I want to sing to him.
Say you will…
Marry me.
I will, Wes.
Keep talking to me.
Say my name.
Tell me you love me. I’m here.
There’s a trade-off.
With awareness, comes pain.
Am I dying? Did I die? Am I a ghost, trapped in nothingness and forced to listen to his voice but never see him, never speak to him?
The pain is a badge—it means I’m alive.
As long as there’s pain, there’s possibility.
I drown in the raging ocean of half silence, and cling to a spar of hope.
Draw Me Back to You
Westley
There is no comprehension of the passage of time. It could be hours, or weeks, or days, or months since the doctor delivered the news of amaybe.
There were more tests. More vague half answers.
Then we were allowed back in her room and she’s once more asleep in a nest of tubes and wires.
There’s still thebeep-beep-beep, but nohisss-whirr. Still the cannula in her nose, but no pump.
Does that mean she’s breathing on her own?
Figures come and go.
Grandma sits with me beside her. Or in the chapel and we pray while others sit with her.
I’ve always been here, in this hospital.
My phone kept ringing and ringing, so I threw it away.
I think Grandma retrieved it. I heard her talking to someone about me. I don’t know.
I sing to her. I have her ukulele and I play it, and I sing. Elvis and Dolly and Les Mis and Train, I sing the music from the movie I’m supposed to be making. I sing to her, and I hold her hand.
The ring is in my hand. I think it’s burned an imprint in my palm. I want her to wake up, so I can put it on her finger and tell her she’s mine and marry her, and love her, forever.
They check her stats, check monitors.
Escort me out and bathe her.
I hold her hand, and it’s small and pale and delicate. There’s a freckle on her right hand, on the back, in the very center of the web between index finger and thumb.
