Nightmares

Chapter Eleven

There I was again. Waiting. In the same room as last time. The same chair. Was this even real? I had just sat down, wondering how long I was going to be here when the nurse walked in. I stood up immediately.

"Where's Phil?" I asked. She gave me a sympathetic look.

"I don't know if someone has already explained this to you, but Mr. Lester was born with a heart defect. He was just experiencing another hit of Sudden Cardiac Arrest, but from where he had just gotten out of surgery and wasn't properly healed, it did a lot more damage then last time." My heart seemed to drop to the pit of my stomach. She continued, "He's in the ER right now, and they're trying their best, Mr. Howell, but there may be only so much we can do."

I felt tear spring into my eyes and my hands began to shake. "So you're saying he may die?" I raised my voice. "He can't die! He was just fine, I thought the surgery fixed everything and he would go home soon!" The nurse remained calm, as if she dealt with things like this all the time. She probably did.

"Our surgeons thought they had fixed it, my guess is they missed something by accident. It doesn't happen often," she replied. I was filled with rage.

"Then why did it have to happen to me? Why does it have to be Phil in there? Why not someone else?" I sat back down and put my head in my hands. I didn't want to cry, not right now, but I couldn't stop it. I sobbed.

"Mr. Howell, I'll come back in a little while, okay?" asked the nurse. She left me alone in the waiting room again.

This time when I cried, it wasn't the polite, quiet sniffling. This was full-out ugly sobbing. My wails filled the room as I thought about my best friend-my only true friend-and how he was dying right then. There was nothing I could do.

I thought back to all the fun memories we had: first meeting at the airport, filming Phil is not on fires, truth or dare videos, moving in with Phil, creating our gaming channel and raising Dil, going to Japan, all those days we just played video games and did nothing else. Falling asleep on the couch together at night watching movies, writing and publishing our book together. I treasured my life with Phil; I loved every moment of it and wouldn't trade it for the world. If he died, I would never get to spend another moment of my life with the Phil Lester I loved. I didn't just love him romantically, but in every way possible to love a human being. He was my everything and I was losing him. I found myself unable to do anything but cry some more.

It seemed like forever had passed when I finally calmed down enough to just sit on the chair that felt like stone, quietly hiccuping. I looked toward the clock. About 11:30am. I continued to sit and wipe my tear stained face with my black shirt, hoping to dry my eyes and make it look like I hadn't been crying like a child. No one came in for a long time, so I just sat in silence, waiting again, alone with my thoughts.

Moments later, the nurse came back to the room. She opened the door so quietly that I didn't know she was there until she spoke.

"Mr. Howell... I'm really very sorry, but Mr. Lester passed away just a few minutes ago in surgery."

I felt my heart momentarily stop at those words. Then it was pounding in my ears, the loud hideous sound from my nightmare just a day ago. I heaved in a shakily sigh and looked up at her, gathering all my courage to speak.

"Well," I said, "what do I do now?"