PULSE

(twentytwo) january 20

(TWENTYTWO) JANUARY 20

I still wasn't listening. I had been sitting beside Candace's hospital bed for over thirty minutes, and still hadn't listened to a word she'd said. I knew fully well that she'd been talking since the moment I walked in, but I hadn't bothered to process any of it. She was aware of this, I'm sure; but she kept talking anyway, as if she sensed that I needed an excuse to be silent.

So, I sat without speaking, leaning my elbows on my knees and staring numbly at the ground.

When her words finally began to burrow a whole into my mind, though, and my head began to pulse with the effort of shutting them out, I slowly sat up, glaring at the window across the room.

"Are you going to die already, or do I have to keep waiting?" I asked suddenly, cutting her off.

She looked sharply at me. "What?"

"If you're going to abandon me, you might as well just do it now. Why put it off? Just die now, if you're going to do it anyway."

She stared at me silently.

I turned slowly to look at the ground again, slumping over my knees and lowering my voice as I spoke again. "Just do it now."

Candace reached slowly toward me, resting her hand on my shoulder.

So I spent the rest of the evening sitting beside her hospital bed, begging her to die—if she cared about me at all, to just die already.