Miracle Girl

III

Arriving back from the tests I listened to my family talk as I picked at my bland hospital dinner. Terry was picked up early by his bandmates, some kind of practice for the band I'd probably never hear. Amanda got a ride to a friends house where she was having a sleep over, and Dana had classes early tomorrow so she left to do homework.

Landon was now speaking with Dad about engagement rings, trying to get him to pay for some of it, even though he was already graduated and was about to work as a nurse at an elderly home. Before I was diagnosed with cancer, he was going to be a doctor, but when money got tight he switched. Of course he told me it had nothing to do with me, but what was he supposed to say?

"Oh!" My Mother leapt up from the chair she was sitting in close to my bed, the hospital pamphlet in her hand.

"Irene? Are you okay?" Dad asked.

"This hospital has a history."

"Do we need to switch hospitals?"

"No! This hospital is famous for its miracles."

"Really?" Landon asked, "What kind of miracles?"

"Well, there's a list." She adjusted her glasses and began to read it out, "October 19 of last year, a thirty-two year old man had severe prostate cancer, and one day it was all gone. Not a single trace left. Forty year old woman who was admitted here after a major car crash was dead for a whole twenty-eight minutes before waking up miraculously in a body bag."

"Wow!"

"What a load of -" I started but was cut off.

"Fourteen year old girl with leukaemia was cured after just two rounds of chemo! Fourteen Jonas, that's almost your age!"

"That's great." I deadpanned and pulled the blankets up to my chin as I settled into bed.

"I think this is worth checking into!" Dad said as he pulled his laptop out of his bag.

"You know, there's lots of a elderly people I've worked with that claim they've been visited by death." Landon offered.

"You could be on this list Jonas." Mom stared at me with her eyes filling with tears, I turned the other way in bed.

"Jonas, this is something. It may not be much, but you have to hold onto something." Dad said.

I didn't want some false hope that would distract me from what was really happening. I wanted to live in reality.

But instead said, "I'll remain skeptic until proven true with factual evidence."

I heard Mom sigh as she got to her feet, Dad and Landon following suit.

"Skeptic or not, I still love you." Dad gave my hand a squeeze.

"Maybe if Dana and I get the wedding going quickly, you could come." Landon whispered to me, because he knew I wouldn't be able to, and didn't want our parents hopes to go up.

"Yea, maybe." I offered meekly.

The door creaked as it shut and my eyes began to droop. I hadn't realized how tired I was until now.

The room around me began to fade and I soon fell asleep to the sound of the hospital machines beeping. Assuring me that I was still alive.

***

It was close to two in the morning when I woke up. It was odd for me to wake in the night without a reason such as extreme pain or discomfort. Something felt off. Thinking that a nurse may have just walked in unannounced I sat up. Nobody was here but the feeling of someone watching me made my skin crawl.

Squinting in the dark, I looked back and forth to scan the room. Gasping, I grasped onto my blanket at I spotted a silhouette of a person sitting on the end of the bed. I brought my legs up, and scrambled into a sitting position. My commotion caused the person to turn their head towards me. The moonlight from the window caught their face - or should I say her face.

I'd never had this happen before. Nobody had come in my room unannounced, and I wondered if this hospital had a panic button I could push.

The girl rose gracefully from the bed and took a step in my direction. "Leave now or I'll call a nurse." I warned lamely, like someone would be scared of a nurse. She didn't stop, but advanced further, and my hand skimmed the wall beside the bed for the button.

No normal guy would be scared of a girl, especially one that looked so tiny and frail, but the fact that I was connected to a million machines and couldn't make it more than a few steps without collapsing magnified my fear.

Her face came closer and I stopped searching for the panic button. Her face was filled with utter confusion. Her eyebrows knit together, bottom lip farther out than the other, and her skin so pale it was almost transparent, and lifting her hand towards me I realized it was.

Her hand came closer and cupped my cheek, although I didn't feel it. I did feel some type of cool substance where her touch should have been, but no actual feeling of a hand. I shrunk away from the cold. Her face was so close to mine that I should have been able to feel her breath, but didn't.

Things weren't adding up, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to press the panic resting beneath my fingertips.

Her expression morphed quickly from confusion to one of wonderment, and she said in a high breathy voice, "You can see me."

With her joy came my fear, and without thinking my fingers pressed down on the solid panic button. Sirens sounded outside the room, and flashing lights lit up the dark hallways. I'd been warned this would happen if I pressed the button, but thought it was well worth it if it got this very beautiful yet strange girl out of my room.

But as my eyes turned back from the flashing lights the girl was no longer there. And now with no proof of this girl I had to make up a story on the spot of how I hit the button in my sleep. There was no way I could say I saw some girl that looked like a ghost, because hallucinations were part of the symptoms of my worsening tumours.

That girl better not show up here again; I was thoroughly freaked.