Cold-Blooded Beautiful

by Christine Zolendz

  I stood at the foot of the bed and swallowed the hard knot in my throat. As the whoosh-beep-hiss of the machines hummed their soul shattering song to me, I broke into tears.

  “Is she ever going to wake up from this?” I whispered.

  “Like I said, there’s no way to tell right now. We can only wait and see. We’ll be reevaluating her condition often, looking for signs. People with head injuries rarely wake up all at once. Full recovery of consciousness is a gradual process. In the mildest of cases, it may take a few hours, and in the worst cases, it may take months or even sometimes years. And, Mr. Grayson, some patients only improve to a certain point, and never fully regain awareness.”

  I wiped the tears off my face with an angry vengeance. “Is there any possibility that she will recover completely? Any bloody hope at all? Have you seen other cases where people recover?”

  “Sure, I have. I’ve seen many patients with severe head injuries end up with no noticeable problems, but I’ve also seen the same amount require constant care for the rest of their life.”

  “So,” I cleared my throat, tears choking me, “what is the worst possible outcome for her?”

  “The best possible outcome we could hope for, of course, is Samantha to wake up and have a complete recovery. The worst case would be no recovery beyond opening her eyes, or what’s called a persistent vegetative state. Those are the two ends of the spectrum, though with an extremely wide ranges of variants to the outcomes in between. We just have to wait and see. There’s so much damage to assess and other problems may arise, and Mr. Grayson, we don’t know the level of traumatic brain injury she has suffered. Even if she wakes up, she might need lifelong care because of long-term disabilities. We just don’t know.”

  I nodded blankly.

  “I’ll give you some time alone with her, and then you should really get some rest and food in you. I don’t think you realize how long you’ve been here.”

  I nodded blankly, again.

  The shuffle of his feet and footfalls down the hall told me we were alone. Slowly, I walked to the side of her bed. My knees touched down on the cold tiled floor, and I prayed for the first time since I was sixteen. “Don’t give up on us yet. Don’t give up on this life yet, fight for me, fight for us.” I leaned over her, and kissed her forehead. Wet kisses filled with my tears, wept into her hair as I bruised myself against the iron arms of her bed. I’ll take her pain, give me it, leave her be. Just bloody fucking give it to me instead.

  “Just say something,” I cried against her skin. “Open your eyes. God, please. Give me your voice. Call me an egotistical asshole again. Tell me you love me. Talk through my favorite TV shows, tease me while I’m trying to write, shove your ice cold feet between my legs in your sleep, sing off key in the shower again, just fucking wake up and talk to me. Okay, Sam? Okay? Because, I won’t do this shitty life without you. Okay? We stay here together, or we go together, got it? Do you hear me, Sam? I won’t do this life without you, so come back to me. Let’s finish it together.”

  Choking on my sobs, Jen and Dylan had to pull me off her. I KNOW, it was a dick move and I could have hurt her more, but I wasn’t thinking clearly, okay? I don't how to be away from her. I don't know how to wake up with her not next to me. Dylan had to shove me out of the room, hard, with both hands, to get me to leave. Then I was escorted to the truck and Dylan drove me home to shower, change, and eat.

  Like I could have eaten anything.

  I gagged back half a sandwich my mother had made when they told me how long we had been at the hospital. Twenty-nine hours. My mum pleaded with me to take a sleeping aid, but all I wanted to do was go right back to the hospital. I felt more comfortable sleeping there, near Sam. Not that I could do anything more for her, but I wanted her to know I wouldn’t leave her to die alone. I was never going to leave her side.

  Mum found me the next morning asleep in the chair sitting next to her bed. As the sun rose over the horizon, and the smells of hospital breakfast foods drifted through the halls, Mum grasped me by the shoulders. “Dear Lord, what this poor girl has been through, love. Even if she lives, how will she heal? That was her husband and her father who did all this to her, how will she heal?”

  My mum was right, but the question was all wrong. It should have been, how will I help her heal.

  Because she was going to live.

  There was no other option. I couldn’t begin to think of a world that didn’t have Samantha in it. I just couldn’t. If there was one thing the woman lying in that hospital bed taught me, it was to hope.

  How had she helped me? How had she let me feel like I could trust again?

  I was forced home again that night for clean clothes and a shower. There was no way I would be staying in my house while she was alone in a hospital room, so I packed a bag, I’d live there if it came down to it.

  Jen found me in the bathroom carefully packing Sam’s favorite smelly soaps, “Why don’t you take some of her favorite books too. She loves reading, so maybe your voice reading to her would help. We could take turns, and when you leave, I could take over.”

  “I’m not leaving her, but you just gave me a bloody brilliant idea.” Quickly shoving all the toiletries into a bag, I ran into my office, grabbed my laptop, and yanked the cord out of the wall. The wire hurled across the room and into my hands.

  “Oookay then, glad I can help. Come on, tell me the idea,” she called after me.

  Bundling up my laptop and bag, without even a whisper to anyone else, I climbed into my truck and drove back to the hospital.

  Dropping my coat and bags on the floor near the door, I hesitantly walked in to the private ICU. She still hadn’t moved. Her cheeks were still so pale compared to the bright colorful arrays of bruises and cuts. Lifeless on the white tubed-up bed, the only motion was the rise and fall of her chest because of the ventilator.

  Rise. Fall.

  Hiss. Clink.

  Rise. Fall.

  Hiss. Clink.

  Somewhere inside that broken body, was my girl. I needed to pull her out, bring her back to the surface, because I knew she was drowning. Pulling up the chair as close as I could to her bed, I sat down.

  The room was dark, save for the anemic yellow light that glowed from the long tubed drawstring bulb that hung against the wall. As I opened my laptop, the room brightened, shadows danced and deepened.

  I cleared my throat so my voice wouldn’t crack. She needed to hear it strong. “Hey, Doc, it’s just me again. It’s the second day of your coma. The doctor just told me that the swelling has gone down considerably, and so far, there are no infections. I don’t know what the bloody hell that means, but it sounds good. I…uh, brought my laptop with me and I thought maybe I’d read my journal to you. You know the one my head doctor told me I needed to write in everyday while I did my psychoanalysis. I thought that maybe it would help you see how bloody much you need to be here. I wanted to read to you my thoughts about Thomas, about us, and about how I’ve changed, but more so, how much I want you to come back to me. Because I know, you’re in there somewhere, Sam. Come on, Doc, open your eyes for me. You spoke with me that night I found you, so I know you’re okay, just get back to me.” I leaned forward and kissed her forehead, “Okay here goes…here is everything I thought about for the last six months, Samantha. I’m going to give it all to you, so you bloody know.” My stupid voice cracked, and I sniffed back a man tear. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slow as not to have her hearing anymore of my bloody man whining. All she needed to hear was that I was waiting for her. “Just so you bloody know how much you are loved.”

  I clicked open the file folder to my journal and opened it. “And just a little word of caution, Doc. It’s sort of bloody crazy in my thoughts, but anytime you want to let me know to piss off, just open those green doors of yours and tell me.”

  Chapter 20

  …

  Chapter 21

  “Okay, love. Listen to how much I bloody need you…”

  Saturd
ay

  The bloody cockfucking wanker therapist wants me to write my bloody thoughts about all the tragedy in my bloody life. It’ll be therapeutic, he says. It’ll be closure, he cheers. I’d bloody well like to push him over the ledge of his window, I think back. Hang my head over the sill and tinkle my bloody fingers in a wave. Watch him flail his arms about trying to bloody fly as he plummets, then splashes across the sidewalk. Maybe one of his dead brown eyeballs will explode from his skull and bounce and roll down the street. Bloody entertaining.

  Monday

  The bloody cockfucking wanker therapist read my journal entry and made some girlie high school air sucking sound with his lips. I believe this to be disapproval. He would like me to try to visualize less violent ways to deal with my anger and anxiety.

  Therefore, I sit here and think on this a bit, and come to the visualization that I very politely tell my therapist I do not like his approach to said behaviors and hand him a bunch of flowers that I have pleasantly picked for him in some fictional soft colored meadow on the way to his office. THEN I’d bloody push him over the ledge of his window. Hang my head over the sill and tinkle my bloody fingers in a wave. Watch him flail his arms about trying to bloody fly as he plummets, then splashes across the sidewalk. Maybe one of his dead brown eyeballs will explode from his skull and bounce and roll down the street. But it’s pleasant because the flowers land beautifully around his corpse in the shape of a bloody heart.

  Monday night

  Okay, I’ll bloody try it for real. Thoughts. Keyboard. Go.

  “Write clear and hard about what hurts.” Ernest Hemingway

  Do you know what heartbreak teaches you?

  When it tears at you for years?

  That you’re strong.

  Solid. Real.

  Thomas, I know you’re in Hell, not giving a fuck, probably took over the damn place. But guess what? I found something beautiful, someone so beautiful inside that she erases everything that you are and what you’ve done. She pours herself inside me and I drink her in greedily.

  I’ve been stupidly thinking today of what my life would have been like if I’d never met the waitress with the beautiful green eyes. Numbing darkness. She is not my past; she’s my future. Something pure and good to hold onto after the cold grasp of your claws left me for dead.

  Tuesday

  Today I stared in the mirror for far too fucking long. The eyes that she says she loves are only dull gray English skies to me. I’m pale and broken and I wonder how it is that she could ever find any worth inside of me. How could she be able to crawl into my arms every night and find solace in their flawed strength? The mirror shatters, of course by my hand, my reflection splinters into thousand of tiny parts, and I linger in their pieces. I shift them about with my hands to find the broken pieces that belong and those that I should discard. And the only thing that remains are the cold gray eyes that look at her.

  Wednesday

  She has this little cluster of freckles on the back of her thigh.

  She probably doesn’t know it but that’s my favorite place on her body.

  Today I watched her hand out hot cocoa to an entire floor of children in the children’s ward. For no reason, other than she had the time. She didn’t see me, standing in the background, as she lit up the world with her special sort of shine. She laughed full open mouth laughs surrounded by kids with eyes that sparkled with delight yet bodies riddled with sickness. But she saw in them beauty and hope to heal. She met me in her office, smile across her lips, not a stitch of makeup on and all I could do was grab her and kiss her, devour the lips that smiled so hard despite watching the suffering. And when I touched her, I can see it so clearly, our future. Fingers entwined. Both of us sitting on the stone patio, the summer breeze smelling of barbeque and suntan lotion, a gaggle of children and dogs running in circles past our lounging feet. I see with her a life I never thought I would ever have.

  Thursday

  Today felt like England.

  Gray stormy skies and the forever drizzle of icy rain.

  A melancholy wave of sadness filtered in instead of the warm rays of the sun. Shrink says I’m depending too much on Samantha for my stability. But isn’t that how it should be? Should we not depend on the ones we love to find our strength? No, he said, you need to do this on your own. Fuck the fuck off, I said back. Politely, I might add. What does he know of us? We’ve spent too much time apart already while the sheriff’s office set up her new life, I don’t want to miss another minute more. Those two months were silent for me, the only thing I did was talk with him and have insane fucked up fictitious conversations with a dead sixteen-year-old boy who once tried to kill me. There’s nothing left to say to him. Dead is Dead. Life is for the living and I want to start living.

  Friday

  I fell in love with her even more today. Just this morning. Walking into the kitchen, tired itchy eyes, yawn splitting open my face. She was in front of the stove. Back to me. One of my long buttoned up shirts fell to the middle of her thighs, the collar slung casually over a soft shoulder. A spatula in one hand, coffee in the other, her delicate feet wrapped in those heavy furry socks. The bloody brilliant ones with the zombie eyeballs all over them. Turning to face me, she wore a streak of pancake batter across her cheek, and a bit of the powdered mix on the tip of her nose. ‘Pancakes?’ she asked. I answered her with ‘forever,’ because I was thinking of how long I wanted to keep her. She somehow knew what I meant. She knew what I needed. Slowly she shut the stove and pulled me to the table, I followed her sexy smile and those sage green eyes. She lifted herself on the edge of the table and wrapped those perfect legs around me. The cold granite beneath my palms and her thighs, the clanking of dishes and her whispered moans. Arching her back across the table, taking me in.

  Sunday

  I used to find solace at the bottom of a bottle.

  Yet it never lasted long, in a blink it would be gone.

  Now I find it in the strangest of places.

  Places I never thought it would be.

  The crock of her eyes when she laughs.

  The curl of her lips when she smiles.

  The curve of her thighs as they embrace me.

  The heat of her flesh when I crawl inside.

  Tuesday

  Sixteen years is far too long to be angry.

  If I could have met her then.

  Two teens with angst you could feel.

  I’d be more of a force.

  And no one would have ever touched her.

  But me.

  Wednesday

  She’s strolling through the woods,

  Breath in icy mists.

  Snow crunching beneath her boots,

  Crimson streaked on her winter cheeks.

  She laughs and looks up.

  The sun blinds her eyes.

  The way she blinds mine.

  And I borrow her smile for a moment.

  Try it on for size.

  And find, to my surprise,

  It’s a bloody perfect fit.

  After two hours of reading aloud to her, I noticed a small twitch of her fingers. It made me breathless. Heat tingled across my chest, and my body felt light, weightless. “Jen! Jen! I just saw her bloody twitch her fingers,” I yelped.

  “Really?” Jen asked, moving closer to the bed. “It could be something or nothing, though. You have to keep this up though, because this is good for the both of you. But, let me read some stuff to her and talk to her, take a break. Get coffee, your voice is getting weird.”

  I knew Jen wanted to read to her also, so for once, I didn’t put up a fight, and went down for coffee and let them spend a few moments together. When I met the doctor on call in the hallway and told him about the finger movement, he just offered me a tight-lipped smile. “Yes, yes,” he chirped, “could be an involuntary movement. We’ll be taking her for a CT scan in an hour.”

  Doctor Douche and Doom. Bloody wanker. I crushed my coffee cup in my hand, spilling it all over the
floor. My thoughts weren’t straight. They were muddled and thick, just tipping over the borderline to rage. Yet, my own thoughts stopped me from plunging headfirst into viciousness. All I thought about, all I wanted to do was run in and tell Sam about the coffee. Crushing it and spilling it all over the floor. She would have reprimanded me for wasting the nectar of the gods. Then she would have laughed at me and told me some crazy story about what it might be like for a surgeon to have to tell a family their loved one was not waking up. How that surgeon’s brain was churning and spinning a thousand thoughts in his head to try to help his patient, all while dealing with his own bloody problems and not having a meal for twelve hours straight. I could hear her voice say the words in my head, the ones that calmed me down, and let me breathe. God, how she changed me so that I could do it myself.

  Dragging myself back to the cafeteria, I ordered two coffees. One was for me, and the other was a caramel flavored one so I could stick it near her nose and oxygen. I know inside there, somewhere, she was bloody dying to have a coffee.

  Jen was singing some crazy boy band song when I walked back into the ICU. “You are seriously going to crack the equipment in here if you keep that high-pitched wailing up,” I said. I had never heard such bloody wailing.

  “Yeah, well I was hoping to hear her complain about it, not you,” she replied. “What have you been reading to her in here anyway?”