The Time Until

by Casey Ford

  “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?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Present Day

  “I’ve missed you so much,” Sam tells me with her hoarse and scratchy voice. It’s barely a whisper and she sounds a lot like when she first wakes up from a good night’s sleep. I don’t know why, but that thought actually comforts me. Thinking of her waking from a good sleep is better than thinking about the alternative.

  I quickly rush to her side and take her hand, placing my forehead on her forehead.

  “You have no idea how much I missed you,” I tell her as I kiss each of her fingers. She smiles at me. Casually reaching up, she lovingly touches my eye patch — the one with the heart and arrow – she’s the first person to actually touch it since the nurse who handed it to me. The sight of it makes her sad. She then does something even I haven’t had the courage to do; she lifts the patch to look at my eye. I don’t know what it looks like under there, but her face is a mix of horror, sympathy, and sadness.

  “I love you,” she adores replacing the patch to its rightful place. I cup her face in my hands and kiss her as fiercely as I can without hurting her. She kisses me back with a smile on her face. I’ve never tasted anything so sweet.

  “I love you too,” I tell her. I can’t get enough of her. I want to touch her everywhere and never let her go again. My heart o
verflows with emotions, I can’t stop myself and start crying right there in front of her. Sam raises her arm, with great effort, to wipe the tears from my face gently.

  “Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay,” she soothes. I gather her up into my arms and squeeze her. Maybe I can keep her if she’s closer, a silly dream, but one that won’t go away in my mind. I desperately try to pull her closer to me, but also concentrate on not hurting her. This delicate balance is threatening to tear me in two. She continues to soothe me as she squeezes me back, tears trailing down her face as well.

  “I thought I was going to lose you,” I admit after breaking the hug. She shakes her head.

  “Never,” she says as she gently strokes my cheek with the back of her hand, a small smile on her face. Her eyes shine as I watch her look at me. I’m happy that I can still get her to respond to me like that.

  It also brings on the guilt. I drop my eyes again.

  “I have to apologize to you, Sam. It was my fault. I should have done something. I’m so sorry Sam.” She reaches down and softly guides my head up by my chin so I’m looking into her eyes. She has her best smile on her face and she runs her other hand through my hair.

  “Alan,” she says, “you feel too much. Let it go. What’s done is done.”

  “But your legs?” I ask.

  Her gaze drops to her half legs under the blanket and then it comes back to mine. There’s a careful smile on her face.

  “They’re gone and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. I think that once the shock wears off, I’ll have more to say about it, but right now… What’s gone is gone.” I can’t respond to her. It’s kind of like how I was with my eye being gone. I was mostly in shock, but eventually I just accepted it. Learning to live with it is faster than raging against it I guess — doesn’t mean I can’t be pissed at the one who made us this way.

  “So, tell me everything I’ve miss—” Sam gets interrupted by a sharp pain in her head. She shoots her hand to her temple and closes her eyes so tight I think she’s trying to seal them shut by force. Hissing through her teeth as she inhales, the pain on her face is easy to read. The pain must be intense if it’s that bad despite the pain medication in her system.

  I freeze for a moment, unsure of what to do or how to help her.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask stupidly. It’s obvious what’s wrong, but I can’t think of anything else to say. She puts her hand up to stop me from getting closer to her.

  After a few moments, the pain starts to subside and she shakes her head a few times as if trying to shake out the pain. Blinking the pain away, she opens her eyes and takes a deep breath. She has a reassuring smile on her face, but I can still see the pain just under the surface. It has lessened a bit, but not enough.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just a massive headache,” she says still rubbing her temple in an attempt to remove the pain from her head. She finishes, “nothing to worry about.” I’m not so sure.

  “Should I call the nurse?”

  Sam shakes her head no. I gently stoke her hand as I hold it.

  “You sure?”

  She smiles as she places her hand on my face, softly running her fingers on the buzzed hair behind my ears. I like the feeling of it.

  “Alan, I’m fine. Really,” she informs me. I nod my head as I stare into her chocolate brown eyes. The dead look from before is gone. She’s back to her very alive self.

  Jennifer was right, one look in those eyes and everything is right in the world.

  “Good. Now tell me what I missed.”

  I tell her about the hospital stay and the police interview. Telling her about the courtroom and the verdict was difficult without getting angry again, but her gently caressing arms drain any rage from my body. She gasps when I tell her about the parking lot fight and the knife wound I now have on my back. Her eyes fill with tears when I tell her about Kate and how much of a friend she’s been since coming back. She laughs at Quentin and Arianna being a couple and tells me “I told you so.” She’s surprised when I tell her about Ethan and his unrequited love. I even tell her about how hard it’s been since she’s been in the coma.

  She only holds her head twice through the whole conversation.

  “Well, it sounds like I missed everything,” she pouts with her bottom lip jutting out. I find it adorable. She seems to be lost in thought for moment and I find myself staring at her.

  “So, Kate has a boyfriend. Good for her. Maybe we can move on and become the friends we were meant to be now?”

  “I think she’d like that as well.”

  “Okay,” she exclaims suddenly, “when I get out of here you’re taking me to do something that will put all that happened in the last week to shame.” She has that look in her eyes, the one that usually gets me in trouble. I smile at how natural it feels to be with her again.

  “Uh oh, I know that look. What do you have going through that demented mind of yours Sam?” I tease and she smiles devilishly. She looks at me and for the first time I see the girl I knew again.

  She’s beautiful.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she draws out with a big smile on her face, “I was thinking something like base jumping or skydiving. I’ve always wanted to try. What do you say?” She drops one of the worst puppy dog eyes look every attempted. I mean, it’s so bad I laugh outright at her face. She starts laughing with me, but soon stops when her head starts hurting her again. The pain quickly puts a stop to the fun we’re having.

  “Okay, that’s it; I’m going to get you a nurse. If nothing else, you can get some more pain meds or something,” I announce as I start searching for the red nurse call button. I can’t find it at first, but eventually find it behind her pillow.

  “Oh, relax, pansy, it’s not as ba—” Suddenly, her eyes roll into the back of her head as it shoots backward into the pillow. Her entire body starts shaking and convulsing against the bed. It starts out slowly at first, but it rapidly turns more and more violent and I drop the call button on the floor as I try to do something for her.

  I grab her shoulders in order to try to hold her in place, but that does nothing to stop her violent bouncing and shaking. I can’t stop the panic from rising as I get thrown from the bed by Sam’s seizure. Fear creeps in when I remember that seizures can be really bad — biting tongues and the like. I see the call button on the floor next to me and I quickly go to push the button. My hands are shaking so much that I drop the call button. Alarms and squeals from the equipment start invading my thoughts as I try to comprehend the out of control scene in front of me.

  Seconds later, a male nurse pushes me out of way, forcing me backward into the wall. I watch silently as Sam jumps and convulses, fighting against the physical restraints that the nurses and doctors are applying to her. The doctor starts shouting out orders and nurses jump to follow them.

  Nate, Mary, Ethan, and Kate come running into the room, but I barely notice them as I stay focused on Sam’s ordeal. I run my hand through my hair as I try to hold back the fearful sobs. Scared tears fall from my eye and I slide down the wall watching all the action happening. Mary is hiding in Nate’s chest, but I know she’s crying like I am by the way her body shakes in regular intervals.

  A nurse pushes past the other nurses and quickly grabs the IV tube. Sticking the needle of the syringe into the drip chamber and thumbs the thumb wheel to allow more fluid to go through it. Soon, the medicine starts to take effect and Sam’s body starts to calm down. I let out a relieved breath and try to pull from the ground.

  As soon as Sam’s body lies still in her bed, I take a step to join my friends.

  Then the loudest and most god-awful sound fills the room.

  Sam’s heart monitor screams at us in warning and suddenly everything in the room fades away as I look at her in her bed. Her chest isn’t moving. A nurse ushers everybody out as another one runs in with a defibrillator. The monitor’s sound forces its way into my subconscious and everything goes black around me.
/>   My last thought, before I black out, is “no world is worth living in without her.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  3 Years Ago (Age 17): December

  “What are we doing here Alan?” Sam asks.

  I decided I wanted to do this kind of on the fly, but the more I think about it the more I like it. It’s going to take a long time to complete my plan, but, if it works, it’s going to be worth every minute.

  As phase one of my plan, I have brought Sam to the old park where she comforted me after my brother died. It has a certain sentimentality to it now — I see it in a whole new light. I doubt there will be a repeat of that night tonight though; the weather is pushing 30 degrees.

  Why I thought doing this in the middle of winter was a good idea is beyond me.

  “I have something important I want to give to you,” I answer her as I slowly remove the small jewelry box from my pocket. Sam’s eyes go wide when they spy what I have in my hand.

  “Holy shit! Are you proposing?” I just smile. Sam starts hyperventilating as I hand the gift to her. I laugh a little at her reaction.

  “Sam, calm down, I want you to listen to me before you pass out from lack of oxygen to the brain.” I take her hands, making sure the box doesn’t fall, and I look into her eyes.

  “Samantha Cohn,” I begin my well-prepared speech and her eyes go wider in response, “I love you.”

  “Oh my god,” she starts repeating over and over again, “we’re not even out of high school yet Al.” This is not going to be as easy as I thought. I take a deep breath and continue over her hysteric “oh my god” chant.

  “I love you and I promise you that I will always treasure you and your heart,” I slowly open the box, “forever.” Sam looks at the contents and relief mixed with disappointment graces her features.