Paper Cranes

I WOKE UP WITH THE SAME EXACT HEADACHE that I had been trying to fight for the last few days. The pulse behind my eyes was relentless and made it almost impossible to focus on anything that had to do with speaking, homework, or any other task that helped me get through the day. I had tried everything from cold rags on my forehead, to horrible tasting herbal tea, to every single migraine, sinus, and ibuprofen pills I could find. Nothing seemed to work, they just slowly knocked some of the pain off, day by day, until it was just a normal tension surrounding my brain.

A part of me blamed my horrible headache on guilt. Ever since that night when Jake had kissed me, I had not told Tyler about it. I wanted to, I wanted to get it off of my chest, but the thought of him being angry with me or trying to start something with Jake, who worked in my sisters wing almost daily and was there eighty percent of the time we were, made me stop.

“Lennon”, Shelby’s voice broke through the pulse behind my eyes. “Are you okay? You’ve been acting weird the last few days. Is everything okay with Tyty?” She asked, her wide eyes barreling into mine, making me smile within seconds.

“Yeah Shell”, I ruffled her thin hair and watched as she smiled up at me. “I’ve just had a headache for a few days, and it’s taking its toll on me.” Letting out a small yawn, I looked over at the clock sitting on her nightstand and sighed. It was almost three, which meant Tyler would be here in about an hour and Jake’s shift would start in about the same amount of time.

Ever since the day I ran into Tyler in the parking lot of the hospital, crying like a sad little girl, I had grown a new awkward tension with him. Tyler had written love on the card, and told me he meant it that night, but a part of me, a really large part, didn’t want him too. I knew that once I lost Shelby I was going to lose it, and I didn’t want anyone with me when that happened. Before all of this I hated crying in front of people, now it’s pretty much all I do.

Shelby was in the middle of making a floral paper crane when her hospital room door swung open, and she let out a high pitched squeal. As she dropped the half folded piece of paper, she quickly jumped off of the bed and ran to the door, taking the legs of the man that had just walked in into a tight hug

“Daddy! What are you doing here!”

“I’m on my lunch break sweets, I thought I would spend it with my children.” He laughed as he walked further into the room, and over to the other free chair a little ways from mine. As Shelby latched onto one of his legs, he laughed shaking his head a little and dragged the leg with his smaller daughter on it behind him as he moved the plastic chair over to me and handed me the large brown bag in his grasp.

Watching him pick Shelby up and twirl her around, a smile wound up on my lips as I set the bag in my lap and opened it. “I got take out from Elbow Room. I got you some fancy salad, myself a nice veggie burger, and this little loon grilled cheese.”

“Grilled Cheese!” Shelby cheered and let go of my father’s leg and jumped onto her bed, crawling over to me and grabbing containers form the bag until she found hers and then set it down in her laugh and opened it. Flipping the Styrofoam top open, she leaned toward the box and inhaled deeply, letting a long ‘Mmm’ out as her eyes fluttered shut and her small body fell back against the bed. “Daddy, I love grilled cheese.”

My father laughed, a genuine laugh that I hadn’t heard pass his lips in a while. His eyes crinkled and his bright white teeth shimmered under the fluorescent lights above. After a short conversation between him and the little blonde girl on the bed, they both started eating, their eyes dancing around the images flashing on the television.

Once my dad finished half of his burger, he turned to me and frowned a little. “You alright, Len?”

“My appetite has been a little off.” I whispered, my eyes dancing around the white container that was sitting in my laugh. “I’m not feeling it right now.”

“Did you eat breakfast?”

“Does a coffee count?”

“No.” My father sighed, contorting the features on his face to give me a fatherly glare that I hadn’t seen in a while and also somewhat missed. It made me feel like things were normal again. It made me feel like maybe we weren’t sitting in a cancer wing of the hospital.

A long sigh fell from my father’s lips as he looked over at me, the bright eyes that he passed down to Shelby barreling into me much like hers did when I said something dumb. “I know Dad.” I huffed and looked down at my fingers gripping the container. “I’m not doing it on purpose, I just… I don’t know.”

“May-“

“Is there a party going on in here, or what?” The voice made my head snap up. Eyes widening, I turned toward the door and watched as Tyler took a few more steps into the room. His torso was covered in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he had on a slim pair of jeans and a pair of sneakers. The best part of course, was the cups of coffee he was holding in his hand.

Once he walked over to us, he set the coffee’s down on the table, quickly handed me mine and sent me a wink as he walked over to my father and smiled at him. “You must be Tyler?” My father placed his food on the bed and stood up, going eye level with Tyler. “Pleasure to finally meet you, Tyler.”

“Same to you Mr. Davis, I’m actually glad I ran into you.” Tyler quickly glanced at me and wiggled his eyebrows before he looked back at my Dad and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was wondering if you guys would want to go to a Stars game, as a family I mean.”

Shelby gasped and set her food down besides her as she launched herself off of the bed and wrapped her arms around Tyler’s neck. Luckily his reflexes kicked in and he caught her before they both tipped over and fell onto the floor. As he held her with one arm, and she hugged his neck, he looked back at my father, eyebrows raised waiting for an answer.

“I’m not sure if Shelby would be able to go, I’d have to talk to Allen, but if she can, my wife and I can probably make some schedule changes and take off.”

“That’s great!” Tyler said and walked over to the other side of Shelby’s bed and sat down, letting her crawl back over to her grilled cheese.

“How much-“

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Tyler said firmly and then stood up, walking over to the coffees and grabbing the largest one. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were here”, he directed to my father, “I bought this for Mary buy if you’d like it I could avoid her until the end of her shift.” My father and Tyler shared a laugh as the elder of the two shook his head and waved his hand a little.

“I’ve had about ten cups today, I’m doing fine.” My father joked and then looked over at me as Tyler excused himself and left the room, calling out to the older nurse in the hallway. As I listened to their laughs and voices echo from the hall, my father placed his hand on my knee and nodded.

“Keep him.”



My father stayed for his whole lunch break, eating his sweet potato fries and chatting with Tyler about hockey and cars and whatever other manly topics they could think of. When it was his time to leave, he gave Shelby and I a hug and kiss and then took Tyler into a large hug and shook his hand. As they broke apart, my father whispered something to him, smiled and then left the room with one more wave.

Once it was the three of us, Shelby laid out on her bed and yawned a little, her wide eyes rolling around the room as she moved her limbs and knocked tiny paper birds off of the edge of her bed.

“Lennon, can I take a nap?”

“Of course Shell.” I chuckled and watched as she nodded and then flipped onto her stomach and pressed her face into the pale pink pillow, her thin blonde strands of hair messily falling around her head.

As the small girl’s breathing softened, Tyler and I stayed silent, sitting in the chairs next to her bed, our eyes dancing around the room. Every time I felt like I should start talking, I would think about what I would say to him and quickly swallow my words. I wanted to talk to him, about anything at this point, but I couldn’t. Every time I would think about talking to him, all I could picture was my mouth pouring out exactly what had happened with Jake, and it made my stomach sick.

We sat in silence for about fifteen minutes before Tyler turned to me, catching his eyes in mine and sighed. “Can we go for a talk walk?”

“Huh?” I questioned, watching a small smile form on his lips.

“I just want to talk to you, and walk; talk walk.” He explained and then stood up, offering his hand to help me out of the chair. As I stared at it, following the tattoos up to his blue flannel, I swallowed hard and nodded, my cheeks glowing red. No matter how many times Tyler and I spoke or hugged or showed any form of higher emotions towards each other, I couldn’t help but to blush. He was just so, so, perfect – to me at least.

Tyler dimmed the lights in Shelby’s room as we walked into the hallway. Once there, my chest tightened as I quickly looked around, making sure Jake was no where to be found as we headed to the elevator and got in. Once Tyler had hit a random button on the keypad, and the doors shut, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and leaned against the wall next to him.

A muscular arm wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me closer to the strong body it was attached to. Once he set a small kiss onto the top of my head, he sighed heavily and then pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. “You have to tell me what’s going on, Lennon.” Tyler whispered as the elevator stopped at the bottom floor and the silver doors slid out of view. “I care about you, and you’ve been freaking me out lately, ever since-“

“I know”, I blurted out, my stomach growing sick as we walked into the lobby and headed over to the front doors. A few people sent us looks as we walked through the lobby. I figured the looks were directed more toward Tyler and less toward me. It was times like these I remembered that he was a professional, well-known athlete, and I was a little girl in med school trying to get by.

Walking one by one through the revolving door, I let the cooling air outside hit my face as I stopped on the sidewalk in front of the hospital and waited for Tyler to wrap his arm around my shoulders again and pull me into him.

As we headed down the sidewalk, Tyler looked over at me and sent me a small smile. “So what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”

“A lot of shit.” I huffed and watched as Tyler’s huge smile quickly flipped. “I… I just had this headache for like a week, I lost my appetite and… Well, I don’t know.” I felt my heart rate speed up to a pace I was sure would lead to a heart attack. “I… Last week… Uhm.” My chest was tight and my lungs seemed to stop working as I looked up at Tyler. We had walked away from the hospital and were now near the small park that was right next to it. It was usually filled with patients trying to get some air that wasn’t tinted with the smell of 409 or other cleaners.

Tyler stopped at the closest bench and sat us down. Moving to the edge of the bench, he turned to me and with the same worried expression he gave me the night we ran into each other after Jake had kissed me, he grabbed my hand and nodded a little, silently telling me that he was here for me, no matter what spewed form my mouth.

“Jake… Jake kissed me.”

I waited a moment. I waited for his hand to fall from mine, or his eyes to drop from mine. I waited for him to get angry or say something mean and walk away, but he didn’t do anything like that. Instead, he nodded a little and kept staring at me, urging me to keep going with the story. “I didn’t kiss him back. I pushed him away and then kind of ran away, right out of the hospital and then I bumped into you in the parking lot.”

“Did you talk to him about it?” He asked, his face still showing the same worried expression as before.

“N-No, I didn’t.”

“You probably should.” He nodded a little at his own words and then looked up at me, smiling a little.

“You’re not angry?”

“Of course I am!” Tyler said quickly, his eyes showing a glimpse of the pure anger that was swelling inside of him. After that small glimpse, he quickly covered it back up and nodded a little, holding onto my hand as he leaned back against the bench and shook his head a little. “I want to punch the little fucker in the face, but I’m not going to.” He let go of my hand and quickly wrapped the arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him. “That drives me absolutely insane that he just kissed you like that, but I know you guys are like friends or whatever, and I’m not about to ruin my new reputation of not being a douche bag by punching some little twat in a children’s cancer wing.”

I wasn’t sure why this seemed funny to me, but as soon as Tyler was finished speaking, I started laughing. I laughed and laughed until there were tears pouring from my eyes, and I had to lean forward to stop the pain that was rushing through my body. As soon as the tears and laughter started to subside, I looked over at Tyler who had a huge smile on his face as he looked at me.

“What the fuck is so funny?” He chuckled a she ran his fingertips across my face and swiped a few pieces of hair behind my ear. After he pulled his hand back, I shrugged a little and finished wiping the tears from my eyes and smiled up at him.

“I just thought of the whole punching someone in a children’s cancer wing at the hospital. I don’t know why I thought that was so funny I guess, I don’t know. I haven’t laughed in a really long time, maybe it was just my time to laugh.”

“You should do it more often.” Tyler gave me a small smile and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I didn’t think you could be any cuter, you proved me wrong.”

“Ha”, I whispered and leaned back into the bench, my eyes getting caught up in the sky hanging above us, the colors that were starting to form as the sun started to dip below the horizon line.

As we both stared at the sunset, the colors reflecting in our bright eyes, I felt Tyler pull me closer to him, if it was even possible, and rest his head against mine. Thankful that he couldn’t hear how fast my heart was beating, I let my mind wander as I let my body relax next to his.

I thought about school. I thought about assignments and projects, papers and research I had to do. I thought about all of my friends that I had been ignoring and blowing off since Shelby was admitted into the hospital. I thought about Tyler, of course. I thought about the way he asked to be just friends, and the way that he was able to make me feel normal even while we sat inside of a children’s hospital room.

Then, I thought about my parents. I thought about how hard it must be for them. I thought about the long hours they worked, how they never saw their children or really each other. I thought about the last time we had ever done anything as a family, and I honestly couldn’t name on thing.

“Hey beautiful, what are you thinking about?” Tyler whispered as he tore his eyes away from the sky and locked his bright orbs onto my own. As I stared into his eyes, I smiled a little and shrugged.

“Stuff. School and friends and parents and stuff.”

“You’re dads a good dude.” Tyler smiled, his eyes drifting back to the sky. “He gave me a word of advice before he left after lunch.”

“Can you tell me?” I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.

“Exact words?” Tyler asked, his fingers running small circles on my shoulder. As I relished the feeling of his fingertips dancing around on my skin, I nodded and leaned into him more, pressing my head against his shoulder. As I listened to his heartbeat, I closed my eyes and felt Tyler’s lips brush against my ear.

Tyler’s heart rate accelerated as he spoke, “Don’t let her go.”