The Time Until (15 page)

“I’ll give you some time to yourselves, but,
unfortunately, I have to kick you out a little later for her physical therapy,”
the nurse tells me over her shoulder.
 
I
nod my head.
 
I softly stroke the back of
Sam’s hand as I silently contemplate everything that’s been happen so far.
 
I remember the doctor saying that talking to
her is good and sometimes it even helps in the recovery process.

“Hey, Sammy,” I start to say, but quickly pause in
order to swallow the lump in my throat, “I don’t know what to say.” I stop
rubbing her hand as I try to figure out where to begin.
 
I’ve never had to explain things like this to
her before, she’s always just been there.
 
She was always in the middle of everything.

She was the one always explaining things.

I run a hand through my hair in frustration.
 
This is harder than I thought it was going to
be, in more ways than one.
 
I’m still not
used to having Sam bed-ridden like this.
 
It does weird things to me seeing her like this.

I let out a huff of air.

“I got released yesterday.
 
The nurses chipped in to get me an eye patch
…
 
oh
yeah, I forgot
to tell you about that.
 
My left eye has
been damaged beyond repair.
 
I can’t play
soccer anymore, driving is out of the question and I have no idea what’s going
to happen with the scholarships.” My voice catches on the lump that’s forming
on my throat.

“Jesus, Sammy, I’m so sorry.
 
I know how much you loved having us go to the
same college.
 
I wish I could have
changed things so that this didn’t happen.”
 
I pause to catch my breath a bit.

“I’m going to miss soccer.
 
You know how much I love soccer.” I cup her
hand in mine and place her palm on my cheek.
 
I wish she would respond to me, but nothing happens and I reluctantly
continue my story as my eye start to sting.

“Anyway, the patch has this cupid’s arrow going
through a heart and it’s all bloody on the other end.
 
I love it.” I chuckle absently in thought.
“Apparently I made an impression on the nurses.
 
I nearly killed myself trying to get to you that first night.
 
Took one step out of bed and fell to the
floor.
 
I was constantly asking about you
until they finally agreed to let me see you.”
A slow sigh
before continuing.

“Quentin and Arianna
are
a couple now,” I say with a small smile.
 
It vaguely crosses my mind that she’s already seen them together, but I
don’t care.
 
I just want to talk to her,
hoping my voice registers in the dreamlike world she’s living in right
now.
 
“I know you’d want to hear about
that.
 
They make an odd couple, but
strangely it works for them.” A tear runs down my cheek from underneath my eye
patch, more follow from the other eye.
 
No sobbing or wailing.
 
No crying
or weeping.
 
Just an outward display of
the inner most emotion I’m feeling.
 
Frustration and despair.

“Ethan came by and stayed in the room with me for
a night.
 
He told one of his classic
stories about one of his most recent adventures, it’s hilarious and I can’t
wait for you to hear it.” My words hesitate at the wall in my windpipe.
 
I use my hand to wipe the frustrated tears
from my cheeks.
 
I wish Sam would react
to me talking to her so at least I know she’s okay.
 
I feel like I’m talking to a wall – or a
grave stone.
 
I hear you can feel better
by doing that, but I’m not talking to a wall or a grave stone.
 
I’m talking to a living breathing human that
is incapable of answering back at the moment.
 
The frustration of knowing she’s here in front of me but not able to react
is enough to send more discouraged tears from my eyes.

“You remember how well Ethan can tell a
story.
 
I was laughing so hard my hurts
hurt,” I croak.
 
I swallow the lump.

“I don’t know if he told you when he was in here
but Ethan has a new lady he likes.
 
I
know, I know.
 
But this one seems
different.
 
I think it might actually
last this time.
 
No more Halo therapy for
me and no more long talks with ex-girlfriends for you.
 
I have my fingers crossed and
everything.”
 
I smile through the tears.
 
I really do hope it works out for Ethan this
time.
 
It’s been too long and he’s due
for a happy ending.

“The gang is going to take me Sidetrack
tonight.
 
They seem to think I need a
breather.
 
Maybe they’re right.”

I pause for a long time thinking about more to
talk about and coming up empty.
 
I’m not
used to talking to Sam about stuff like this.
 
Sam has always just known what’s going on, no explanation necessary.
 
Sam is such a big part of my life and she’s
always just been there.

It’s hard holding back the tears when I think
about the reason I have to do this now.

“I’m not sure I’m doing this right.
 
You’ve always just been there and never
really needed a play by play like this.
 
It hurts.
 
It hurts so much seeing
you like this.” My cheeks grow wet as I give up trying to hold myself
back.
 
I take a deep calming breath.

“I’m not sure I’m strong enough for this,” I
whisper and sob softly into my hands until my eyes dry up.

Time to confess my shortcomings.

“So, I went to that guy’s arraignment today.
 
That was a total waste of time.
 
He only got a slap on the wrist.”
 
Just thinking about it is enough to get my
blood boiling again.
 
I take a calming breath,
using Sam’s familiar features to help, and calm down before continuing.

“I nearly jumped him when the sentence was read
out loud.
 
I guess I should have thought
about it a little, since I would probably be in jail right now if not for Ethan
and Quentin.
 
It was definitely not one
of my finer moments.” I wish I had acted a little more grown-up in the
courtroom earlier.
 
I could have been the
better man and let it go in hopes that there will be another way to make him
pay.
 
Instead, I bubbled over and made a
spectacle of myself.
 
It’s not that I
actually stopped to think about what I was doing; in fact, my mind was pretty
much in la-la land smoking a blunt and sipping a piña colada on the beach.

My emotions had full run of the chassis.

Sam doesn’t even react to my speech and I that
makes me even more depressed about everything.
 
She always used to have a comment about what I had to say, no matter how
mundane.
 
I find myself longing for
that
Sam to come back to me.
 
The frustration of talking to
this
Sam is getting too much to bear.

She doesn’t grip my hand when I grab hers.

She doesn’t react to my touch on her face anymore.

She’s lying in bed without moving.

She’s not talking about every little thing that
happened to her during the course of a day.

She’s not looking at me with her beautiful
chocolate brown eyes.

Her magnificent auburn hair is butchered and gone.

She has tubes and wires growing from almost every
possible place on her body.

I can’t get her to wake up.

It’s just too much for me.
 
I can’t hold on anymore.
 
The pain I feel looking at her swells bigger
than my heart and lungs, forces itself up my throat and out my mouth.
 
The sob is deep and painful.
 
Tears stream down my face as my body is
rocked by my sobbing.
 
I once again
clench my teeth to keep from wailing.

“Wake up, Sam.
 
Please wake up,” I sob with her hand to my forehead, praying that she
listens to my plea.

Desperate.

“I can’t do this without you,” I sob more.
 
I lean in close to her face. “It hurts so
much seeing you like this.”

“Please wake up,” I ask softly into her ear,
“please.”

During my breakdown, I failed to hear the nurse walk
back into the room.
 
I catch a glimpse of
her out the corner of my eye as I go back to sitting in my seat.
 
She wipes tears from her face and tries to
smile for me.

Strangely, I appreciate the effort.
 

Feeling the need to touch her one more time, I reach
over and move a stray bandage out of her face.
 
In that instant, her face flinches slightly.
 
My heart leaps into my throat and my breath
catches.

Did I really see her do that?

It was the slightest of movements, easily mistaken
for something else.
 
I look at the nurse
and she’s smiling at me.
 
Did she see the
movement?

“Did you see that?” The nurse looks at me with a
smile and nods.
 
My heart starts
galloping in my chest.
 
Should I call
someone?
 
Is this it?
 
Is she waking up?

The nurse sees the look on my face.

“This is only the beginning,” she explains, “she’s
still asleep.
 
The flinch was a reflex,
nothing more.
 
She’s not out of the woods
yet.” I look at her in defeat.
 
That’s
it?
 
She’s not waking up; it’s just an
involuntary movement?
 
My heart plummets
into my stomach.
 
I turn to face Sam as I
plead with her in my mind to wake up as the nurse looks at me with sympathy.

“Let me tell you this though,” I slowly turn
toward her.

“The fact that she flinched at all is a good
sign.
 
Hopefully in the coming days and
weeks we’ll see more signs of life from her,” she pauses.

“She hasn’t moved like that since the surgery, so
think of it as a start to something more,” she says. “Something better,” she
whispers.
 
I slowly nod my head without
taking my eyes of Sam’s face.

The nurse gives me a small, sad smile and leaves
the room with a soft click from the door closing.
 
I take her hand again and kiss her fingers
softly.

4 Years Ago (Age 16):
 
July

Today is my sixteenth birthday.
 
I’ve been alive for 16 years and 11 of those
have been with Sam, though lately we haven’t talked at all.
 
She’s around here somewhere, with Caleb.

My parents actually gave me free reign of the
house this afternoon.
 
They took my
nine-year-old sister, Jennifer, to the water park, leaving my brother in
charge.
 
I have to admit they’re the
coolest parents I know.
 
So, all my
friends are trashing my backyard.
 
We
have a pool, though it’s not an in-ground like Quentin has.
 
My dad bought an above ground pool and built
his own deck around it.
 
It’s not as cool
as an in-ground, but it’s nowhere near as expensive.

Arianna is dunking Quentin in the pool, I’m
pretty sure he said something stupid again.
 
Ethan is, of course, hitting on the girls sunbathing on the deck.
 
It’s working out for him since they’re
giggling at the attention.
 
Katelyn is
gone — or at least she’s not right next to me.
 
The rest of the ‘guests’ to my party are no names and people I barely
know.
 
You can’t have a high school party
without inviting the entire student body.
 
It helps that they all know my name — even if I don’t know theirs.
 
It makes inviting them easier.

It’s social suicide to have an empty party.

I decide that standing here watching everyone
is boring and go looking for Kate.
 
Putting my drink on the patio table as I go into the house, I look
around for her.
 
I eventually find her
with a group of people crowding the downstairs bathroom.
 
I come up behind her and place my hand on her
back.

“What’s going on?” I ask her.
 
She — and a few others there — quickly hush
me.
 
I swiftly cover my mouth and wonder
what’s happening.
 
Katelyn points at the
door with a wickedly smug grin on her face — she looks entirely too satisfied.
 
Her face reminds me of her ‘special gift’ she
gave me for the party interlude.
 
Best
damn blowjob I ever had — first one I ever had.
 
I snap out of my delusion at the sound of soft thumping from the
bathroom.

I position myself closer and place my ear near
the door.

“Oh my god,” the female voice comes through the
wood of the door.
 
My eyes instantly go
large as I recognize the voice.

Sam.

“You like that don’t you,” that was not a
question, but a statement.
 
There is
little moan sounds coming from inside and a stronger thumping than before —
like something hitting the wall.

With each thump, I can feel my heart shatter a
little more.

“Don’t stop,” she sounds like she’s really
enjoying herself, breathless and dazing.
 
Caleb grunts in satisfaction and I feel like my world is crashing around
me.

I know they probably have been doing this for a
while since they have been dating for a long time, but somewhere in the back of
my mind, I think I always hoped that she hadn’t.
 
With all of the crazy fantasies playing in my
mind about what’s probably going on in that room, I feel like I’m going
crazy.
 
I want to hit something — Caleb
preferably.

I settle for making a hasty retreat from the
area.

“You’re so fucking hot!” is the last thing I
hear from the bathroom as I collapse into a lawn chair in the backyard.
 
The oblivious people continue to play in the
pool and casually carry on around me.
 
The noise and bustle fades until all I can hear is my breathing and
heart beating.
 
I feel like my heart has
been ripped from my chest.
 
It physically
hurts me to think about what I just heard and the possibility it holds.

I cover my face with my hands in an attempt to
keep from breaking down.

“What’s wrong lil’ bro?” James asks me as he
walks up.
 
I look up at him and his face
falls immediately into a look of concern and compassion.
 
He looks around for someone and, obviously
not finding her, turns back to me.

“Where’s Sam?” he asks. It’s funny he would ask
about her, almost like he knows this about her.
 
I drop my eyes and point to the house.

“In the bathroom,” I tell him, “with
Caleb.”
 
James crouches next to me and
drapes an arm over my shoulders, giving them a little squeeze.

“I’m sorry, Al,” he comforts, “but you had to
know that was going on.” I nod my head from under my hands.
 
I eventually look up when I hear someone else
coming up.
 
I almost hope
it’s
Sam, but know it’s not.
 
Kate walks up to me with her smug look gone.
 
She seems to be genuinely concerned from me.

“I just wanted to believe that it wasn’t,” I
admit to him. “I was delusional in giving myself false hope.”

“How pathetic is that?” I degrade.
 
Kate drops to her knees in front of me and
places her hands on my knees.
 
She looks
into my eyes, sympathy radiating from her.

“You are not pathetic,” she refuses, “you were
in love, nothing more.” She pauses briefly.
 
James gives my shoulders another squeeze reminding me he’s there for
me.
 
Just like always.

“Listen to her bro,” James says with a teasing
smile, “she’s smarter than you.” I let out a sad laugh and an agreeing nod at
his joke.
 
Kate waits until we’re done.

“I always knew that Sam was the one,” she
admits and looks down in thought.

“But I also know that I have been given a place
in your heart as well.” She licks her lips nervously.

“That’s why, right now your heart feels like
it’s breaking, but it’s not going to completely shatter.” She looks me in the
eyes again: determined.

“My portion of your heart won’t let it.”

I can feel the tears prickle my eyes.
 
She is too good for me.
 
Even now, she’s with me and trying to help
me.

She even knew that I still loved Sam more than
her.

All walls between Katelyn and
myself
broke down at that moment.