Zayn

It had been a while ever since I had had my usual stomach ache, but it was so bad today that I woke up because of it. I tried to lie down in a comfortable position and pulled up my knees to lighten the pain, but nothing seemed to work. Trying to open my eyes normally, I threw up right after I had sat up straight. The nausea was extreme for reasons I didn't really understand.

Stepping out of bed to go over to the toilet, I couldn't help but throw up again, all over the floor as I had no time to rush over to the toilet anymore. I was too late.

I wanted to wipe my mouth with my pajama sleeve, but the moment I did that- I noticed the deep red colour of blood on it as well. I closed my eyes for a while and felt warm liquid dripping down my nose, past my lips. My nose was bleeding, again.

The smell of it was strong and I could taste it on my lips, making me even more nauseous. Luckily for me, a nurse had heard me and she held a bowl in front of me so I could retch into it.

Sadness and annoyance built up in me as I couldn't understand why my nose kept bleeding, why my stomach hurt so awfully much and why I was so extremely nauseous.They had never told me this were side effects of the immunotherapy, or weren't they side effects?

"Are you okay, Zayn?" The nurse questioned, and I could only answer with a shrug. I felt mad, I wanted to kick something. My mood swings were awful and it was kicking in really hard when things like this happened to me.

"Those pills aren't working, not at all, can't you see? Just give me the stupid chemo already. Nothing can make this all better anyway." I couldn't help but almost snap it- I was upset. This all was so unfair. My positivity was suppressed by my mood swings, making me feel disappointed.

A retching sound was soon followed after that. I emptied my stomach in the small bowl again as the nurse gently sat me down on my bed. My whole body was shaking due to the cold, nausea and weakness.

"Zayn, we gave you immunotherapy to try. We have noticed that your symptoms didn't really get any better. You'll have to go through the scans later today and the doctor will decide based on that." The nurse explained to me, handing me a napkin to wipe my mouth on.

I couldn't reply. I kept throwing up and noticed my hands shaking as I tried to hold the bowl still.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, I heard a sneeze coming from the other side of the room. The nurse and I both looked up and my eyes instantly met with Rose's brown ones, calming me down a little.

I felt relieved once I saw her as I had never liked this nurse as she was such an old, annoying, lady who decided everything for you. Don't get me wrong- I knew I had to listen to the doctors and nurses, but I could decide on my own when I felt like people visiting me or not, and besides that, they had always told me I still had my own input in things.

"Excuse me, who are you?" The nurse asked, her expression confused.

Rose cleared her throat, "Uhm, I am-" I could tell that she was a little startled by the woman's harsh voice, so I decided to help her a little. She was new and kind, so I felt bad for her.

"That's Rose. She came here yesterday too. Internship. She-" I stopped talking and a new wave of vomit left my mouth. It was the smell of blood that made me throw up again and again. The blood was seeping out of my nose, onto my chin and dripping into the bowl of vomit.

The woman sighed, "Stay quiet, Zayn. It's not good for your headache. Now why don't you lie down on the bed? You clearly don't feel well. Rose, honey, would you mind leaving the room? He likes being-"

"I can have company." Sighing as well, this was exactly what I meant. She didn't know how I was feeling, so how could she know if I wanted to be alone or not? She couldn't decide that for me.

The nurse kept looking at Rose, "Fine. If he wants you to stay here, you can take my tasks. Would you mind cleaning up the bowl?" She pressed the bowl with my vomit mixed with blood into Rose's hands and left the room after that. "I will send Caroline your way."

Rose swallowed, glanced at me and she slowly made her way over to the door but before she could open it- I stopped her. I held her wrist softly with my shaky hand, not wanting her to leave.

"Don't do that. Come on, I will do it. She's so.." I bit my lip and shook my head, not liking to talk bad about other people. I took the bowl from her and almost gagged again by seeing it. "I'm sorry, this is just disgusting."

I felt extremely bad for her that she had to do something like this, and especially the way the nurse dumped the bowl into her hands. It also made me feel ashamed as it was mine, not a very good impression towards her.

"Don't worry about it. It's my job. I will do it." Rose grabbed the bowl, looked up at me and looked at me for a while with a sad smile. "You should grab some tissues, okay? I will come back. For that.." She pointed at my nose and my hand flew towards it.

I scrunched up my nose, "Sorry."

She simply gave me a smile, "Don't say that," and hurried her way towards the toilets.

I placed my hand on my belly while staring at the door for a while, hoping she'd come back soon. Her company was soothing, and I enjoyed it, even if it had been only like two times.

Grabbing some tissues, I sniffed my nose instead of blowing and tilted my head back. I didn't really know how to handle bleeding noses, but I, apparently, was doing it very wrong.

"You're doing it wrong." Rose said in panic, her eyes widening after that, and she became modest.

I chuckled at her sudden comment but my expression changed into a soft one. I was still figuring out if I could fire comments back like that. "Then how do I do it right?"

"Sorry." She mumbled softly, slowly looking away before looking back at me. "Can you sit up straight?" I nodded and did what she asked me to do, straightening my back and trying to ignore the unexplainable pain I felt in my stomach.

Rose grabbed a few more tissues and handed them to me. "Okay, now blow your nose carefully." She watched me as I did so, her expression soft.

I felt uncomfortable doing it. My nose was slightly sore, so I couldn't help and furrow my eyebrows a little. Once I noticed her glancing at me, I could tell she saw my expression so I tried to change it to neutral.

She grabbed the tissues from me and placed them on a clean tissue she had put on her lap. I liked how gentle she was, and how she thought things through. "Now tip your head slightly forward and pinch your nose. Softly.. okay?"

"Breathe through your mouth, I don't want you to die or anything." She joked but when she realised what she just said, she quickly stopped chuckling and looked away, her cheeks coloring pink.

I could tell she felt ashamed and scared that she may had hurt me with this comment as this sickness really could make people die, but I couldn't help and a soft laugh escaped from my mouth. "It doesn't matter if it's today or next month anyway." I teased back, trying to enlighten the mood

She didn't reply after that, she just looked down at her lap. I coughed to break the silence and waited for as long as she told me to, then stopped pinching my nose. The bleeding nose was indeed stopped and I couldn't help but smile.

"Wow. How did you know? They never taught me this." I smiled in amazement.

Rose smiled back and threw away the used tissues. "School taught me." She shrugged, grabbed a wet tissue and handed it to me to clean up the dried up blood.

"For the paragraphs?" I asked her, feeling happy in some ways that she was here with me.

She shrugged. "I mean, they did learn me that in those lessons, but I don't have to get a paragraph for stopping bloody noses." Rose laughed, the sound of it was sweet.

"Then what for?" I asked curiously.

She smiled, "I promised to show you, didn't I? Well that's good because I brought the portfolio with me. I can show you now." Just now that she lifted it up her lap, I noticed that she brought her backpack here.

"Why did you bring it here? You know there's a wardrobe for your stuff, right?" I frowned a little while pointing at her backpack.

"Oh.. yeah. It was locked. I don't have a key." She looked up at me and removed a loose strand of hair out of her pretty face. I couldn't help but stare at her for a little while, feeling strange.

Suddenly I started wondering how old she was. She never told me. Okay, yesterday was her first day and I was just one out of the many patients so she didn't really have a reason to tell me, but still. I couldn't help, but ask her.

"How old are you, Rose?" I tried not to sound like a creep, I was just curious.

Rose smiled a little. She looked surprised. "Two years younger than you."

Now I was surprised, "You know my age?" I slowly raised my right eyebrow at her.

She nodded, "Caroline told me. Twenty one, right?" I nodded as well. "Right, I'm nineteen. Why?"

I shrugged. "Just curious, nothing more."

Rose didn't reply to that. She just grabbed the portfolio from her school with all sorts of different procedures she had to do on this internship. She had all the paragraphs she could get from her school and the rest was for here. "This is it."

I flipped through the pages and laughed, "You do have to wash people in bed. Why did you lie?" I looked up at her and she bit her cheek on the inside.

"I didn't lie.. I just.. I-"

"You were scared." I teased, making her blush then she rolled her eyes.

"Whatever you say. Just know I'm never going to wash you." She laughed and sat down beside me on the bed. She looked at all the pages while I was flipping them.

"I'll remember that." I mumbled, causing her to nudge my shoulder. "I'm telling you, never."

I just laughed in response and read all the things she still needed paragraphs for, noticing one about medication. "I can help you with that. If you want, at least."

Rose smiled, her eyes lighting up, "Really? That'd be great, honestly." She grabbed her book from my lap and read the description. "I have to do some math with this too. It's horrible. Some teacher from uni will come here and watch me as I do these things. I'm already nervous." She groaned.

"Don't be. I'm sure it will be just fine." I softly poked her arm and she looked at me for a while, an amused smile on her face but cheekily raising her eyebrow because of me poking her.

Caroline came into my room not much later, asking Rose to come with her.

"We'll talk." I said quietly. Rose looked over her shoulder at me and gave me a small smile, making me wonder if she wanted to talk to me another time as well.