quickly.

“Who are you to him?”

“His son.”

“I’m sorry, but do you have proof?”

“What kind of fucking proof do you expect me to have?! My bloody birth certificate?!” Dean shouted. “My mum’s already in there – Dorothy Owens – medium height, blonde hair!”

“Okay, I’m going to have to ask you to calm yourself, young man,” a doctor said as he approached the scene. I stood awkwardly behind Dean as he addressed the male nurse and confirmed that Dean was indeed Charles Owens’ son. I was stopped and asked who I was to him.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Dean muttered, grabbing my hand harshly and marching to the room the doctor had recited off of his clipboard. He had us there in less than five minutes, rushing into the room and almost knocking Johnny off his feet – he was standing by the door. Dean quickly released my hand and hurried over to his mother, who was sitting, staring blankly at her husband in the hospital bed, hooked up to loads of different tubes and wires and flashing machines.

Johnny came and stood beside me as I stood awkwardly and tried to look anywhere but Mr Owens himself. Hospitals freaked me out sometimes, especially now, because this is a massive family thing and I didn’t exactly belong there.

Then Johnny nudged my arm and nodded his head towards the door, offering us a little escape for now. He mumbled to his brother and mother than he was going to get everybody some coffee and I was helping. He left the room and we walked a little ways down a corridor, before he slouched into a bright orange plastic seat.

“Johnny, are you okay?” I asked, sitting down beside him and touching my hand to his arm.

“No, I’m not.”

“Look, I’m sure your dad will be fi-” But Johnny cut me off. He looked sad and angry. Scarily angry.

“Leila, as much as I want to believe that,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “They have no idea what’s wrong with him. He could be dying for all anybody knows!”

“Oh, Johnny,” was all I could say. I rubbed his arm gently, because I couldn’t think of what else to do to comfort him.

“And something else happened.”

I gulped slightly. “Yeah?”

“Anna,” he started, then looked at me. “Have you talked to her?”

I waited for a while, then bit my lip. I nodded my head eventually and he sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “I’m kind of angry at her.”

“I’m not surprised, Johnny,” I muttered, taking my hand away from his arm. “She was at my house last night, falling to pieces over it.”

He scoffed. “Course she was.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “She was torn up Johnny, I’ve never seen her cry before last night.”

He didn’t say anything. He just sat there with a blank face in his hands. I felt so bad for him. Nothing I could say would make anything better, because all I could say was that I was sorry. For what? I’m not sure. Probably all the bad things that happen to him because, of all people, he definitely didn’t deserve any of it.

“Forget her for the time being,” I mumbled. “Focus on your dad, help your mum and Dean with this. I’m around to help whenever I can, don’t forget that.

He shook his head. “You’re leaving in a week and a half.”

I bit my lip and smiled slightly. “I think I’m going to stay.”

Johnny lifted his head from his hands and stared at me in disbelief. “You serious?”

“Yes.”

Johnny smiled – properly – and pulled me tightly to his chest, hugging me. I always used to forget that Johnny was only fifteen years old, almost sixteen. He seemed so much older than I was most of the time, more sorted out with his life than I ever was. It was times like these that I realised how vulnerable he was.

“Johnny,” Dean’s voice said from somewhere behind us. “Come have a walk with me.”

Johnny let go of me and nodded, standing up from the plastic chair. I stood also and Dean looked at me. He kissed my cheek and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes like it had over an hour ago. I walked to the nearest coffee machine I could find and ordered two, before making my way back to Mr. Owens’ private room with an armful of sugar sachets for Mrs. Owens in case she wanted any.

“M-Mrs. Owens?” I said quietly, letting the door click gently shut behind me. She was staring sadly at her husband as I sat in the chair beside her, that Dean had pulled over earlier on. I held out the paper cup full of coffee and that seemed to snap her out of her trance and make her realise I was sitting next to her. She took the coffee from me and looked at me curiously for a couple of seconds.

“You’re Mark’s Daughter. Leila,” she stated. I nodded my head and she smiled, turning her eyes back to her husband. “You’ve been an influence lately.”

I furrowed my brow. “I’m not sure what you mean Mrs. Owens.”

“Please, call me Dorothy, dear,” she smiled warmly at me. “Well, all our Dean talks about is you. Johnny’s gotten quite close to you, I’ve noticed.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“I can tell you’ve gotten him quite smitten,” she said simply. “Dean hasn’t been nearly as reckless as usual since you came along.”

If felt odd to smile in this situation, but I was happy about it. I glanced at Mr. Owens, covered in wired and tubes and felt sick. It looked...wrong, but it was helping him.

“As bad as this sounds, I don’t know what to say to my own sons about this,” she sighed, her voice cracking slightly. “Their father might die, and I don’t know what to say. I feel like a terrible mother.”

“Oh, Mrs. Ow – Dorothy. You’re not a bad mother,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You’d lose somebody you love too. I think that you don’t know what to tell them because you have to get your own mind around it first.”

Dorothy turned her head back to me and looked at me for a while longer. “You are a terribly clever young girl. Look after my boys.”

“I will.”

She smiled and nodded, before turning back to her husband, watching his pale, expressionless face intently for any signs of change, her cup of coffee still in her hand, untouched.

*****

Johnny, Dean and I caught a taxi back from the hospital, since it was dark out. Dorothy insisted that they didn’t sleep at the hospital with her, and asked Dean to bring over fresh clothes for her in the morning. Johnny was upset almost the entire ride home, so I touched his hand gently to make him look at me.

“It might help to talk to her.”

And he knew who I meant. He asked the taxi driver to stop at the top of our road and let him out, then began to walk in the general direction of Anna’s road. Moments later, the driver pulled up outside Mark’s house and Dean paid, before getting out and helping me after him. It was about 11pm and Dean walked me as far as the gate, holding my hand.

“Leila?” he said, quietly, just as I touched the gate.

“What is it, Dean?”

“Could you stay with me tonight? I don’t want to be on my own.”

I looked up at him and nodded. We walked together away from Mark’s gate and up the pathway to Dean’s front door. I sent my dad a quick text to let him know what had happened and that I’d be spending the night with Dean. Dean unlocked the front door and went straight up to his bedroom with me in tow. He flicked on the light and flung his shirt off and onto the floor, sitting on the edge of his bed in his jeans.

He exhaled heavily. “Fucking hell.”

I sighed and looked at the photographs on the walls. “I know.”

He stood up again and stripped himself of his jeans, leaving him in his boxer shorts. He pulled back the duvet and climbed into his bed. “Coming?”

“Yeah,” I whispered, paying a little more attention than necessary to one photograph. Of him and Jay.

I turned my back to him and reached around to unzip my dress, letting it drop to the floor before I picked it up and lay it neatly over his desk chair. I flipped off the light switch and plunged the room into semi-darkness, the only light coming from the gap in his curtains. I felt a little bit strange, parading around him room in my underwear, but it was fine once I was under the covers with him.

“Are you okay?” I asked, stroking his cheek with the back of my hand lightly.

“I’ll be alright,” he said, touching my hand. “How about you?”

“Yeah,” I lied, closing my eyes as he placed his forehead against mine. Seeing that picture of him and Jay scared me again. He was hers before he was mine – hell, he was hardly mine now – and I couldn’t fight that. What if he wanted her back suddenly? Eventually, I told myself to stop being stupid, he called me his girlfriend, after all.

We lay like that in silence, and for a while it felt like we were in some kind of protective cocoon. I forgot everything that was bad in my world. In our world. When we lay like that together, there was no time, no problems, no Jay to ruin everything, his dad was perfectly healthy and I didn’t have another home to go to because this was home. It was easy to say, by then, that I most definitely and totally loved Dean.

“Dean?” I whispered. I half hoped he was asleep.

He wasn’t. “Yeah?”

“You know earlier? At the hospital?”

“Which part babe?”

“At reception...” Silence. “When the doctor asked who I was.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You said I was your girlfriend...”

“Yeah?”

“Well, did you mean it?” My cheeks burned slightly and I closed my eyes tightly. I was waiting for him to say that he only said it to get in there, I was so sure he would and I don’t know why. I felt his hands move down to my waist. I held my breath.

“I did,” he whispered. “That is, if you want to be.”

And then I jumped on him. I pushed myself onto him and kissed him so fiercely that I was shocked at myself. He kissed me back, of course, with his hands planted on my hips and my fingers running through his soft hair. I decided to say something else very risky and pulled back.

“I love you.”

He froze for a second or two, propping himself up on his elbows. “What?”

“I-I love you.”

He kept staring at me, looking my face over and over, looking for something. I looked him in the eyes and tried to show him. He looked confused, for a long time, before he smiled and pulled me back to him, rolling us onto our sides.

“You’ve given me the best two months of my life, Leila.” I felt him smile as he rubbed his nose lightly against my neck. “And I love you too.”