For a couple of days, he kept attending to her, trying to reduce her fever. She remained laying down on the bed and she refused getting fed by him. She didn’t feel like eating most of the time but he forced her until he knew she can’t take it anymore if she showed any sign of vomiting. After every meal, he would have made sure that she’ll eat her medicine and the drugs would bring her to the slumber land most of the time. He was with her at all time, even when she was asleep. Yes, while she was asleep, he will take the opportunity to clean himself up and take a short nap. She wasn’t allowed to lock the toilet door, well there wasn’t a door anymore after he broke the door when she went suicidal, just a divider he placed for temporary measure or alternative.  

Fortunately for him, she was getting better each time he came into the room but she was awfully quiet. She will still have this expressionless face whenever he was with her, she would just stare at the ceiling or wall, anywhere that was not him in the view. She hated him and he knew that very well. However, one day when he came to see her, she actually looked at the door to see who it was. They locked eyes for a few seconds before she started to avert her eyes somewhere else. He then took a chair beside the bed. He placed his hand on her forehead as usual, to check her temperature. “Your fever is gone but your body is still weak. So, you have to rest”, he said looking at her, who was looking straight towards the wall in front of her.

Her head slowly turned to his direction. Her doe eyes looked straight into his eyes. He wasn’t able to read any emotions from it. He waited for her to say something which took quite a while. “Don’t pretend to care about me. Am I staying here forever?” she asked nonchalantly with a croaked voice. It took him by surprise. He wasn’t expecting her to be as direct as that. Because he was trained to control his emotions and expressions very well, he looked calmed on the outside. He constructed answers in his head but he wasn’t able to come out with anything at all.

“So, it’s not decided yet?” she added after waiting for his reply. Her eyes became watery but she was trying so hard to hold the sadness and frustration in her that her biting her lips was too hard. He, who was still looking at her while thinking abruptly stopped as he spotted blood from her lips. Not just some insignificant blood that could be seen but it was almost forming a few drops on her lips. His hand quickly reacted and reached for cheeks, softening her clenched jaw. He repeated “Stop that” at least five times till she finally gave in and cried.

He went closer to hug her but she created a distance by extending her arms, preventing him not to come closer. With tears flowing on to her skin, mixed with the amount of blood from her lips, it smeared all over the t-shirt she was wearing. Some fell onto the white duvet. He watched as the light coloured liquid mixture spread onto her surroundings till she finally dropped her arms. He reached to her and placed her head onto his chest while his arms hugged her tightly. “I just want to be home and tell my parents that I love them”, she sobbed in between making her sentence inaudible but he understood every single word. “Why me?”, she asked repeatedly, sobbing. He pursed his lips into a thin line with his eyes shut as guilt flooded him. They both stayed in the same position for quite a while, till she stopped questioning him. Until she stopped telling him to kill her instead of rapping her, until she stopped sobbing, until she stopped hitting his chest in anger.

She stopped and he broke the hug. His hands were still firmly on her shoulder until he saw her tears and blood-stained cheeks. His fingers made way to her face, wiping her tears, tucking hair that was sticking onto her skin behind her ears. She silently stared at him with confusion. She never seemed to be able to understand this lad. He’