Saving Hope

Chapter 4

Will she ever awaken
(from Trish's perspective)

We have been at the hospital for about 3 hours now and we still have no word on what happened to Hope. I mean I knew she had really bad anxiety but I didn't think it would make her pass out in the middle of the street. There obviously has to be more to it which is the part that scares me the most, well that isn't completely true. The thing that scares me the most right now is that no one knows what is going on. And the few people who do are somewhere off doing medical things hopefully with Hope so we can get her back on her two feet.
I feel like this is all my fault in the large scheme of things. I mean I was the one who talked her into going to the office in the first place. But... if she didn't she would be getting hurt more and more every single day. Ugh... I feel like there was no other way to help her, but I also feel like I pushed her too hard and possibly pushed her over the deep end. I feel like a shitty friend...
I mean how does someone who knows someone so well and sees them almost every single day since primary school be so completely oblivious to the fact that her step-dad beat her and threw her around like some raggedy doll. I mean she doesn't wear makeup and I never noticed a bruise on her face until today. Like was it there the whole time? If so, how in the hell did I not see it? She is more than a best-friend to me, she will always be in my heart as a sister. No matter what we go through we will go through it together. I will not let this happen ever again.
You know something crazy about Hope is she is so attentive to detail. Which can be very creepy and unsettling at times because you will look up and just see Hope spacing out with possible drool falling down her face from intense focus. I remember when we first met I had just got done playing outside on the playground and I fell, but I didn't wanna tell the teacher because then the boys would have seen me as this prissy weak link. And to focus away from the pain that I felt in my knees and elbows I started to draw on a piece of paper. Next thing I knew I felt someone staring at me. So I looked up and there she was staring at me with this look of confusion. So I shrugged my shoulders and patted to the spot next to me as a sign to move over here. 'Cause you know if you're gonna stare for that long you obviously are an interesting person, that or you really have a staring problem. But hey I lucked out with that couk because she is just an interesting person.
"Malicha Lockwood? A doctor walks through these two doors. And the look on his face doesn't seem like he is bearing good news. Oh, please Hope, please be alive! I can't lose you!
My mom stood up and walked over towards the doctor motioning towards me to stay in my seat. "That is me, is there an update on Hope's condition?"
"Yes there is, and I just want to say that she is in the best care here." he said treddingly.
"So, she is alive?" my mom said with joy but a little confusion cause it seemed like the doctor wasn't telling her something.
"She is alive, but she is in a coma from extensive injuries that have been slowly killing her over time. The main one that put her in this coma was the brain bleed in her head"
My mother kind of stumbled backwards which alarmed me, as I've seen people do that before in tv show hospital settings when someone dies.
"How?" I said, trying not to cry.
"How?" the doctor looked at me confused as if I asked such a preposterous question.
"How could you let her die, she just got free from her horrible family and now she will never know the feeling of being a part of a family that loves you unconditionally." tears were now streaming down my face.
"Trish, Hope isn't dead, she is in a coma from a brain bleed that they couldn't get under control in time because of the extent of it. She is lucky to be alive, from all those other injuries that were affecting her daily that she herself didn't know about." My mom said while slowly moving forward to start hugging me, I looked up at the doctor and mouthed "I'm sorry."
"It is okay you weren't right up here listening to everything I was saying so you only had body movements and facial expressions to go off of. And trust me this happens a lot more than you think. Would you like to follow me to go see her? Now we like to say that our patients that are in a coma can hear us. It makes it easier for the family. But I don't just say that I truly believe it."
"Yes please, we would like to see her." my mom said on the verge of tears because Hope is like another daughter to her and it isn't the easiest to see them in these ways.
We started to follow the doctor down the hallway of the hospital and I kept glancing into the rooms that we passed and they all seemed so dreadful and gloomy. Like death was just waiting for the right time to take them away. There was this one room that we passed and I immediately got the chills all the way from the top of my head through my body to the bottoms of my feet. I felt super dizzy and hella nauseous. I was so creeped out that I started to walk faster. Which didn't seem too out of the norm- because I was trailing behind the doctor and my mom. We turned the corner and to our right was room 23b, and inside was... Hope. She was laying so peacefully, yet she seemed to be in so much pain at the same time. I slowly started to walk towards her to grab her hand. It was so cold, I felt like I was holding the hand of a corpse. She seemed so lifeless I didn't know what to do. I felt like being there was wrong... but I wanted to be there. My mom put her hand on my shoulder and motioned for me to sit down.
"Why don't you try talking to her." My mom said on her way out the door, she was on her way to get some of the hospital's nasty coffees, but hey coffees, coffee when you need it right? Wrong, at least for me, that coffee is like drinking dirt and dog piss with a little bit of chalk crushed up into the mix of it all. Do I actually know what any of that tastes like, but I imagine that if anything would taste like that it would be that coffee. And yes, I've actually tried it and I am not going off of stereotypes from T.V. shows it was the 2nd hour into the 3 hours of waiting for news on Hope. It was an instant regret.
"My mom has left the room, ha... She is getting coffee from the hospital cafeteria. Yeah I know I made the mistake of not trusting the T.V. show stereotypes. I feel like you would have saved me there. I don't know why but I thought once we got your step-dad out of the picture, your life would start to look up. Oh how I was so wrong about that... I am so sorry one, for not knowing/being oblivious and caught up in my own world not to see the pain and suffering you were going through, and two for pushing you to tell everything, and also sorta pushing to get out of that police car. I feel like I have failed you as a friend and surrogate sister. You might be wondering why I say surrogate sister, because I see you as a sister but I feel as if I barely make it as a friend, with the way I acted. I want you to know you are not invisible. Your pain is not invisible, I saw the limp, I saw it, but I didn't think to ask. I didn't see the huge bruise on your face, and I don't know how I missed it. I can't believe it took you almost pretty much telling me to figure out that you were being abused. I should have known. If I was a good enough friend or sister, I would've known before. Except I didn't because why exactly? I don't maybe because I was distracted? But in the end Hope there is no excuse and I hope you can forgive me, also thank you for not dying."
My mom knocked on the wall and walked in, "I brought us coffee, are you doing okay?" I lied and said that I was doing fine, and that I didn't want any of the coffee, the coffee part wasn't a lie. I was starting to get hungry though, but I didn't want to leave her side now that I made it back to it.
(a few minutes later)
"Hey I had mom go to your favorite restaurant to get food, thinking that maybe the smell will lure you out of this. If not, I know when you eventually do come out of this coma you will have to get you some winsung food cause you'll be a little peeved that we got it without you."
Sadly the winsung food didn't snap her out of her coma, but it was snapping me into one. How rude of them to cook a nap into this meal, I mean it was like 10 o'clock at night and it wasn't like my day wasn't crazy. I look over my shoulder to see my mom asleep in the chair, and now I am the only conscious one in the room which honestly was nice, but lonely. All I wanted to do was text Hope about how crazy things have been and ramble on about random things like we normally do, but that right now isn't possible because she is lying in front of me connected to a million wires and tubes. Oh and she is unconscious, and in a coma. You know what I just realized tomorrow is. Tomorrow is school! What am I supposed to do without her by my side? What am I supposed to say to the people wondering where she is? God please save me from this, I don't want to go to school tomorrow.