What She Left Behind

Chapter 7

I wake in a hospital room, in a hospital gown, with monitors all around me. My family is surrounding me, their face lined with worry.

"COURTNEY! OH MY GOSH! ARE YOU OKAY??" My mom runs over to me screaming. She hugs me, and I hug her back, tight.

"Mom? Is it true? Or was I just imagining things? Was Hanna really lying in her room, dead, with blood surrounding her? Did I really call 911 then pass out?" About halfway through the sentance, the tears start running down my face, because I know it is true. I can tell by their faces, the fact that I am in the hospital, and the fact that Hanna is not by my side, right now, checking and double checking to make sure I am alright.

"I am so sorry." My mom says, starting to cry. "So sorry. It is true, all of it. They brought her to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do. They say someone killed her, that it was a homicide."

I sit there, numb with grief, tears silently running down my face. My mom, dad, and sister, Melissa, are crying too, but they don't understand as well as I do. They don't get it. Hanna will never laugh, smile, or cry again. I will never be able to look at most things I have without remembering her. Eventually, I just lie down and pretend to sleep. I don't want anybody, anybody, except Hanna's family, telling me how deeply sorry they are, or how loved her so much and wish they told her. They will never understand how much more Hanna is than just "that girl." If they loved her that much, why didn't they tell her?

My last conversation with her was a brief one at the end of the school day, the day I found her. She was in a hurry to get home, and we didn't say much. Right now, that is my only regret. In her last few days, we were basically in a fight. I didn't get to complete her bucket list for her life with her, we were only about 3 out of 100 and something into it. Nothing will ever be the same without her. Almost everything I own has some story to tell with it from when we were together. I open my eyes. It is getting harder for me to breath, I am holding back my sobs.

"Shhh, shh," my mom says. "Get some rest. We will talk to her family later, and the police want to talk to you. I shooed them out, not wanting to make you talk before you are ready to. Just get some sleep."

I fall asleep almost immediately.  All my dreams are about Hanna, but they are happy ones, so I can almost forget that she's dead. Almost, but not quite.