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I’m helpless, powerless. My chest feels like it’s cracking over and over again as I make my purchase and walk over to the elevators. ICU is on the third floor. I grab my lame gifts and slowly walk into the elevator and hit number five.
My head is starting to pound from the crying.
My hands shake as the smell of hospital fills the air. Like medicine and bleach, like sickness and death.
The doors slowly open, I walk past the nurses’ station and look at the numbers on the doors. I’m not ready for this. I’m not.
I stop in front of her door and slowly let myself in.
The door pushes open. A nurse is checking her vitals. “Oh, you just missed her sister, she should be back soon, visiting hours are almost over.”
“Yeah.” My voice cracks. “Is there a waiting room I can go to once they’re over?”
“When you’re done visiting, I’ll show you, all right?”
I nod. “Is she making any progress?”
The nurse’s face falls. “She’s stable.”
That’s like saying she’s in a vegetative state. A way for them to make you feel better because hey she could be dead—she may as well be.
The nurse walks by me and clicks the door shut, so many machines are plugged in around her. Nobody told me about the bruising on her arms and face, was that normal too?
I set the bear and flowers down on the table and pull up a chair next to the bed, and reach for her hand. I squeeze it and look for the bracelet but it’s not there, they probably took it off of her. I look over at the nightstand and sure enough, it’s right there with a picture of her and Sophie.
Damn it!
“I’m so sorry,” I rasp. “So fucking sorry.”
Maybe if I would have stayed I could have prevented this, if I would have listened, was it my fault her condition declined?
Tears stream down my cheeks. “I love you, Chloe. I was just upset, I felt betrayed, I never told you my story but maybe I’ll tell you now, I heard people can still hear in comas, but I have no clue if it’s true. When Ambrose and I were in high school, we had this girl we were both obsessed with, we later found out she was basically pinning us against each other and then admitted it one day. We were competitive, and each of us were just horny idiots. One night at a party, she said she wanted—us both. And we were so damn young and stupid we agreed and furthermore took drinks from her, we later found out she’d drugged us, her whole fantasy was for me and Ambrose to hook up with each other and with her, she made us do some really messed up things, but our inhibitions were gone and on top of that, she took pictures while we were unconscious, touched us—“ I shudder. “—then she used them as a way to threaten us if we ever said anything. In order to protect my best friend, I pulled her away from him, purposefully making it seem like I wanted her when really I was trying to take the fall for him. Our fathers at the time ended up finding out, we sued her, she left, only later we found out she was pregnant and lost the baby, we still don’t know who’s it was since both of us had been with her. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this, except, I know what it’s like to be on both ends of betrayal—it took a while for me and Ambrose to make up only for me to fall for the girl he’s now engaged to. In both scenarios I thought I was in love, in the last one, I knew she was his, not mine, so when I came to Seaside I was like man, finally. Finally, someone who gets me. I don’t give a fuck if you’re sick, I want to hold your hair when you puke, I want to hold your hand when you’re scared, and I want to carry you when you can’t carry yourself. You think I cared that you were sick? That’s complete bullshit. When you love someone, you love every broken part of them, you don’t get to choose and the idiots that do just give us all a bad name. Love is when you accept no matter what, even if it doesn’t benefit you—you love people where they’re at and you hold their hands if they stand still, stumble backward, or move forward. Love isn’t defined by how healthy you are or what you can give me. Love is defined by all those beautiful, tiny, wonderful moments were given. I guess I just wanted you to know that.” I get up and lower her hand back down. “I brought you a bear and flowers, stupid, I know, but I wanted to do something other than just wish you would open your eyes.”
I turn around and see Sophie.
Wait.
I look closer. “Sophie?”
“Do you mean that?” she asks, taking a step forward, she looks really pale, then again her twin’s in a coma. “What you just said? Do you mean it?”
I can’t speak.
Why does she sound so much like Chloe? I’m hallucinating and it’s not fair, the universe is a cruel, horrible place.
Tears slide down my cheeks.
And then she’s in my arms. “Did you?”
I want to shove her away but I need the comfort and I know she does too, slowly I lower my chin to her head and sniff.
What? Now I’m even smelling her perfume.
She starts sobbing against my chest. “I’m sorry Sophie.”
She tenses in my arms and pulls back. “Sophie?”
My eyes search hers, then widen. “Chloe?”
