The Time Until (23 page)

I’m sure Emily would have approved.

“Believe it or not, I count this as a good thing,”
Nate says next to me.
 
I look at him
curiously.
 
What does that mean?
 
Nate interprets the look on my face and
answers my unspoken question.

“Her eyes being open was one of the signs that
things were looking up that the doctor told us
about.
”
I guess that’s a good reason to think that then.
 
Nate goes over to his wife and helps her up
before helping her to a chair to sit and calm down.

After a few minutes, I make my way to stand behind
Kate.
 
She takes my hand when I place it
on her shoulder.
 
I stare at Sam’s face,
silently trying to convince her to move with my eyes.
 
She just stares out to space and I can’t stop
the thoughts that race through my head.
 
Dead eyes, empty eyes, zombie eyes, whatever you want to call them, they
aren’t the eyes of a living breathing human.

I’ve had enough.
 
Looking at her is hurting me more than living without her would.
 
At least then, I could move on.
 
With her bouncing between life and death —
one minute dead, then other not — I can’t seem to get my bearings.
 
I can’t leave it as long as she’s alive, not
that it was impossible, just physically hard to do.
 
A part of me would never let me leave without
confirming that she’s never going to come back.

It would hurt like hell if she dies, but it’s
better than not knowing.

“Kate,” I swallow a lump, “can you give me a ride
home.” My voice is soft and scratchy.
 
I
know that tears are not far off, but I fight them as Kate nods her head and
grabs her purse.
 
Saying my goodbyes to
Nate and Mary I follow Kate out the door.

I lose my battle by the time we reach the parking
lot and Kate comforts me with an arm around my shoulder.

Present Day

It feels
          
weird
being in my room again.
 
A lot has
happened since I was last here — bar fight, knife wound, Sam’s eyes.
 
Sam’s eyes still haunt me.
 
I can’t get them out of my head.
 
She used to be so full of life and now
nothing.

There’s a knock on the door and Jenny walks in
after I answer.

“So I hear that Sam’s eyes are open,” she
fishes.
 
She wants to know how I’m doing
and this is her roundabout way of asking.

“Yeah, they are,” is all I tell her.
 
She comes and sits down next to me.
 
There’s no comforting arm or a pat on the leg
in support, she just sits there,
staring
into the same
space I am.
 
Right now, that’s the best
form of sympathy she could have given me.

“You want to talk about it?” she asks. She’s
always the one who wants to fix things.
 
I shake my head ‘no’.
 
She lets
out a defeated sigh and just sits there again in silence.

Having her next to me and not talking starts to
get on my nerves.
 
I find myself wanting
to talk to her about everything I’m feeling just to get her to go away.
 
I want to keep them inside, not sure why it’s
so important to do so — it’s just one of those inexplicable feelings you get
some times.
 
Jenny has this way of
breaking me down without saying a word.

It’s annoying.

“Fine,” I roll my eyes at her, “I’ll talk.”
 
She beams at me and I sigh.

“She’s dead.
 
That’s the best way I can describe what I saw in her eyes,” I explain
and her jaw drops.

“I’m sorry, Al.
 
I had no idea.” She’s much more mature than she needs to be.
 
I nod my head then drop it in shame.

“The thing is
Jenny,
I
almost want her to die.” She sucks in a breath.

“I hate seeing her like this,” I continue, “she’s
suffering and if she does wake up, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be the
same.
 
In fact, I know she won’t be; she
has no legs.
 
Life will only get harder
for her the longer she lives.”

“I can’t wish that on her,” I say as I blink some
tears away and push forward.

“But I also can’t imagine a future without her in
it.
 
She’s the best part of me and having
that taken away is simply too much to even think about.
 
It would be hard, but having her die and
ending her suffering is almost better.
 
I
just don’t know if I could bear it.” Soppy tears move slowly down my face and I
marvel at myself that I actually got through that speech without choking on my
heart.

Jenny looks at me with a weird combination of
sympathy and sadness.

“Well,
it’s
times like
these that you need to ask yourself: what would Sam do?” she says.

 
I let out a
short laugh.
 
Seriously?

“What would Sam do?” I ask raising my eyebrow in
amusement.
 
Jenny smiles and nods her
head.

“Yep, my friends and I thought it up.
 
Sam is always doing what she wants to do and
whatever she thinks is right.
 
So, what
would Sam do?
 
Pretty catchy don’t ya
think?”
 
I shake my head at the crazy sense
she’s making.
 
Sam is always doing crazy
things, but they never violate her weird sense of justice or morality — as long
as you don’t count that one night in the park, which I don’t.
 
So I think about it.
 
What
would
Sam do?

“I guess Sam would make the best of the bad
situation.
 
She’s always been the one who
could turn lemons into fruit punch.
 
She’d go with the flow and try her best no matter what happens.” Jenny
is smiling like a sun at me.

“How can I ask any different of myself?” I ask
more to myself than Jenny.

“You’ll be just fine, big bro.
 
Sam is going to pull through and you’re going
to help her through whatever it is that will happen next.
 
Because you are that way, you care for Sam
more than I think you care for me.” She stops my protest with her hand.

“No, no.
 
I’m not jealous.
 
In fact, I like
knowing that you care for her like that.
 
It makes me proud to be your sister.” I smile softly.
 
She’s a handful and a brat, but I love her
all the same.

“Well, thanks for the pep
talk,
”
I tell her, “you’re pretty smart sometimes.” She fake recoils in horror.

“
Eww
, Alan.
 
Incest is
NOT
the best.
 
I know I’m attractive, but
having my older brother call me pretty is something on par with having ants
crawl down my spine.”
 
She shivers and I
laugh at her obvious misinterpretation of what I said.
 
She did it on purpose of course, but it still
loosened the mood up a bit.
 
She laughs
as she dodges my half-hearted attempt at hitting her.

“Sam will wake up, Al, and all your fears and
frustrations will disappear with one look into her very alive and sparkling
eyes again,” Jenny says to me just before she ducks out of the room.

Sam’s eyes used to sparkle and I try to remember
what they looked like in the past.
 
Her
empty and defective eyes are all that appear in front of me.
 
I instead try to think of time that
made
her eyes sparkle.

Maybe I’ll have better luck that way.

4 Years Ago (Age 16):
 
May

“Your room is actually clean, I’m impressed,”
Sam says. She has been here a number of times with the room clean.
 
For some reason, she just loves to give me a
hard time about it.
 
Not that I complain,
I’m just happy having her with me again.

For the most part, Sam and I have gotten back
into our old routine.
 
Except for the
occasional roll in the hay and the multitudes of kisses, we’re pretty much back
in friend mode.
 
It’s comfortable.
 
I like the way it feels when we’re together.

“What do you mean ‘you’re impressed’?
 
You’ve been here plenty of times when the
room is clean.” I stalk over to her sitting on the bed.
 
She sees the gleam in my eye and she giggles.
 
Her eyes light up as I get closer.

“And I’m impressed every single time,” she
teases.

“Why you,” I shout.
 
Sam lets out a yelp as I leap onto her and
pin her to the bed.
 
I immediately
proceed to tickle her and before long, we’re both gasping for breath.
 
She can retaliate with the best of them and
she knows where all my ticklish spots are.
 
We call a truce and lay there in each other’s arms.

Silence never felt so comfortable.

“I saw Kate today,” Sam mentions breaking the
silence.
 
Katelyn kind of disappeared
from school in the recent months.
 
Many
rumors about where she went and what she’s doing have been flying around school
for weeks, but nothing really sounds plausible.
 
Some are really creative and put the rumors of Sam and me in the past to
shame.

Not that I’m envious or anything.

“Really?
 
Where was she?” I ask innocently and my
pseudo-disinterest in the subject doesn’t get past Sam.
 
She knows me too well.

“It’s okay to be interested in her, Al.
 
She was important to you at one time.”

“She has been in my head lately.
 
I’ve been wondering where she went and why.”

“I see how it is!”
 
Sam shouts, which makes
me suddenly jump.
 

“How dare you think of another girl while in
bed with
me.
 
That’s just rude!” I laugh a little at her joke — at
least,
I hope it’s a joke.
 
She starts hitting
me in the chest with light taps.
 
She has
the cutest look on her face — all scrunched up and wrinkled with concentration
— as she tries to look like she’s using all her strength.
 
I let her go for a few minutes as I stare at
her adorable effort.

“What are you doing?” I finally ask.
 
She doesn’t stop hitting me, but her
concentration face slips slightly with a smile.

“I’m beating you to death.
 
It’s the beating of your life.”

“Is that right?
 
We’ll just have to see about that.” Thus starts tickle-fest round two.

“Seriously though, I have been worried about
her,” I say after I finally manage to catch my breath. “What happened to her?”
Sam raises an eyebrow at me.

“I mean other than the obvious,” I add quickly.

“Well, I found out that part,” she says pausing
for effect, “she’s been at home.”
 
That’s
kind of anticlimactic if you ask me.

“She has the necessary credits and all the
required classes to graduate,” she continues.
 
I think I know where this going, but I’m not sure.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s graduating early, the end of this
year.
 
You know, like in a few
weeks.”
 
Wow, I didn’t see that
coming.
 
Kate was smart and I know she’s
destined for great things, but graduating early is still a big surprise.

“We should go and see her,” Sam says, “I think
we should congratulate her.” I’m not sure Kate wants to see us.
 
Kate made things pretty clear that day when
she walked out of my house that she was not happy with me — and Sam.
 
Every day since then has been a constant
reminder about it.

“I’m not sure, Sam, I don’t think she wants to
see us still.” Sam seems forlorn about it.
 
Has Sam always liked Kate this much?
 

“I just feel so guilty for what we did to her,”
she answers my unspoken question, “I thought this could be a good way to clear
the air between us.”
 
I shake my head.

“You did nothing, I did it.
 
But if you want to see her, then I‘ll go with
you.”

“Thank you,” she says.
 
Then she smiles and I know that smile.
 
That smile makes me think things I shouldn’t
think.
 
Her smile makes her eyes sparkle
like crystal reflecting the sun.
 
She
grabs my shirt and pulls me into a kiss, which quickly progresses to more.

How bad could it be just to congratulate her?

4 Years Ago (Age 16):
 
June

“What are you doing here?” Kate practically
yells at us.
 
The anger in her voice hurts
almost as much as the sadness and hurt in her eyes.
 
She shifts her diploma from one hand to the
other as a sign of how uncomfortable she is.
 
I hate seeing her like this, especially when I know she’s uncomfortable
because I’m here.

“We just wanted to congratulate you,” Sam
explains.
 
The look that passes over
Kate’s face makes me know immediately that this is a very bad idea.
 
Our relationship is not to this stage yet.

“What, you run out of salt?” Kate spits.
 
Sam recoils slightly.

“Katelyn, we’re so—” Sam starts, but is cut off
by a death stare by Katelyn.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she declares
with extra venom, “either of you.”
 
Kate
turns to leave.
 
I can’t take this
anymore, I know what I did was wrong, but I wasn’t trying to hurt her.
 
That was an unintentional consequence of my
and Sam’s merry-go-round.
 
She has to
know that we didn’t mean to cause her pain like this.

I suddenly leave Sam’s side and run after Kate,
grabbing her by the wrist in order to catch her attention.

“Let me go, Alan,” she shrieks, more startled
then hurt.

“No, Kate, I won’t.
 
Look I understand that what happened between
us was painful, but is that any reason to be like this?”
 
Kate looks at me like I just told her the sky
was purple this afternoon.
 
She slowly
starts shaking her head with her mouth hanging open.

“Like what, Alan?
 
Hurt?
 
Angry?
 
Betrayed?
 
Because, yeah, I’m pretty sure I do have a
reason to feel all those things.” I drop my head to stop looking at her.
 
She knows how to go right to the heart and
bury that guilt deep.

“Look, Kate,” I choke a little on my
words.
 
I swallow before continuing, “I’m
sorry for the way things went.
 
I had no
intention of anything like this happening when I started dating you.
 
It just happened.”
 
Kate whips her hand out of my grasp and
crosses it with the other in front of her, glaring at me.

“Do you feel better now?” she asks me after a
short pause.
 
Her reaction confuses
me.
 
I just apologized to her and she’s
looking at me like I just tried to kill her puppy.

“I’m trying to apologize to you,” I tell her
finally.

“No, you are trying to relieve some of the
guilt you feel for cheating on and hurting me.
 
You want me to accept and forgive your betrayal. You want me to stop
your pain for you,” she scolds each word leaving little paper cuts on my soul.

I’m never cheating again;
it’s
way too painful.

“I told you before, Alan, I want you to
remember this day for the rest of your life.
 
I know I will.
 
Every time you
look at her, I want you to remember the pain you caused me.
 
When you take her out on dates, know that we
did that first.
 
When you sleep with her,
I want you to remember that your first time with her was behind my back.
 
If you ever decide to get married, I want you
to know that I wanted that with you.
 
If,
or when, you decide to have kids, remember that I wanted that with you.
 
And when the pain of knowing how you hurt me
gets too much for you, I want you to remember that you brought it on yourself.”
Kate’s glare
sizzles
my skin and she holds for longer
than I think is necessary before she spins around and stomps away.
 

“I just want this all to go away,” she shouts
to me after a few steps, turning to face me.
 
“I just want to think of this as a bad dream.” She turns around with
tears on her cheeks and hurt in her eyes.

“Don’t ever talk to me again,” she says and then
marches out of my life for good.

Present Day

It’s been three days since I last visited Sam’s
hospital room.
 
I’ve been trying to get
the courage up to face her eyes again, but even now, I know I don’t have enough.
 
Her eyes are still dead and lifeless. I can’t
see past them.

They have removed her breathing tube though.
 
Apparently, they found out last night that
she was fighting the tube.
 
She was
trying to breathe and the tube was pushing air into her lungs when she didn’t
need it.
 
It was harrowing experience and
I couldn’t get myself to see her.

I hate the way I’m acting right now.
 
It’s not me.
 
I’m not this kind of guy.

Katelyn walks through my bedroom door without knocking,
followed by Ethan, scaring the crap out of me.

“Holy shit, Kate, you scared me!” I shout at her,
but she seems completely unaffected by my tone of voice.
 
She just looks at me like I’m crazy.
 
Maybe I am.

“She woke up,” is all she says as she looks at
me.
 
It takes a second for me to process
that information.

“Wait, what?
 
Repeat that for me, please.”

“She.
 
Woke.
 
Up.” she says slowly.

“And you aren’t there to see her.”

It takes me all of five seconds to get dressed.

“Why didn’t anyone call me?” I ask as Kate, Ethan,
and I run through the automatic sliding doors of the hospital.

“They tried.
 
When you didn’t answer your phone they called Ethan and I happened to be
with him at the time.” I look at my phone real fast, curse under my breath and
then slam it back into my pocket.

“Damn, I forgot to charge it last night.” I’m
pissed at myself for forgetting, but something else draws my attention when I
turn the corner to the corridor to Sam’s room.
 
Nate and Mary are standing in the hall holding each other and my heart
drops at the look on their faces.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I get closer.
 
Mary looks at me as if she doesn’t know me,
but only for a second before recognition fills her eyes.
 
This coma thing is really doing a number on
her.

“Alan,” she whispers, her voice hoarse from
crying, “
how
have you been?” She is wiping her eyes of
any excess tears and seems to have missed my original question.

“What’s wrong, Mary?” I try to keep the impatience
out of my voice, but that’s getting harder to do these days.
 
Placing a hand on her shoulder to steady
myself and comfort her, I wait for what she has to tell me — every thought
going through my head is bad.

“Nothing, just really happy she’s awake,” Mary
answers.

“They’re running some tests right now,” Nate tells
me with a gentle squeeze of my shoulder.
 
I nod my head and wait with them.

It doesn’t take the doctor and nurses long to
leave the room.
 
The doctor walks up to
Mary and Nate, I put myself in the back behind them to listen to what he has to
say.

“The swelling in her brain has diminished greatly
and she’s fully alert and cognitive,” he lists, “we want to keep her here for
observation for a few days, but, for now, it seems the worst is over.”

“Can we see her?” Mary asks with a hopeful
tone.
 
The doctor smiles at her.

“Of course, but I would like to limit her access
to small, one or two people, groups.
 
I
don’t want to overwhelm her now that she’s finally awake.
 
Too much stimulation could cause more
problems for her.”
 
We all nod our
agreement as he bids us farewell and walks away looking at his clipboard.

I casually push Mary and Nate toward the door and
then pretend to find something interesting on the ceiling while whistling
innocently.
 
Nate looks back at me and
laughs at me.
 
A broad smile spreads
across my face but I don’t look away from the ceiling.
 
Mary pulls me into a giant hug.

“Thank you,” she tells me with a pat on the back.

“You’re welcome.
 
You guys deserve to have the first visit,” I whisper in her ear and
plant a kiss on her cheek, “tell her I’ll see her soon.”

It’s almost an hour before Nate and Mary exit the
room.
 
Mary is red-eyed and Nate looks a
little worse for wear.
 
Nate has Mary
pulled tightly into his side.
 
I stand up
and give them both a hug at the same time.
 
Mary grabs my hand and squeezes it.

“Your turn.
 
She’s waiting for you.” I look over her
shoulder at the door and then nod my head before I head to the room.

As soon as I enter I notice the silence, there is
no breathing apparatus constantly blowing and sucking air.
 
There is still a steady beep of her heart monitor,
but that’s not enough to fend against the silence I’m not used to hearing.
 
I walk slowly.
 
It’s silly, but I’m actually scared to see
her awake.
 
Lost in thought, I don’t
realize I reached the end of the hallway until I hear Sam’s gentle, but hoarse,
whisper.

“Al?
”