To Keep You

Seven: Olive

I didn't know it was possible to feel so dead and be so alive in the same moment. Perhaps I've turned into some freak of nature. If it was the truth, then I wouldn't even spare it a second thought, for I was changing, both inward and out. Since my arrival to this dreadful place, or rather, my prison. I haven't dared to step outside of it's walls, to embrace my long-lost love, the sun.

Once upon a time, we were best friends, I was always delighted to see her and embrace her warmth. But now, I couldn't even force myself to go out and greet her. Due to this, my skin was losing her favor, and now my once lively olive skin was fading away to nothing but a pale and cold complexion.

I felt and looked like nothing more than a corpse...

But my skin was not the only bodily feature suffering at the hands of my deep depression and grief-stricken body. I have all but refused food. The mere thought of it caused me to gag for how can I eat when Seth can't? How can I sleep when he can't? And how can I breathe when he barely can!?

Why do I deserve to experience all these things when he can't!?

But putting those thoughts aside, however, I hated myself for not being able to eat, because I couldn't eat much and my nutrition intake had dropped drastically over the past couple of days, my body refused to produce breast milk and therefore Rah'chayl had to be fed formula. I hated myself because I felt as if I was failing her as a mother for not being able to feed her the best nutritious option. The nurses weren't making me feel any better about it either, they didn't dare utter their thoughts upon their lips, but they didn't need to, for it was written in their eyes and I read it all.

I couldn't believe that I've been a mother for less than a week and already I have failed, I thought I would have at least a month or two to settle into the role before I would gain the title of the worst mother in history but look at me breaking records in all the wrong ways.

Sighing as tears escaped my eyes, I leaned forward and grasped Seth's cold hand within my own. It was barely three in the morning, and I could not sleep despite the drugs the nurses had injected into my body. After gathering our sleeping child into the safety of my arms, I had fled my prison and, by the grace of God, found Seth's room. Unlike me, who was placed on the first floor and under suicide watch, which basically just means that the rude and judgmental nurses harassed me as if I loved the feeling of wanting to die. As if I wanted my heart to stop as much as a child wanted to be loved.

Seth was placed on the third floor with the rest of the severely sick and ill patients, both mind and body-wise. I had to take the back staircase to avoid being stopped by the security guards who were really just men who were rejected from both the police and fire academy.

As my eyes drifted from his hand and up to his face, I wanted to gasp or perhaps even scream in pain for him. A large and thick tube was placed into his mouth and was helping him breathe as he was in his coma. There were multiple machines, and IVs hooked up to him. His skin was pale, and underneath his beautiful eyes, the skin had taken to the shade black, and if he was awake, I would've assumed he hadn't slept in nearly a week. But now, I suppose in his paralyzed state, he was simply taking to the form of a raccoon.

A dry laugh bubbled out from within me as tears continued to flow down my sunken in cheeks. For I knew I didn't look any better than he did, only I was awake, and he wasn't.

I refused any visitors, but from what the nurses offered to tell me, was that Seth took a bullet to the lower abdomen; the bullet had nicked some of his organs, and therefore, the doctors made the choice to put him in a coma to allow his body time to heal. I didn't know rather to believe that the doctors had made the right choice or not, for nearly every day they were on the local news talking about all of our conditions as if we were the newest sitcom. I hated them. They acted like our private information needed to be shown to the entire world. There hasn't been a day here that there weren't reporters camped outside of the hospital, just waiting for the freshest information. The doctors were even so heartless that they disclosed the information on our son. The son, I didn't even get to hold, let alone name or love, or even kiss. Yet they were parading around his story and information as if I killed him myself.