Love In Actuality

2.1: Aaron

“Oh God, oh God, oh god,” I fretted as I paced the emergency room. It

smelled of nothing but antiseptic and various drugs- something they were

obviously shooting into the girl’s arm right about now. She was probably dead.

Her aunt was probably scheduling her funeral right about now. I’d killed her. So

pretty, so innocent, and my CPR probably didn’t work. 

“Dude, chill out. You’re making a current,” Tony said. We had been best

friends since forever, but it amazed me how he could be so relaxed in a time like

this. I stared at him incredulously. He sighed, explaining himself as he had since

we’d found her. “She’s alive, she’s breathing. Cool yourself. You don’t wanna

look all girly in front of a chick like her.”

“Chick? Really?” I asked, sitting down beside him and forcing myself to

take deep breathes. 

“Aar, she’s hot.”

“She’s also half-alive.”

“But hot.”

I knew he was going to keep going like this until I agreed with him. “Yeah,

sure, she’s hot.” Images of her in the little one-piece flashed through my head.

Most days I was dragged to swim meets and practices to pick up my sister, Laila.

Every time, I saw Kyree flying through the water. Impossible to ignore, yet I knew

nothing about her except the record times she made. The only part of her I had

ever seen was the back of her- when it was above water. Not that I would ever

think about her like that- I had a long line of girls to go through before her name

was even processed. 

Tony chuckled quietly. “Wish I had been the one to know CPR.” Too true. I

closed my eyes, remembering the scene. I pushed her matted yet insanely curly

hair out of the way and blew all my air I could into those blue lips of hers. She

was absolutely freezing, but after a few attempts her heart started beating again,

faintly at that. Still unconscious. Panic set in. 

I fell asleep reliving that moment, obsessing over the girl.

*   *   *"Mr. Massif? Mr. Massif, wake up," a nurse called to me through my sleep.

I jerked upright, immediately cursing the hard chair. So uncomfortable. "The

doctor has cleared Miss Leigg for visitors. She would like to see you."

"Miss Lei--who?" I rubbed my eye in an attempt to wake up some more. 

A look of exasperation crossed the nurse’s face. “The girl? You rescued

her?”

“Oh! Her.” The nurse led me down several hallways, all in which had

doorways covering every inch. You could hear people crying or moaning in most

of the rooms, others were silent. I wasn’t sure which one scared me more.

Suddenly, we stopped. She pointed and then made a point of walking away

without a word, which confused me to say the least. Weren’t nurses supposed to

be nice?

I stood outside the door for a while, trying to figure out what I was going to

do when I got in there. Oh, God. What would she be like? A teenage girl’s voice

came from the room, sounding as cool and collected as ever. Bitter, in a way.

“Having fun staring at blank walls out there?” 

I composed myself and entered the room. “Oh, yeah. One of them even

has a bulletin board attached to it.” As soon as I made eye contact with her, I

regretted it. She was sitting in the bed, cocooned in so many blankets I couldn’t

even begin to count them. Her dark brown eyes were like a cave that tunneled

into the earth and begged to be explored. They were, of course, the most

overwhelming feature on her face next to the almost-dry strawberry-blonde hair

she had.  We were both obviously waiting for the other to say something, so I

decided to go ahead. I said, “Hey. I’m Aaron.” Which was completely pointless

because she must have heard of me by now. I mean, we’ve been in the same

school since forever.

“Kyree,” she replied. Some small part of my brain knew that. Silence

again. I forced myself to look away from her…but those eyes. They were just

gripping. “Why’d you do it?” she blurted. I could tell by the way that she bit her lip

afterwards that that was definitely not the way she had intended it to come out. 

“Do what?” I asked slowly. Her eyes narrowed in disgust. “I want to know why you saved me.”

I shrugged. Excuses made themselves readily available, but who was I to

lie to a girl on her deathbed? Or more importantly, lie to myself?  “There was just

something…special about you.”