Spoiler! :
"Til Death" by creativelyyours
I sat in the waiting room, squeezing my thumbs until they turned red, but I still felt nothing. The last thing I felt was the touch of her limp fingers in mine, warm and wet. I was prepared to cling onto them all night and be the first person she saw when she woke up. Until her vitals plunged and I got yelled and pushed out of her room.
I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It had been twenty minutes. I thought about her being hooked up to that machine, fighting for her life while the green descending numbers shrieked and fought against her. I closed my eyes and waited for the nausea to subside, but pictures of her lying in that strange bed plugged up and unconscious appeared in the dark. I drew in the hospital’s scent—disinfectant, band aids, and desperation—but my lungs could no longer hold air. It felt like I was the one dying, life pouring from my body profusely. I felt ghostly, incapable of comprehending the world of the living.
I was in a room full of ghosts, heads in trembling hands and blank stares on the floor tiles. The room was silent except for the humming of the vending machines and mechanic reports from the news anchor on the TV no one was watching. Doctors and nurses floated in and out of doors and corridors, sending shock waves through my body with every appearance. Each time a false alarm.
There was a rumble in my jacket pocket, reminding me of my life beyond those waiting room walls. I checked my phone’s caller ID then shut of the power and stuck it back in place. The last thing I wanted was to hear his voice. He should have been there with me. For me. For her. The thought of him sprawled out on the couch, drinking away his rent money instead of sitting in the empty chair next to me supporting his only son made me resent him even more than I have for the past nineteen years. I hated him. I hated him just like I hated that drunk—that poor excuse for a human being—who plowed into her and…
More breaths. Still no air.
The walls were pressing in on me, suffocating me. I wanted to get out of there. To run as far away from that place as possible. It was all too real. Too much. Too soon. I didn’t belong there. Neither of us belonged in a place like that.
I tried to clear my head and escape through memories. I recalled what she and I did together. What we were going to do together. What we may have done together, but wasn’t sure of because I couldn’t fully put the pieces together. Her face was already getting fuzzy. I rubbed my head to stimulate my thoughts, make the pictures clearer. I didn’t want this night to be the last vivid image I had of her. I didn’t want any image to be our last.
And then one picture came to mind clearer than anything else. We were sitting on the beach near her lifeguard post on her day off. We were watching the waves crash on the shore and sweep everything underneath it back to the ocean. She held my hand. I could still feel her fingers locked with mine, warm and wet. Her eyes were focused on the horizon, philosophical and wondering. Our conversation was mangled, chopped and edited in the defective player of my mind. All except these words she spoke, “True love is watching someone die.” I don’t remember if we were on the subject of death or why she said it, but I could still hear them as if she were still sitting next to me, whispering them in my ear.
Heads rose all around me as a nurse crept into the room. Sharp panic surged through my body and my muscles locked. All eyes were on the face of the woman in white. Her eyes were on me. She shook her head and my ears clogged up while she mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
I was drowning. The room became the bottom of the ocean, blurry and noiseless. I clutched my head because I couldn’t grab at the part of my body that was in pain. For the first time, I was in pain. More pain than I had ever felt in my life. Yet, I was still numb.
I shot out of the automatic doors and was instantly slapped by the frozen rain. The accomplice to her death. Death… But she was just here. I was in denial, though I knew this wasn’t a dream. You didn’t feel that much pain in a dream. Without the use of my brain, I searched for my car in a parking lot full of blurred shapes that were obscured by the rain. I finally got to my car and slammed the door behind me, all automatic movements. I just sat there, my hands curled on the wheel. Inside, my vision was still blurred. My throat was hoarse, but I didn’t remember screaming. I imagined her screaming when her head hit the dashboard—
I banged the steering wheel to cut off the unwanted thoughts, and unwanted tears poured down my face as I crept back into my body.
My phone jiggled against my side. I wasn’t going to answer it. I wasn’t going to answer it ever again. But then those words came back to me. “True love is watching someone die.”
I feebly held the phone to my ear, using all of my strength to breathe.
“Hello? Cam?”
“She’s gone, Dad.”
I toned out the Oh no’s and I’m sorry’s, not wanting to think about whether he meant them or not. Not wanting to think about it all. He asked me if there was anything he could do. In all my life, I’ve never asked him for anything, but I couldn’t do this alone. Whatever differences me and my dad had—no matter how disgusted or angry I was—none of them were worth losing him, too. Our relationship had been reborn by the remembrance of one sentence.
“I just really need you right now.” My breath quivered through my chest. “I don’t have anyone else.”
“Whatever you want, son. I’m here.”
But for how long… I looked down at my left arm. I rolled up my sleeve and zoned in on the brown mark in the center of my forearm. The doctors said the melanoma had started to spread and that chemo was my only chance of living, but even that wasn’t a guaranteed cure. My jaw clenched as my dad called my name, and another raindrop slid down my cheek. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
THE END
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