Private School for Love

How does it feel to have the world sucked out from under you? That soul-crushing and breath-stealing agony so eloquently related to panic and fear so horrifying that you can’t help but take a few seconds to absorb and slowly break down the information being relayed to you. How does it feel to know what you’ve been told? Is there relief? Denial? Acceptance? What’s the first thought that crawls into your head?


Danni sat doubled over on her desk, her stomach was pulsating with such white-hot pain she couldn’t force herself to even partly pay attention to her English Literature class. She grinded her teeth back and forth and stabbed her own fingernails into her the same hand’s palm to try and force the sensation elsewhere even if momentary. Blood had already began trickling down her palm before it even began to slightly match any semblance of pain that her stomach was producing. It was so debilitating, so obnoxiously paralysing that even calling for help was essentially too great a task. Her head was beaded with sweat and her breathing had become erratically haggard.

Most would assume someone would have noticed Danni’s pain, or even her teacher would have taken a moment to reprimand her, and when she didn’t respond, maybe then they would take notice of her situation. But no. This was Mister Reynolds class and it had become such a consistent problem for him when his students would just sit there and sleep through his classes (his boring monotone voice on a subject that truly required an inventive and original take on it to garner the interests of students really didn’t aid anything either) that he more or less just accepted students sleeping through his classes with a mindless shrug and continued reading allowed whilst scribbling some halfway relatable notes on the author and their style.

Danni was powerless to help herself, Blake hadn’t turned up to the class which was no great surprise as she was probably off getting raunchy with Melanie who no doubt would come up with some excuse surrounding the idea that she was simply explaining the rules to Blake. The thought almost made Danni laugh, if the motion of her diaphragm moving in such a way hadn’t made her feel like she was being stabbed repeatedly. Meanwhile Chloe was off doing some Physical Education, no doubt leaving everyone behind in a cloud of dust as she sprinted around the athletics track. The thought of her sports uniform tightly clinging to her picturesque body with the sun’s rays causing the droplets of sweat to sparkle similar to a previous meeting of theirs where Chloe’s body shone like that of some jewellery. Danni’s lips pursed up into a smile as she thought of her lover, the pain gently subsiding just a little as she thought of the golden-haired wonder.

Suddenly a flash of red appeared straight in front of Danni and when she finally managed to analyse the image in front of her she saw Arial the ghost in front of her with crossed arms over her chest and a slight frown. “Wow you look like death! And I should know. Since I literally died.” Arial’s attempts at humour, or at least Danni thought it was humour, unfortunately were too on the nose for Danni’s current situation as she actually worried for her own health given how weak and exhausted she was feeling from the pain constantly flaring in the centre of her stomach. The pain had barely been noticeable from the start of the morning when she had woken up, but now it had developed so shockingly that Danni’s face was losing colour. “Wait…shit are you feeling okay? Did you eat some bad…what do you even eat for breakfast these days?” Arial tilted her head as if expecting Danni to educate her on the topic of proper 21st century nutrition.

“Stomach…hurts…a lot…” Danni groaned lowly between deep breaths, the mere act of talking enough to reduce her to complete fatigue.

“Seriously? Is it that bad?” Danni only nodded in recognition of the question and Arial took her chin in hand and began thinking, seriously thinking, trying to contemplate the best strategy for helping the paralysed girl before her. She knew how quickly situations can unfold into the most desperate of scenarios and even if Danni was exaggerating the pain, she clearly couldn’t move or help herself. So Arial had to take action, and fast. “Okay, okay…let’s think…I can only communicate with four people in this damned school…where’s blondie?” Arial asked, clearly referencing Chloe and Danni almost felt so insulted that she didn’t want to answer back. How could Arial so easily forget Chloe’s name? Unless it’s an endearing nickname (which didn’t sound so endearing…) but Danni wasn’t in a situation to act so cold.

“Track and field…probably…” Danni wheezed out and the sound of her doing so brought genuine fear to Arial’s face, if the ghost could sweat or lose the colour in her transparent face; this was as close as you could get.

“Got’cha! I’ll be back in a flash!” And like that, the track-suit wearing disappeared in a momentum so electric even the greatest Olympic sprinters would be left stunned. If they could see her to begin with that is.


Danni remained slumped over her desk for the next few minutes, pain surging onwards and onwards with every single beat of her heart that both reminded her of her existence as well as her own mortality. If she had enough strength she would have taken the appropriate enough time to be worried and weep to herself about the pain along with the implications of the pain as well, nothing that hurt this bad could be something simple and innocent. She knew it could mean something all-together terrifying, but she was far too tired and weak to consider it in great abundance.

Suddenly the halls outside the classroom burst into a flurry of noise which belonged to feat frantically pounding against the ground in a full sprint to whoever they belonged to. The door to classroom exploded open, slamming against the sleek white walls, only to rebound in the culprit’s face before they kicked it open once more.

Chloe slid into a crouch by Danni, her navy blue sports polo and shorts clinging tightly to her body with her hair looking matted and unkempt from the insane burst of pace she must have taken advantage of to reach the classroom as quickly as she did. Worry was etched onto her face, eyes twinkling providing all the necessary clues that tears had been building up. She heaved heavily and simply stared blankly at Danni for a few precious moments before the clearing of a throat brought her attention over to Mister Reynolds who looked both un-phased by Chloe’s dramatic appearance and clearly lacked interest in her as well.

“Miss Jean? Please tell me you have a good excuse for why you’re here…” He said, in a dreary tone that told you he could barely express any emotion beyond apathy even if the world itself was coming to an end.

“Danni’s sick! I had to come and help since you’re such a shit teacher you couldn’t even notice she’s in pain! Or are you just that incompetent a man you think a girl shivering in pain is a good thing?!” Chloe bit back at him defensively, shoulders tightening in an anger-filled tension that seemed to make Mister Reynolds just a bit weary of talking back to the blonde bombshell. Chloe immediately turned back to Danni, face a million levels more kind then what she had just previously been wearing. “Hey there babe…you okay right? Tell me I’m worrying over nothing…?” Chloe wore a bit of a naïve expression, like the pale colour of Danni’s skin was an overuse of make-up or something equally as far from the truth.

All Danni could do was patronisingly smile to try and make Chloe feel somewhat better “Sorry…feel terrible…” she shrugged as if she wasn’t entirely certain, but what contradicted that was the immense pangs of pain rippling across her body starting from her stomach.

Chloe took one deep breath, placed her hands over her eyes and grunted out some expletives before recomposing herself and standing up. “I’m taking Danni to the nurse’s office.” She definitely to Mister Reynolds, who at this point was just going with the flow since he did not want to deal with the aura of rage and maternal worry that was emanating from Chloe. She shouldered Danni’s bag and slowly, making sure not to hurt her lover, picked Danni up in a bridal carry before leaving through the door with a now Chloe-sized footprint permanently marked on the door itself.

Chloe continued to march down the hall itself, Danni nuzzled into the crevice of the blonde’s neck as she was gently carried down the hall, the combination of her body’s weariness and the relief over Chloe coming to her rescue finally settled into her and she found herself losing what little consciousness she had left. Her final image before sleep set in was that beautiful image of care, fear, determination and love all mixed into one facial structure: The structure the belonged solely to Chloe Jean.


Danni slowly felt the basking warmth of the mid-afternoon sun rouse her from her groggy slumber, the soft sensation and tight hug of both pillows and blankets surrounding her fatigued and tired frame made for a very good argument for never getting up and simply remaining comatose as she was. However, her consciousness was slowly getting the better of her, her eyelids speedily shot open with the world a haze of distortion. A natural state of affairs with her spectacles, Danni’s eyesight was practically non-existent without the item in question. She fumbled around the bed, or what she assumed had to be a bed, and the surrounding furniture for the glasses. After a few moments in which Danni pawed up and down her bed and one side of the room’s furniture, she eventually found them sat perfectly on a bed-side table right beside her.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and finally began to appreciate the exact location as to where she was. It certainly wasn’t her room, and she certainly wasn’t wearing her clothes. It was a bleach-white sterile room with little to no decoration at all present. Maybe a vase with a flower in the corner here, a table there, but beyond that it lacked any defining characteristics at all. Except for one thing, when the brunette tried to stand she felt a tug on her right arm, looking down to see a semi-transparent tube connecting her arm to some kind of device with a similarly semi-transparent bag of liquid hung up to a stand. It then struck her as clear as day, that it was some kind of IV they used in hospitals to correct electrolyte imbalances, to deliver medications, for blood transfusion or as fluid replacement to correct dehydration.

Finally the beeping, constant chatter outside the door at the far end of the room along with a gown that Danni just realised she was wearing all pointed to one similar conclusion: She was in a hospital. What’s more, the pain in her stomach had faded away and was replaced by a dull pain in her head. Of which, the IV was slowly helping to correct. She took a few shaky breaths and grabbed hold of her now rapidly expanding and deflating chest knowing the surge of a panic attack was on the cusp of arriving. Feeling alone, insecure and without any prior knowledge of that she would be here in this situation put Danni at the tipping point of it all.

Then, without warning, the door to her room began to creak open and a middle-aged man with slightly greying black hair eyed Danni carefully through the crack in the door, he turned around and said something very quietly to a group of people outside the room. Unfortunately he kept the crack in the door too small for Danni to begin to analyse the people beyond the man. He opened the door, moved around it in an eccentric spin and swiftly shut it with his back to it. He wore light green scrubs, a white over coat with white trainers as sterile as the room they found themselves in and a stethoscope loosely hanging around his neck. He had the slightest signs of stubble forming around his face that suggested properly grooming himself was far too much of a hassle. He was quite handsome, or so Danni thought despite her lack of attraction to the opposite gender. He offered a broad smile which seemed to suggest some kind of enthusiasm.

“I wouldn’t pull on the drip Miss…Wakeland-Ulistani? Am I pronouncing that right? I thought I might not be but your Father seemed too polite a man to correct me…” he scratched his stubble as he absent-mindedly gestured towards the door, signalling to Danni her father must have been one of the people on the other side.

For a moment Danni wasn’t sure how to properly react. She was still terrified and confused, and that’s only putting it lightly, yet trying to field her questions so quickly would get her nowhere. That’s usually how these situations played themselves out. “N-No you’re doing it fine…well maybe too fine a pronunciation on the †˜E’ at the end…it’s like saying †˜knee’ okay?” Danni explained, feeling her breathing return to normal pitch. Was that why he asked? Did he notice it on his way in and try to calm her down through conversation? It wasn’t an impossibility…

“Ah, knew it…sorry, names aren’t my forte. Anyway, I’m Doctor Fredrick Simmons. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand warmly and Danni tentatively shook it. His grip was firm, but pleasantly so. “And you are Danielle Wakeland-Ulistani, 16 years old, native of England, attending high-school in our wonderful city. All good stuff. But I suppose you wonder…” his expression darkened for a brief moment as he looked down at the clipboard in his hand “…Why you are here?”

Danni gulped audibly and nodded back at him. Not wanting to derail his train of thought, knowing it was entering dark and unchartered territory.

He smoothed the bedding next to her and sat down, sighing heavily as he did so. “You know when I was 11 years old, my Dad took me fishing for the first time?” Danni raised an eyebrow and shook her head slowly “Yup. He was a man’s man. Hell if the wildlife committee in charge of the forest allowed it, he’d have hunted with a spear!” he chuckled at his own recollection “But the day he took me there he didn’t tell me what to do at all. I was confused and a little upset that he just ignored me or my questions, deflecting them or telling me to do it myself. Once all was said and done, he took me by the shoulders and said: Fredrick, sometimes life doesn’t have easy answers. Sometimes you gotta make do with what you have. Sometimes you gotta let go of the people around you, and do what’s best for you. Because you might rely on them in the wrong scenario.” He looked a little nostalgic and sad about his own story, before smiling back at the teenager “Danielle I’m going to be completely straight with you and not hold any punches. You have a genetically abnormal immune system. It will sometimes turn itself on and off. That pain you were feeling? That was the bacteria eating away at the inner lining of your small intestine. Fortunately nothing lethal or life altering was done. We gave you some immune system boosters and everything will be fine for the short-term.” Doctor Simmons explained, the wall of information hitting Danni in such a manner that it simply sounded like white-noise initially. And then it sunk in for her. She was immunocompromised, just like her little brother Gideon. Her life hung in the balance of some poorly coded amino acids. She had never felt so vulnerable so…mortal.

“What do you mean by…’short-term’ exactly?” Danni gulped back her fear as Fredrick’s eyes slowly analysed Danni’s body until they met her eyes, and they locked together.

“I mean there’s only so much boosters can do to improve your immune system. We got lucky, you had a light attack and we managed to quell it. But next time…you might not be so lucky. Good news though: There is an experimental drug available which has, when taken in regular doses, proven to cure the symptoms of the condition you have. However…” he stopped short, biting his lip anxiously “…It hasn’t been approved by congress in the US. Essentially, remaining in this country is a death sentence for you and your brother.”

That hurt more than anyone could imagine. Danni’s world was a glass plane, and that piece of information was the stray anvil that had been hurled through it. Shattering everywhere with the knowledge of what it all meant, she would have to leave the US…leave her first friends in Blake and Melanie…leave her lover, leave Chloe…

“Why now…?” Danni asked coldly, intended to mean why at this part of her life when everything had started to go right did it all have to take a turn for the worst? Her life was now effectively out of her control, everything was now determined on the sequence of some genetic code and not her own choices. Her life was as frail as a daisy, and not as nearly as beautiful.

The sound of the door slowly creaking open tore Danni’s attention away from her own self-pity momentarily to see Chloe had entered into the room, still dressed on her own Sport gear with her hair now tied back behind her head in a somewhat successful attempt to tidy up her frazzled hair. She offered an unsure but relieved smile at seeing Danni conscious and the brunette returned the look.

Doctor Simmons put his hand on Danni’s shoulder and smiled “I’ll give you two a chance to talk while I fill your parents in on the details.” He said conclusively and left the room completely silent, the two girls remaining on the opposite sides of the room. Chloe had an anxious, tentative look that seemed a far-cry from that beautiful angel Danni had seen on her first day of school. She had torn down that image and seen the scars Chloe hid from the world, seen the inner beauty and torment that lied within the blonde. So much had happened but never had Chloe been left so powerless in the wake of events.

“Do you wanna sit down?” Danni spoke up meekly and Chloe looked away smiling ironically before offering a low chuckle to herself.

“Yeah that’d be nice.” She said quietly before placing herself down next to Danni and entwined their fingers together. “Does it hurt?”

Danni shook her head in response, face remaining neutral but tightening her own hold on Chloe’s hand “Not anymore. Just tiring…” Danni rubbed her eyes again which gave Chloe the chance to see the large bags under Danni’s eyes, emphasising her exhaustion and stress.

“How…bad is it? I didn’t get too much in terms of details…” Chloe asked, looking out the corners of her eyes at the IV with its tubing stitched and attached to Danni’s arm.

“I’m not gonna die…” The words were a little hollow, almost bitter but they still made Chloe sigh audibly in relief. “But I’m going back to England…” that admission from Danni stung Chloe deeper than she thought possible. At first she couldn’t register what she had been told, the information seemed hostile and otherworldly to her. She lifted her head up to see the twinkling of tears behind Danni’s eyes.

“W-What…?” Chloe’s voice crackled in simple, unadulterated fear.

“The drug I need to treat my illness isn’t legal here yet…but it is back home…that’s what the Doctor alluded to anyway…” Danni was cut off by Chloe’s fingers gently pressed to her lips, tears streaking down the blonde’s bright skin with the afternoon sun’s rays causing them to twinkle in a twisted beauty.

“What are you telling me?” Chloe asked, anger bubbling to the surface and Danni found it hard to keep her eyes on her.

“You know what it means. I’m leaving.”

How does it feel to have the world sucked out from under you? That soul-crushing and breath-stealing agony so eloquently related to panic and fear so horrifying that you can’t help but take a few seconds to absorb and slowly break down the information being relayed to you. How does it feel to know what you’ve been told? Is there relief? Denial? Acceptance? What’s the first thought that crawls into your head?

Because Chloe was absolutely speechless.