Garden of Love [ Chaennie ]

6. I Think I'm In Love with Her

It had been four days now. Four painstakingly long days that had seemed to move by at a snail's pace. She felt like she was actually losing her mind. She just stared at her wife for hours on end hoping for the slightest bit of movement. "Good things come to those who wait." That's a phrase her wife said too many times to count when they were in college. Her wife was so sure of herself. Nobody could tell her otherwise, she knew she was going to do big things. She had dreams. She had plans.

Rosie watched as the days continued to turn to night. Ella was too little to understand what was going on. She told her momma had a boo-boo and she needed to sleep to get better. But patience was not Ella Kim's strong suit. When she wanted something she was used to getting her way. Not that she was a spoiled brat. She was quite the opposite. Jennie didn't spoil her with materialistic things typically. She spoiled her with her time. There were many times Jennie would put her work life aside to bring her daughter a few moments of happiness. It forced her to work under a time constraint but she was willing to stress herself out late into the night if she had to.

After all, it wasn't exactly like she could tell the board that she was sorry for not getting the report done on time because her daughter wanted to watch the show with the talking pets for the billionth time together. Jennie would sit and watch the talking animal show if it made her daughter happy. She lived for both of her girls happiness. This has been the longest time Rosie has gone without talking to her best friend. She missed her terribly.

The doctor came by and examined her pupils. He then ordered another head CT. He came back into the room with the results. Time seemed to stand still. She saw his mouth moving but she couldn't seem to hear what he was saying. He looked at her expectantly. As if he was waiting on her to acknowledge him.

"Mrs. Kim?" He asked

Rosie snapped out of her haze "I'm sorry. What was that?" She asked

"I said your wife is in a coma." He says

She takes a deep breath trying to remain calm

"For how long?" She asks

"There's no real way to predict that. It could be hours, days, months... in the rare cases years." He says

Rosie looks over at the hospital bed and shakes her head "No." She croaks out

"I'm sorry Mrs. Kim. We are still keeping a close eye on the swelling of her brain. We will let you know if there's any change in her condition." He says

Claire held her for hours as she cried. She couldn't imagine doing this for months or years. She didn't even want to do this another hour. What did she do to deserve this? she asked herself. She can't imagine anything that would have let this be an acceptable outcome.

Days had steadily turned into weeks. Two weeks and 4 days to be exact. But who's counting? She paced back and forth in that small hospital room most days. Other days Ella would come to visit and sit in the chair by the bed. Auntie Jisoo brought her coloring book and crayons with her so she had something to do that day. It was an animal coloring book. Jennie had taken Ella grocery shopping with her and they came home with that one day. Rosie shook her head and laughed at them. Jennie was such a sucker for their little girl. All it took was one look with those big green eyes and her tiny pouty lip for her wife to cave like a deck of cards.

Ella's tongue peeked out of her mouth as wild lines were drawn over the coloring book page. Her tiny hand wrapped tightly around the black crayon. Her little legs swinging back and forth in the chair, too small to reach the floor anytime soon. Jisoo, Lisa, Jackson, and Ashley were visiting that day. Rosie decided to use this time to go home and shower in her own house. She's been living at the hospital all this time. She just needed to get out of the suffocating room for an hour.