When I Met You

The Recovery

                                                                            . . .

When I come to, it is morning and I see Dieter sitting in a chair next to me, asleep. I smile and stare at him and his platinum blonde hair, snuggled up in a blanket. Then, I remember everything that happened last night. My heart started to race. I hear a beeping that gets faster and faster along with my heart. I look over and see a heart monitor, and look around the room and where I am lying white, bleached sheets, beige lifeless walls. A nurse and doctor run in, and I can feel myself falling back into the dark. Tears start to roll down my cheeks. Then, I feel someone grab me out of it. The darkness falls back and I look to my hand. Someone is grasping it tightly. And I look up and see those blue eyes staring back at me. The heart monitor slows down, and the doctors let go of me. Dieter stays there, holding my hand, staring into my eyes.

"I thought I told you to stop staring," I say hoarsely.

"Ha!" he laughs. I laugh too, but it leads to a ruff cough.

"Is that still an adorable laugh? Ha!" I ask, but he just stands there smiling.

"The most adorable one I have ever heard." I stare at him and remember last night.

"Dieter, what happened last night? Where is my dad?" I ask.

"Emma," he pauses I can tell he is holding back, because of me. "Your dad, he found Kaitlyn at the lake, she had explosives wrapped all around her. When they found her, they also found the Murderer. The police caught him, then while your dad tried to figure out the bomb. He tried to find the purple wire that the murderer told him was the kill switch. There wasn't one. It was a trick." I feel my eyes begin to water. "He told everyone to run, and when I saw you, I took you and ran into one of the police cars. There wasn't a purple wire, so he unwrapped them from Kaitlyn, and threw them into the Lake. He tried to run far from it, but ... the blasts hit him and Kaitlyn."

"N-no!" Tears begin gushing down my face, and I begin to yell. "NO, NO, NO! He wasn't supposed to go!" Dieter wraps his arms around me and I can't stop sobbing. After a while, my body is too weak to go on and my eyes have dried out. Dieter is laying beside me.

Then he says, "Do you want to know about the time I first "unofficially" met you?"

"Sure," I say, weakly.

"Okay. When I first saw you at school, I asked your friend Leo about you and he said that that day you guys were going to a coffee house on 30th street. And he asked me if I wanted to come. I said that I would love to, and I would meet you guys there. I told him not to tell you and to act like we never met so that you wouldn't know that I was asking about you."

"I remember that day. But, you walked in, bought coffee, and left."

"I know. That day, I got to the coffee house and decided to buy my coffee and then 'accidentally' bump into you. I was in line and had finally ordered my coffee. Baristas are slooow!" He says.

"Hahaha! Cough, cough."

"That's adorable." He says smiling at me. I elbow him in the stomach. "Okay, okay! I'll stop." he pauses, takes a deep sigh, and then continues.

"While I was waiting for my coffee, I started to watch the news on the TV they had. There had been a car crash. I saw a photo of the crash and freaked. I couldn't tell for sure but I was almost certain that the car in the crash was my mother's. At first, I just stood there, not knowing what to do. When I came to my senses I ran out the door and to the place where the crash had happened. When I got there it was crowded with firemen and police officers. When I saw two EMTs carrying someone into an ambulance I ran to see if it was, indeed, my mom. When I got there, I saw that it was her, but she had died in the crash."

"I am so sorry," I say.

"Your dad just died, you don't need to say anything, about my mom. My dad was devastated. So was my little brother. Me, I just felt empty. This might sound creepy, but I don't think I ever cried, once. At first, I thought that because I didn't feel "sad", like everyone else, that I was a bad person. I don't know, that sounds weird, right?" He asks.

It didn't sound weird at all to me, that was exactly how I felt about my mom when she left, of course, I just didn't feel it as deeply as he did. My mother is still out there, but it's the fact that even though she gave birth to me, she doesn't want to be with me. When she left Dad was a mess. He would only start crying when he thought I was asleep. I would just lay there staring at my ceiling. I thought just what Dieter was thinking. Now, when I think about dad, I too, feel empty. Or at least, I used to.

I lay my head on Dieter's shoulder and say,

"It doesn't sound weird at all. I understand how you feel."

"You do?"

"I do. I felt the same thing when my mom left me and my dad. And I feel the same thing now. I used to think that because I wasn't sad like him, that it meant I didn't love her, and that she didn't love me. I was wrong though because now when I think about my dad I know he loved me, he told me. In that moment, I knew I loved him too, but stupid me couldn't say anything. I never got to tell him I loved him." The thought makes me want to cry but I don't. "I know now that love isn't just a thing we feel when we are attracted to someone. We feel it in different ways. The love between a parent and child, the love between two best friends," I pause and look into his deep blue eyes. "or even the love between two people who are also truly attracted to each other."

"So you do think there is such a thing as love?" He asks.

"At first, I didn't, but, that was before I met you."