Moments (Being Edited)

Six

It was a week since we found out about Lacey's cancer, and a week since she'd made the heart breaking decision to not undergo any surgery, or chemotherapy. She was just going to let whatever happened, happen. In a way I admired her bravery, but just knowing in the back of my mind that she had a matter of weeks left of her life was something I couldn't shake. 

I learned some things about Lacey in the space of that week, and none of them ever left my thoughts. Her mum had been dead for nearly a year, and when she'd learned she'd have to live with her drug-addicted, abusive father, she ran away; and that was when she met Gavin, and why she stayed with him for as long as she did. He was a better option than her dad, no questions asked. She was also at the tail end of recovering from an eating disorder, which she didn't go into much depth about because I could tell it was something she wasn't proud of, and something that was clearly haunting her still. She told me so much about herself I started to feel like I'd known her my entire life, but there was one thing she said that kind of outweighed all the bad things that were happening, and the bad things she'd been through.

Lacey told me she was in love with me.

"You okay?" Lacey asked, pulling me out of my mind and back into reality.

Lacey was tucked under my arm, her head resting against my chest as we lay on the couch in the bungalow, waiting for Louis and Zayn to finish making dinner for us.

"I'm okay," I told her, pressing a kiss to her warm forehead, which made her smile.

"What is that smell?" Harry asked suddenly, sitting up and looking towards the kitchen.

I breathed in through my nose and smelt the sickly scent of smoke. Harry hurried to his feet and raced into the kitchen.

"I knew we shouldn't have let you two cook," I heard Harry groan, and my lips pulled up slightly.

"So, you guys want pizza or something? They burnt the chicken, and the beans," Harry sighed, coming back into the living room and looking at Lacey and I with arched brows.

"Pizza sounds good," Lacey nodded.

"Meatlovers," I requested with a big grin.

"Jeez, we'll have tried everything on the menu by the end of the summer at this rate. I'll go get Liam," Harry said, shaking his head and padding towards the stairs. 

"Someone screws up the cooking at least once a week, and we always get something different from the pizza place when it happens," I told a confused looking Lacey.

"Makes sense," she said, a cheekiness in her tone.

She covered her mouth to cough then, something that I hated when she did. Her whole body shook, and you could hear her ribs rattling, and she'd always gasp for air after. The worst thing was that I knew there was nothing I could do to make it any better, and she turned down any pain medication we offered her.

"You okay?" I asked quietly when her breathing returned to normal.

"As okay as I can be, just a bit hungry," she answered, pulling up her lips into a smile that looked more forced than it should have.

"If you need anything for the pain-"

"I'll tell you when I do, I promise, but right now it's bearable," she told me.

"Okay . . well there'll be food in about a half hour, but I can get you something while we're waiting if you want?" I offered.

"No, just stay," she said quietly, closing her eyes and letting her head drop back to my chest.

I ran my fingers through her hair as her breathing deepened, and hummed under my breath the tune to one of my favourite Coldplay songs. 

"Sing it," I hear her whisper, and I smiled slightly.