Things Not Said

Chapter 2: Kyle

Kyle

I can hear my footsteps echo on the hallway floor of the hospital. Knowing perfectly where I am going, I turn and push open the door of room 36. This room has always been so familiar to me. I look in, at the white walls, the hospital bed, the century old television and sigh. It has been a while that I've been here and I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it. How much I'd missed her.

 I walk in, my feet treading quietly on the linoleum tiles. The hospital smell hovers in the air and I wrinkle my nose at the strong smell of disenfectant. They had obviously cleaned the room a lot since I'd last come, the smell was so overwhelming.

My back turned to the bed, I walk to the window, putting down the flowers I brought next to the vase on the sill. The vase is empty which doesn't really surprise me; if they'd left the lilies from last time, they'd have been long dead. Taking the fragile vase in my hands, I carefully walk to the tiny bathroom and set it on the cold stone of the sink before filling it up with fresh water. The thin glass of the vase still frightens me, for the last time I'd dropped one, it had shattered into a million pieces, the glass spreading out into a thin membrane of sharp sparkles on the floor.

Before walking back to the window, I look up at myself in the mirror. My glasses resting on my crooked nose threaten to slide off and I push them up with a slight of my hand, being careful not to drop the vase. I bring it back out and set it on the windowsill, propping the flowers inside. The frozen streets outside the window are covered by a layer of snow and the clouds are menacing to burst into a towering blizzard of nothing but cold and ice droplets for it barely ever snowed here in Golden.

Already shivering at the thought, I sigh and spin around to the bed. On any other occasion, I would’ve gone to the night table and changed the book for a new one. I would’ve straightened out the sheets on the empty bed, sat, and read aloud to no one. Well, no one alive anyway.

But today is different. As I look over my shoulder, I freeze, suddenly aware of the sound of breathing coming from the person on the bed, the person that shouldn't be here. On the pillow, light brown hair spreads itself like a spider’s legs. Her face is turned away and her body is curled up slightly as she sleeps on her side. I can hear and see her breathing, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath. From her rasped breaths, I can already tell that she must be quite hurt, and that I shoudn't be here, but I can't stop staring at her. 

I stand by the television for what seems like hours before realizing I’m intruding on somebody I don’t know. Not knowing what I should do next, I look back out into the hallway. It’s empty and no one has seen me come in. Even if they had, I could’ve been a friend, or relative for all they know. I look back to the girl sleeping in the white sheets and debate with myself.

No way could I do what I had come here to do. It was wrong, and could possibly lead to her waking up. But I coudln't just leave the room without giving something to do to the wandering spirit that had come here before her. I look down to my bag and bring out The Kite Runner. The two boys on the cover with their arms around their shoulders make me smile sadly and I go to put it on the girl's bedside table.

I put it down and look around behind the lamp and the flowers next to the girl's bed, looking for the book I'd last brought. My eyes quickly scan across the table and, stricken by a sudden panic, take in every detail of its surface. My mind is in full motion and I throw the room upside down looking for my book,   her book, making enough noise to wake the dead, but the figure on the bed doesn't stir. I can't have lost it, I can't have, I just can't have I can't have lost the book, not this book, not her book. I feel tears anrgily itch the back of my eyes while I punch the pillow on the chair. Taking a deep breath and steadying my voice, I run out of the room and to the reception.