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“If you think you’re leaving here without me doing that to you again, you are sorely mistaken.”
Her blush travels from her cheeks all the way down her chest and before I know it, my lips are following the trail and my plan of waiting fifteen minutes goes right out the window.
Kate
I’m exhausted.
Drew took me three times and every time was better and more intense than the last, something I didn’t know was possible. My connection to Drew is something I wasn’t expecting, yet the longer I’m around him, the more I crave his voice, his touch, and his guidance. Over the past few weeks, I knew in my gut that what I was feeling toward him wasn’t friendly, but his disdain for my past behavior has always lingered underneath every touch, every conversation, and every secret glance.
We spend most of the night talking. I learn everything I could ever want to know about him. He hates Indian food, loves Thai food, and yet will not eat Chinese food. He is close with the same guys he hung out with in high school, something I find endearing and yet the fact that each and every one of them is completely different than they were in high school only serves to make me jealous that I didn’t have that kind of connection with anyone. He complains about Addison and how her new boyfriend is six years younger than her, something I made a note to talk to her about the next time I see her, because... that’s some gossip right there. He loves hockey, football, and baseball. When I ask which sport is his favorite, he admits that he defaults to what sports are playing that time of year.
He delves into my past, wanting to know what I did once I graduated, and I tell him about becoming a graphic designer, something I can tell shocks him at first, but once I explain everything that I do, he admits that it makes sense.
“I always saw you drawing and shit, so you going into something creative doesn’t surprise me.”
I take a moment to bask in the fact that he remembers that I used to love to draw, but I shake the memories away, hoping to avoid the one topic I don’t want to broach, my mother. I try to avoid the subject, but Drew isn’t one to brush past something that important, so we spend the rest of the night talking about what happened in high school and what’s happening now. It’s not lost on him how eerily similar they seem, yet this time I know my time is up.
We finally fall asleep around three in the morning, Drew’s body surrounding mine as my eyes drift closed and I sink deep into his bed because I can’t remember the last time I felt this safe and content.
That feeling didn’t last long as I was awoken by my phone ringing in the hallway by the front door. The ringtone is faint, but it still wakes me as that sinking feeling creeps underneath my skin and my hands begin to shake as I detangle myself from Drew’s embrace, only to run into the hall.
“Hello?” I whisper, not wanting to wake Drew.
“Kate?” I recognize my mother’s nurse Angie on the line and it’s then I know my time is up.
The happiness I felt just a few short hours earlier has evaporated into a mist that is now trying to suffocate me.
“Yes,” I croak, not trusting my own voice. I close my eyes and brace myself.
“We need you to come to the hospital. Your mother is declining fast, and we don’t know how much time she has left.”
The tears are silent, the screams trapped in my throat as I fall back against the wall and sink to the floor. I don’t know what to say to the nurse, I don’t even know how I get up off the floor and find my clothes and purse. All I know is that I make my way out of Drew’s front door, running to my car and driving as fast as I can to the hospital.
Four hours.
That’s how long it took before my mother took her last breath and I was officially alone for the first time in my life. I didn’t expect the lack of machines beeping to be the trigger to set the tears falling from my eyes. But here we are.
“Kate?” Angie comes in and sits beside me.
I know she expects me to lift my head from where it’s resting on my mother’s hand, which is rapidly growing cold.
“We need to move her,” her voice is soft, and I don’t know why that makes the tears fall faster, but the fact that she sounds just like my mother causes every limb in my body to go numb.
I’m alone.
She’s gone.
Angie rests her hand on my back, and I finally concede, sitting back in my chair, not hiding how utterly broken I am in this moment. The sympathy staring back at me would normally make me angry, but right now I’m void of any emotion but the hollow feeling that is rapidly growing inside of me. I take out my phone to call Drew, explain that I didn’t mean to leave without waking him, but before I can press his name the doctor comes in and tries to calmly explain the next steps. I try my hardest to wrap my head around what’s happening, but no matter what they say, all I can see, all I can hear is the way my mother’s breaths stuttered right before she left me. All I can focus on is the empty bed that used to support the one woman that has supported me my entire life. She faded away before my eyes and now every time I close them, her lifeless eyes are all I see.
I am not okay.
Drew
She’s gone.
It’s been three days since I woke up with Kate gone, nowhere to be found. At first, I wondered if she was just in the bathroom or in the kitchen making breakfast. But the second I got up and started wandering around my very quiet, very empty house, I knew she left.
In the back of my head, I know where she is, it doesn’t take a genius to know that she's probably at the hospital with her mom, and I gave her time. I gave her two days of radio silence because I know this situation is hard, and me asking for attention is probably the last thing she needs, but it’s going on day three of worrying and I’m beginning to question everything. Was it even real for her? Does she not want me around to support her or am I just a body she wanted to keep her warm as she dealt with her grief? All of those insecurities she caused all those years ago are rushing to the surface and I hate that it’s come to this. I wanted her and me to be different, I want to be there for everything, not just the easy parts and right now I'm wondering if it’s even worth it.
