Kylie sat next to me the whole time, listening as I spoke about what had essentially been an alternate reality for me. Honestly, I held back on some of the stuff - but she was able to pick them out relatively easily. Why had she wanted to know it all so badly? The other relationships, the people in my life, and even what they looked like. What could she have possibly gained from hearing everything?
"...Everything just kind of turned white and then I woke up here."
"You were a piece of shit. I can confidently say that wouldn't have given you the time of day if you were like that." her hand tried to wrap itself around her kneecap. "I can't say too much about some of that stuff, though...and Maggie, really? I wonder how much of a kick she's going to get out of that one."
"What do you mean, can't say too much?"
"Right after you went into your coma, I was in a really bad place. Kind of like you were, I guess. I asked Hurricane for something that would let me forget about everything for a little bit." she squeezed her knee tighter. "He gave me this bottle of Xanax and told me to take one a day, but I was taking two before I even knew what I was doing. Then I started needing them. It was an article online about Coma cure technology and research that gave me something to put my mind on and help myself while still being able to think of you. It was you who helped me quit that crap. You saved the day, just like usual."
That was a tough mix to imagine, honestly. I couldn't have seen Kylie taking Xanax or anything like them, it just didn't seem like a drug that would fit her as much as, say, pot would. That had been some wicked stuff, and I felt horrible that she had to go as far as to take something like that. Yet, like her, I hadn't been able to say a whole lot as I had done it myself - even though it hadn't been physically, apparently.
Lifting my hand, I could already begin to feel it loosening up as I brought it to her hair and stroked it from the back. Silky and smooth, straight yet carried the slightest waves at the end at the ends. Her hair had been just perfect for her in a every way, from matching the color of her eyes to complimenting the shape of her face. She had been just as beautiful, if not more so, than when I had left.
"You aren't doing it anymore, and that's all that matters." I pulled her closer. "Any good stuff happen while I was sleeping?"
Her cheeks lifted ever so slightly.
"Well, I moved out after I turned 16 last month. Mack and I went to your house and got some of your stuff, too. When you get out, we can get you some new clothes and you can move in with me." Kylie answered. "That's the plan, but you don-"
"Of course, I'll move in. Stupid." I answered. "You act like that was even a question. Honestly, I'm more surprised you can afford it."
"I got a lot, and I mean a lot of money from the CCRTFA for what the doctor showed you. I found a chemical in a sleeping pill that seems to activate a dormant part of the brain, so I started to extract certain ingredients one by one, until I figured out that two of them would affect certain parts of the active brain." Kylie tried to speak like a human in an attempt to translate everything into layman's terms. "One of them affected the most dormant part of your active brain. The part that was comatose. Apparently it worked for some other patients, including you, and they decided to credit me and pay me for it. I don't know why they paid me when they could have just taken it, though."
Kylie had continued to talk about the smaller things that happened, like how her friends were doing, and how Maggie was doing. She told me that she was going to let Mack and my mother know that I had woken up, and then she stopped talking. Almost as though she had gotten her vocal chords taken out, she remained silent as she lifted and turned her head to look at me. It was in that split second that she leaned forward and let her mouth come to mine, connecting for what had been the first time in a year and a half. I had been speechless, but she took the words right out of my mouth.
"Yeah. It's still the same."
**
The following weeks had been started with what felt like continuous testing and checkups everywhere on my body. Countless wires had been put onto me, along with clamps and even a helmet or two. What had come after that was the slow process of the rehab, and that itself had been the toughest part for me to do. It had felt like it was doing nothing for me, like the result hadn't been close to matching the effort. It was crushing to see how much I put in to see so little.
What had made it worse was Kylie. Every single day, she had been there watching me with a smile - supporting me the whole time. It hadn't been the support, or even her. She wasn't the problem, yet she was at the same time. How had she been able to watch me fail over and over like I had been doing? It had been the same thing every day - try and try, fail and fail, but she had still smiled. I felt like an asshole. I felt like I wasn't trying hard enough, that I wasn't doing enough.
Sweating like I had just hiked out of a volcano, I sat down in a nearby chair to catch my breath. Crushing the water bottle in my fist, the sound had echoed throughout the empty room. Had it been any different, wherever I had been before and here? With Kylie or with someone else? I still hadn't done anything of worth, for myself or for Kylie. Born a loser, live like a loser. It was just like me to fail at something that I had been trying so hard to do.
"Hey...you're doing good. Why do you look so miserable?" Kylie knelt down in front of my legs, her fingertips wiping along my -sweat-drenched palm.
"Because it's the same shit. Nothing is changing." my thumb grazed the knuckle of her index finger. "You come here every damn day and leave having nothing to show for it."
Kylie took her hand away from mine, sliding the tips of her fingers down past my thighs and knees before stopping at my calves. She looked up at me, still smiling with that glint in her eyes - the same glint she has always had - that glint that showed everyone she was happy about living, happy about life, and happy about herself. Had that glint included me, or would I just break her like I had done to everything else in that other place?
"Okay. So, two huge things wrong with that." Kylie took a breath, squeezing my leg. "Did you start walking overnight when you were a kid?"
"What?"
"Your body was pretty much asleep for over an entire year, you lost your muscle because you couldn't exercise or move. If it took that long to lose it, it going to take some time to get it back, too." Kylie lightly smacked my leg. "...and I leave with nothing to show for it? I come here every day to see you, and I can leave saying that I came to see my boyfriend. Coma and working your ass off or not, I am proud of you and I am proud to call you my boyfriend."
Damn her and her rationality. I had always gotten angry about something and she would put her two cents in and say something smart. More than that, I hadn't been able to argue with anything she said, but it hadn't been like I wanted to argue - I just hadn't wanted to be the miserable asshole who said unnecessary bullshit. Guess I'd already done that, though.
Then she had to get all sappy at the end, which had pretty much ended the conversation in so many words. Kylie pushed herself off of the ground and stood over me, leaving me frozen in place as she had decided on what she was going to do. Honestly, I had seen that expression from her several times before. For her, it had meant thinking about something that wasn't quite meaningful, but still needed thought.
Turning her head around in both directions, to and fro, she took a step forward. Much like that time before we had left for the Micah, Kylie pushed herself on top of me and had straddled herself onto my lap - in a completely non-sexual manner, of course. She brought both of her arms around my neck and let her fingers connect near my upper back. Just like before, her head had been buried into my chest.
It had been like a blast from the past, so temporary.
"You know the day you woke up, I was going to just have lunch in the cafeteria and go home. I don't know what it was, but something just kept tugging at me to come eat in your room. I swear, when I saw you sitting up I thought it was a ghost." Kylie muffled herself into my shirt. "After hearing that heart monitor for so long, I guess I just succumbed to the fact that it might have been the only sound I would hear from you again."
Kylie's hand disconnected from her other one as it latched onto the collar of my shirt and tugged it down. Had she been angry, or was she sad? Her face had been hidden, and the slight trembling hadn't made it very easy to pick it out - neither had the muffling of her voice. The one thing Kylie hadn't ever been the best at was actively showing her emotions to others, which was understandable in some senses. She was fine with telling, not so much showing.
"Jesus, I thought I got this out of me already..." she continued, muttering into my shirt. "Don't you ever fucking leave me like that again."
She had acted as though it had been her fault I was in that shape in the first place. Yet, I couldn't have said anything to her when she was like this, nor would I have said anything. I, myself, had been through what she had - and I wished it on nobody. Losing that person I loved had felt like someone pushed me feet first into a grinder. Slowly, throughout the pain, I was being eaten alive by the grinder - or more accurately, the misery and the darkness had been eating me alive.
If it had meant protecting Kylie for good, I would have done it again and again. I would have went into a coma for her, and I would have taken a bullet to the skull for her. I would've taken harm for her, and I would've have given harm for her. She had been like that star in the night sky that stood out more than the rest, and that star had chosen me over the rest. She had fallen, she had been shot; she had been delivered to my world in the most graceful way possible. She was the shooting star that was wished upon.
"I'll try my best."
ns 15.158.61.51da2
