The technician laughed and chatted with me a bit while she worked. She instructed me to rest a few more hours, being that it was only three in the morning. After she left the room, I turned on the television and tried to relax. All I kept thinking was how much I missed Savannah and how I wished she were there with me while I waited to go under the knife. It was only a couple of minutes later that there was a knock on the door. Even in the dimly lit room, I could still see my best friend walk toward me.
“You awake?”
“Yep.”
She crawled under the covers to lie next to me. We snuggled, my head rested on her developing chest. “I can’t wait to see your boobies in a month.”
“Hush, woman! You should be concentrating on your surgery. You need to be resting and taking it easy until they come for you.”
“You’ll be here when I wake up, right, Savannah?” I asked as my eyes filled up with tears. I was more nervous than I had thought.
Savannah pulled me closer and nuzzled her nose against my cheek. “I promise you that I won’t leave your side until you are awake, or even after that. I’ll always be by your side. Don’t you know that, Tally? I’ve loved you my whole life and that isn’t going to stop.”
“You love me?” I asked as I gazed into her eyes.
She nodded. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know that, girl. You’re one of the main reasons I decided to have my sex reassignment surgery. I knew you were going to make your outsides whole, and I wanted to make my outsides whole too. Now we can get past the physical barriers. Ya know?”
I nodded, smiled sweetly, and kissed her on her moist lips. “I’m scared,” I whispered.
She had a distressed expression on her face. “What are you scared of, Tally? You have the best doctors in the district. This place is state of the art.”
I sighed and nuzzled closer to her. “What if something goes wrong? Or what if it doesn’t work? What if my body parts never match? There are just so many what-ifs and it has me a bit scared,” I whimpered.
“Tally, you don’t have to do this. No one is making you do this, are they? We can leave right this very second and go home. Life will go on as it always has.”
Now I was frustrated, and I huffed. “You don’t seem to realize I don’t want life to keep going on that way. It’d be like me telling you not to worry about your sex reassignment surgery. Like, why don’t you just stay the way you are?”
She sat up beside me, her face solemn, head lowered. “Sorry, Talia. You’re right.” She lifted her head and looked deep into my eyes. “I just didn’t want you to feel like I’d feel any different about you if you opted not to have the surgery. Our gender is how we identify inside, not our physical makeup.”
I smiled because I knew she was right and I would make it through this no matter what.
I was just about to lean in to kiss her when there was a knock at the door. I glanced up at the clock to discover that it was an hour before they were supposed to come to get me for surgery. My voice raised, I yelled out for whomever was there that it was okay to enter, my voice echoing in the large suite. In walked my solemn-looking parents. Savannah and I both greeted the king and queen in the proper fashion. My mother came to my bedside and pulled me to her bosom. Albeit a little overdramatic, I was glad I wasn’t the only one who was scared. But it was my responsibility to comfort her.
“Mother, it will be fine. I promise you. They say with the advancements in medicine that the surgery will take less than an hour.” I gently ran my fingers through her long coal-black hair, streaked with a bit of silver. I kissed her cheek and smiled. “What did you used to say to me? With two shakes of a lamb’s tail?” We both laughed softly.
My father came to my bedside next. He knelt beside the bed and held my petite hand in his enormous one. “My dear Talia. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why you are choosing to have this operation when you are already so perfect.” I could feel myself blushing. “But,” he stressed, “I support you in whatever you choose to do, and I will be here just as proud of you as I am today.” I leaned forward and kissed his cheek right before he kissed the tip of my nose as he had done since I was a child. I glanced over at Savannah for a quick moment and saw the smile of someone who truly loved me.
At that, my parents headed out, telling Savannah they’d be waiting in the VIP family room if she’d care to join them after they came for me. Of course, she nodded to indicate she’d join them as soon as I headed back. When they left the room, she slipped onto the gurney with me, the two of us embracing until the moment they walked in. Reluctantly, Savannah scooted from beside me and stared down with a loving gaze as the staff prepped me for transport.
“Princess, it’s time.” The nurse nodded at me and then glanced at Savannah with a sympathetic look. “She’s in good hands, Your Majesty.”
Savannah reached for my hand, squeezed it tight, and held to it. As they pushed the gurney from the room, our hands pulled apart. “I love you,” I said as we made our way through the doorway, my head turned slightly to try to see where we’d left her.
An emotional voice answered me in kind. “I love you too.”
I remember very little about what happened next, other than the doctor and operating-room staff moving about as they prepped everything for my procedure. The doctor explained to me that the procedure should take less than an hour. Although I was happy about finally getting this done, my eyes filled with tears as my nerves took over.
I recall the anesthesiologist explaining that he was about to inject my IV with medication that would relax me before they put me under. I remember thinking it was a little late to try to relax me now. They might as well just put me out. He asked me to count backward from ten, and although I can’t recall how far I got, the last thing I remember was the doctor’s smiling face leaning over the table.
THE NEXT PART of this story, I cannot recall on my own. Why? Well, as Savannah tells it, a little over an hour and fifteen minutes after the start of my procedure, the doctor entered the family waiting area with a grim look on his face. Immediately, my mother was on her feet, her voice trembling as she begged the doctor to tell her what had gone amiss. Pulling his surgical cap from his head and wringing it in his hands, he explained that although the actual procedure had gone as planned, they’d been unable to bring me out of my sedation afterward.
My mother and Savannah were frantically begging to see me. They didn’t care to hear anything else the doctor had to say, whereas my father was trying to hear the remainder of the doctor’s report. Instead of finishing, the doctor led the way to my room where I lay, a new woman, albeit a comatose one. My father told me that despite my mother and Savannah crying over my sleeping form, he tried desperately to speak with the doctor.
Dr. Richards and my father sat down on the love seat in my room, my father anxious to hear my prognosis. The doctor explained that he truly had no idea when or if I’d come out of the coma. There wasn’t any medical reason that I was under. Everything had gone as planned, to which my father replied that it obviously hadn’t or I’d be awake instead of being cried over by my mother and best friend. Dr. Richards apologized profusely before my mother came over and interrupted to ask if it was necessary for me to be in the hospital. She wanted to take me home where I could be cared for in my own room. The doctor agreed that taking me home wouldn’t be a problem. I think he would have agreed to let me travel on the next lunar ship to stop from upsetting my mother.
Within the next few days, all the preparations were made to move me home. My parents hired the best staff possible to care for me, and of course, Dr. Richards would continue to follow my case. Half of my bedroom was converted into a hospital room, complete with the ventilator, all the supplies needed to care for me, and a seating area for my visitors—though my mother wanted to wait a week or so before she allowed “strange people” to come to see me.
Because very little was made about my surgery in the first place, my parents opted to keep my being in a coma und
er wraps as well. Aside from the staff, who were all under nondisclosure agreements already, and family (including Savannah), the only others who were notified of my condition were my godmothers and some close family friends. As far as the rest of the world knew, I’d had my tonsils removed. Savannah said my room quickly filled with flowers, balloons, stuffed animals, and cards—some of which had gift cards for cartons and cartons of ice cream from a specialty creamery that most residents of the kingdom loved.
My mother told me that Savannah was by my side every day. After a week, she insisted that she begin sleeping in my bed instead of on the love seat or a reclining chair my father often sat in at my bedside. Savannah complained that my bed was too far away from the hospital bed, so unless forced to do so on a daily basis by my mother or father, Savannah stayed near me. However, she learned quickly that my mother would continue to bug the crap out of her if she didn’t do as she asked and get a good night’s rest in my bed.
According to my family, Savannah spent all her time in the bed next to me. She spent a majority of the time talking to me about heaven knows what. She also kept plenty of reruns and 80s movies playing on the TV. And surprisingly enough, she read to me quite a bit. Rumor has it she read me a ton of fairy tales. I wonder if she read the one about the princess who fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up. That would have been appropriate, yes?
Although it was difficult for Savannah to leave my side, upon occasion my family would kick her out to go take a breather while they visited with me. On one such day, according to my mother, six of my godmothers came to visit me. Well, they weren’t there only to visit, but also to speak to my parents about something very important. My mother said the topic of conversation was the godmother absent that day, the one who is always adorned in red.
Whatever the godmothers wanted to discuss with my parents seemed quite urgent. My parents seated the little godmothers in one of the palace living areas and begged them to tell what was so important that they had to be seen so promptly without prior notice. The purple-dressed godmother spoke first, explaining that the crimson-dressed godmother was not to be trusted because at some point her nature had turned dark.
The purple-dressed godmother explained they had learned just recently that when they had come to visit for our dinner party and shared their well wishes with me, the dark godmother had whispered a curse instead. They were fearful it was the very curse they spoke of that was causing me to be stuck in a coma with no medical explanation. My parents were taken aback, completely shocked and saddened that one of my very own godmothers would do something like that to me. They could think of no reason why she would, unless it was ordered by someone from an opposing district or she was just flat-out jealous.
The godmothers knew little more than that, but they, along with my father, vowed to try to learn as much as they could and get back together soon. My father immediately dismissed the little women and headed to his war room to assemble his people who would be investigating the root of this curse. He wanted them out in the districts, hunting down the dark godmother, as well as discovering how to undo the curse—if that was even possible.
THE DAYS PASSED as my father’s people worked to figure out how to bring me out of this coma. In the interim, Savannah celebrated her eighteenth birthday and prepared for her own surgery. She’d been ready forever to undergo the gender reassignment surgery—taking hormones, growing her beautiful sandy brown hair out, collecting a closet full of clothing and shoes (some of which I’d helped her pick out), and gathering up the makeup she felt she’d need.
Savannah told me that, the night before her surgery, she lay next to me, talking nonstop about how nervous she was and how I was supposed to be there with her when she went under the knife. Despite her not having an evil godmother, she, too, feared not coming out of the anesthesia and joked that the two of us would have hospital beds side by side while we rested peacefully in our comas.
Because she would have some of her own recovering to do, she would be absent from my bedside until she was well enough to get around on her own again. The next time we would see one another, she told me, I would be meeting the complete Savannah for the first time. My father urged Savannah to take her time recovering, promising her that they would ensure I was taken care of until she got back. Reluctantly, Savannah headed off to the hospital for her surgery.
While she was away, my parents began door-to-door searches for the dark godmother or anyone who had information on the curse she’d put on me as a child. Although initially they didn’t find her, they learned bits and pieces of information that gave a bigger picture as to what the curse entailed. According to a dark-magic shop owner, rumor had it that she had placed a love spell on me. The love spell would ensure that I would stay in a coma forever unless my true love kissed me on the lips to break the curse. This news caused my family to be more concerned than before because I had never even dated. How were they going to find my true love when I was laid up in a hospital bed without a conscious bone in my body? They decided to ask Savannah for an opinion.
My parents recalled meeting Savannah for the first time. She came to visit me as soon as she was able. Her brown hair hung loosely against her shoulders, dark eyes emphasized by the well-applied mascara and eyeshadow. My mother told me that she immediately asked if Savannah would do her makeup sometimes. She wore a pair of snug-fitting jeans and a loose top, another reason for my mother to ask for a full-blown makeover. My mother recalled Savannah laughing but quickly dismissing their small talk to rush to my side. The ritual began again. Savannah stayed by my side day in and out, rarely even taking a breather that required her to leave my room.
While my family and the rest of the district attempted to find my true love, Savannah read to me, talked to me, watched movies with me, kept me updated on all the latest district gossip, and slept by my side in bed. I was told she even kept me looking presentable, brushing my hair and bathing me as part of her new duties.
One night, the way Savannah tells it, she heard rumors that the next day my parents were going to parade some princes in to test out whether they were my true love. She was furious, thinking how disgusting it was for them to allow a bunch of strange men to kiss their comatose daughter, who Savannah was certain didn’t care for men to begin with. Although my parents held Savannah in the highest regard, they were at a loss as to what else to do.
Savannah knew she had always loved me, and I her; however, she feared that I would not accept her as the woman she was, now that all of our surgeries were complete. She, of course, should have known better, but alas, the doubt was still there. But the night before the prince parade, Savannah began to wonder if she could possibly be the true love the curse called for, the one that would wake me from my coma.
Savannah knew in her heart that the two of us were one another’s true love, but again doubt crept in because of her physical transformation. What struck her, though, was she had always been a woman on the inside and I had known and loved her; therefore, why wouldn’t I love her now?
Late that night as the district slept, with a projection of our favorite movie playing on the wall in my room, Savannah got an idea. She would try to kiss me and see if our love was true enough to awaken me from my coma.
She turned on her side to face me, butterflies aflutter in her stomach. She said she stroked my long black hair, then ran her fingertips over my face and across my lips. It dawned on her at that moment how desperate she was to see my deep green eyes. She’d always said they reminded her of the color of a Christmas tree.
Savannah missed me so much while I’d been comatose. She said she’d have done just about anything to hear my voice again. She was desperate to hear it, the terrible way I sang at the top of my lungs. Savannah even missed the way I constantly tapped my fingertips together, adding numbers in my head when I was nervous.
She couldn’t live without me one more second, she decided. Savannah leaned up, gently placing her lips against mine. Albeit a bit dry, according to Sav
annah, she felt it was as comfortable as it always was to kiss her best friend. She slid her long arm beneath my head and lifted it slightly so that our lips could meet more comfortably. It surprised me to learn, as Savannah began kissing me again softly, that she started to weep, desperate for her one true love to awaken.
Once she’d finished kissing me, Savannah lay her head down next to mine on the pillow and closed her tear-swollen eyes. She hummed my favorite song from childhood as she curled next to me and her eyes grew heavy.
“Bastian?” A rough whisper filled Savannah’s dreams. “Bastian, is that you?”
Savannah remembered thinking the voice was too real, too near to be a dream. She said she struggled to open her sleep-filled eyes. She was still lying next to me, but something was very different.
“Bastian,” I called out to the room once more as Savannah found my face in the dark with her gentle hand.
“I can’t believe you’re awake,” the familiar voice began. “And of all things, calling for me.”
“Tally, it’s me, Savannah.” She held me close, stroking my back. “Yes, Tally, it’s me. Just rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Savannah revealed that from my soft snores she could tell I’d fallen back asleep, but she stayed awake, waiting for daylight. Her stomach fluttered as she tried to wrap her mind around how her kiss had brought me out of my coma. If the godmothers were right, Savannah was my true love. A warmth coursed through her body at the mere possibility. Savannah had always loved me and hoped one day our relationship could become official, but this was almost too much for her to handle. She’d learned she was my one true love without my even being a part of the process.
Savannah was awake, sitting on the bed next to me, when I opened my eyes, a smile curling my lips as I realized she’d been next to me even while I slept. “Bastian, your hair grew even longer.”
Once Upon a Rainbow, Volume One Page 24