Survivin' - [B.C.]

Chapter 17: Like Music

I glanced from her eyes down to her lips, then back up again. We stayed like that for several minutes. I had no idea what to do. Granted, I also had no thoughts. Just her. And before I knew what was happening, our faces were closer together.

Oh, shit.

========== SURVIVIN' =========

(THIS IS FROM BEN'S PERSPECTIVE)

"Sweetheart, stop beating yourself up about it."

I removed my head from my hands and looked up at my wife. My beautiful wife. The reason why left a dying kid behind.

She walked over to me, sitting next to me as she rubbed my back. I sighed and slouched backwards onto our nice ivory leather sofa. A few strands of my hair fell loose onto my forehead. I blew them away. Sophie imitated my sigh and ran her hand against my chest.

"I left a kid behind in a hospital while they're dying. I abandoned them when they needed me the most. The very same kid I swore to protect at all times. It's my fault they're even in this situation."

"Benedict," I was startled to hear Sophie use my full first name. She hardly ever does that, and when she does, it isn't good.

"You were doing a really nice thing. What you did, getting Cal that surgery, that's gonna benefit them more in the long run. Two months of being in the hospital won't compare to being able to do what you love for the rest of your life."

"Yeah, but what if they don't make it out of the hospital?" I rolled my head over as I asked this. I could see a mixture of emotions in Sophie's eyes. There was some sympathy, exhaustion, and... doubt.

"Ben, they-"

"Don't try to act like you're not scared of it, too. You are. I can see it."

She stayed quiet a moment as she kept on looking at me. Then she averted her eyes.

"Ben," she tried again. "They're going to make it. I swear."

"You don't know that," I argued.

"And you don't know that they won't," she retorted. We both sighed this time, simultaneously. She was right. But I was also right. But who was righter?

"I'm just saying, Sophie, that I shouldn't have left Cal in that great big building without anyone to keep them company. I mean, what if they die in there and the last memory they have of me is me leaving them?"

"Cal is most certainly not unaccompanied in that building, Benedict. They have those nice nurses and doctors to talk to. And besides, what were you going to do if you stayed there? Watch them deflate from outside two thick layers of glass?"

I gave a half-shrug. That was exactly what I had been doing. I'd been watching Cal very closely from outside their quarantine room. I would talk to them through the phone. But there was nothing I could do besides that. It wasn't like when they were stashed up in the Accident/Emergency department where I could sleep on the usually empty bed next to theirs, and then sit beside them in a chair while we had some time to talk and whatnot. Nope, this time, I wasn't even allowed 12 feet near them. I also didn't have much of a place to sleep or sit other than the waiting room. Now was I really prepared for that? Nope. That's one of the biggest reasons why I decided to come home.

"You seriously need to stop worrying so much. And stop torturing yourself over it. It'll be okay, Ben. I promise."

Promises get broken.