"Hey, Lynn." Grace forcibly turned my head using her index finger until my eyes were pointing back at her own. "What would you do if a girl told you she was in love with you?"
+++++
The grating shriek of a chair had brought me out of my daze and threw my back into reality as I found resonance in a blank white wall. In that moment, we had shared a commonality of being hollow and emotionless. The only difference was that the wall had been numb to the world, life, and people. I wasn't. Grace had left me alone to be tortured, sucked dry by the things around me. I was envious of them both, the wall and Grace.
It was unfair. Why was the person I put so much into forced off of this planet? Why couldn't it have been both of us? She left me alone, stuck in the darkest pit I've ever felt. Pain overcame the wall, and the darkness had begun to constrict the life out of my mind and heart. I hadn't noticed it creeping in on me, not at all. It was a shadow in the night.
As though my head weighed a million pounds, I pushed myself off of the chairs and sat up like the Leaning Tower of Pisa only to find my mom sitting to my left. It had only taken a glare shot from my eyes for her to lift her own and stare back at me. Of all people, I had least expected her to be there. She never said another word about anything that happened at the police station, and more than anything, seemed to avoid the subject. That had said it all.
They both had 'accepted' what I was doing because I was their daughter, but they had never truly accepted the idea of it. I hadn't blamed them for not accepting the lifestyle I chose, they nor anyone else were obligated to accept it, but they had been selective with it. How was it 'okay' for me, yet wrong for anyone else? That was where the distance started to form, my anger and their hypocrisy.
"You can leave." I ran my hands over my face, as though the grogginess and burning in my eyes would fade as they fell along them. "Don't want to burden you with my problems or anything."
"Jesus, Lynn. How long are you going to stay this unreasonable?" she chomped back. "There was nothing we could do for a girl that was treated perfectly fine, not then and definitely not now."
"Then why the fu-"
If as though the world wanted to stop what had almost been another shouting match between us, the doors flew open and an older man came through, rippling his masking off as he passed me and went straight for Grace's parents. In the eerily quiet halls, it hadn't been hard to overhear him and his soft voice. A trained, seasoned voice that lacked empathy in every way.
"Mr. and Mrs. Lynch. Aside from broken bones, your daughter is in a coma." I could feel his eyes hit the side of my head. "We do not have a time table. It could be a few weeks, a few years, or anything in between."
I was conflicted in the deepest meaning of the word. Grace was still alive, breathing the very same air I had. At the same time, she had been dead to the world. It was as though my heart came back to life, but was ripped out before it had the chance to beat again. Was Grace alive and with me in some way? Or was she dead and gone with a beating heart? Would I hold her again? Would I feel those same eyes burn into me ever again?
What if she woke up right then? What would I say to her? How would I feel? What would she say to me? How would she feel? Was I the cause of what she had done? Had I been the one that made her try to kill herself? Why had she left me with questions and no answers? How come I was the one stuck with all of this confusion? How come I was the only one left to shed tears?
My head fell against the wall, eyes blurring with the same liquid I thought I had been empty of. All I had done for hours was cry and cry, attempting to expunge myself of the pain and misery I felt. But there I was, looking at the roof as the tears began to rapidly fall once more. Had that been all I was good for, crying like a child while the person I loved lied in a bed without movement or expression? Shouldn't I have been there for her?
"That's good. Maybe she'll wake up soon." I heard my mom speak.
What was soon? A year, months? It hadn't mattered. If it was Grace, I was going to wait for her. I would be there they day she opened her eyes again, the day she woke up. She needed to know that I was there for her, that I would always be there for her. I was able to say all of that, but how was I supposed to the handle pain I currently felt? How was I supposed to stop these tears from falling? The floodgates had opened and I wasn't stopping anything.
What happened next was unexpected. A hand crawled around my head and softly pulled me down onto a shoulder. For what felt like ages, it seemed as though my mom had avoided me. She had wanted nothing to do with me or the problems I had, that I was just another black sheep like my brother. I was a reject to her, but then she did this? She had just given me the shoulder I needed the most.
She gave me something to lean on. She gave me the security to break down, a shell to use as I left myself defenseless. Why now? Why hadn't she done this so long ago? Why hadn't she been the mother I needed back then, but was now? It hadn't mattered. All that mattered was that she had been there when I needed her the most - just as I had been about break wide open.
"...I didn't know how to talk you after all of that. I'd just learned that you were dating a girl, and then you started moving away from us." she whispered, her fingernails moved my hair away. "It was my responsibility to be there for you as your mother, and I wasn't. I'm sorry."
Even if I had her support now, what good would it do to cry on her shoulder all the time? Maybe having someone around to cry on was a good thing for me, and maybe I was the type to need someone other than myself for support. Who knew? Because I sure hadn't. It hadn't even taken twenty-four hours to show me just how little I knew about the people and the world around me. I was ignorant.
"For months, everyone could've done something. Her parents could have, you could have, and the worst part is that I should have. She was my girlfriend and I just left her alone. I left her out to dry, mom. I-I...It's my fault."
"You can't help someone you can't see." her grip tightened as her heartbeat pounded into my ear. "I can't tell you what's going to happen from now on, Lynn. I can't see the future, either, but I'll tell you Grace will come back. She's a strong girl who just needs time to figure things out."
Maybe she had been telling me what I wanted to hear, but maybe those were the words I needed to hear. Perhaps I needed lies to cope before I could accept the truth of reality, and she had known that. Maybe she had known how I weak was from the beginning, and knew that she had to lie to me for my own good, so I wouldn't have crushed myself with my own guilt.
Even if everything she had said were lies, it felt like she had truly been my mother for the first time in a long time. It felt like the hands holding me had actually held care for me within them. Perhaps I had fooled myself into thinking it, but I finally felt acceptance within her. I could only hope that was the case.
"Why don't you go see her?"
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
I had done just that.
Maybe it hadn't been the smartest place to be with the state I was in, but I needed to see her. I needed to touch her again. I needed to let her know that she had a reason to stay alive, someone that needed her to stay alive. Would that have worked? Would have touching her gotten that message across? Would she have heard me, and felt everything I felt? Could she see me, could she feel me?
My answer lied peacefully on a bed. Pale, bandaged, and connected to wires. The radiance that had once exploded from her was nonexistent, the smile that had once rested even on her sleeping face had disappeared. The woman lying on the hospital bed wasn't the woman I fell in love with. It had been darkness molded in the shape of her, the same darkness that had ever so lightly been tugging on me.
One step forward, my heart began to rise. Two steps forward, it was now in my throat. Three steps, I felt like I was being choked. Four steps, I was beginning to suffocate on the very air I was breathing seconds earlier. As uncertainty coursed through my veins, my hand extended itself towards Grace. Outstretched, my fingers lightly met the tips of her own. Cold, her hand had given me no response. What else had I expected, for her to wake up on the spot?
"Jerk." I mumbled. "Who said you could just leave without saying anything to me? Did you think that text was enough?. . .Get up and answer me, would you?"
The near silent clearing of the throat had taken my eyes away from her and to the eyes of her mom, who I shot daggers at - as much as a pair of swollen, red eyes could, at least. She reached into small bag, a bag that I had recognized as belonging to Grace, and pulled out a piece of lined paper. It had been a folded, crinkly mess, but her mother had still handed it to me anyways. What was it? Why would they want to give something to me?
"This was in her bag. We think it was for you." she nudged the paper against my bare forearm as hesitance overtook my willingness to move my body. "Even if we don't agree with the relationship you and Grace had, she'd want you to have this and we have no right keeping it from you."
As the paper was set atop my fingers, I felt it. With the faintness of a light a mile in the distance, the slightest beginnings of a twitch moved her fingers against mine. Had I been feeling things? Had my mind just decided to play cruel games with me? Had I felt what I wanted to feel, or had there been reason for hope? Grace had been alive, at least in some way. She had been there somewhere, lost, trying to find her way out of the maze that was her own head. I wasn't going anywhere. Not until Grace was ready to leave with me.
If that took days, then I would wait. If that took weeks, then I would wait. If that took years, then I would wait.
If waiting for Grace took forever, then I would wait.
Forever.
ns 18.68.41.148da2
