Lost Cause

Ten hours

Everyone carried on staring acting as if that would bring him back, I could hear no sound other than that monotone signal - the signal of the grim reaper, of broken heart's , a torn down world, dark days and even darker minds.

My fingers clasped round the icy cool metal of the door handle, and that's when it changed. There was a beep, followed by another I slowly turned round it felt like the room was bending round stopping me from turning, everything moved as I turned trying to see, then there I stood back facing Matt watching his chest rise and fall, then there was nothing.

~
My hands grazed the clean and corse fabric of unknown sheets, my eyes burned as unforgiving bright light poured into my pupils. Soon enough they focused and were greeted with blank walls, "You're awake." A soft voice fell upon my ears which I quickly registered to be mum's.
"Looks like it." I dryly replied back, scanning the room and seeing the faces of mum, dad and Mads.
"He's dead." I said bluntly cutting the silence that became suffocating, I pulled my legs up towards my chest and stroked the soft denim fabric of my jeans as I drew little patterns on my legs - just like Matt used to.
"No, no he's not." My head snapped round to meet dads soft gaze.
"They turned the ventilator off, he stopped breathing, I heard it."
"You went to leave and then you collapsed just as he began breathing. At first the doctor said sometimes the body does this before failing and then dying, but then he carried on and he's breathing on his own." A huge smile illuminated my dads face but I just sat there too stunned to even blink.
"How long have I been out? What even happened." I mumbled dropping my head looking down at my lap.
"About ten hours, your body was exhausted. Darling when did you last eat? Drink? Have a proper nights sleep?" Mum quizzed me, I racked my brain trying to find the answer, the answer I couldn't find.
"I can't remember. I thought I was sleeping." I snapped, how did I let this happen how could I not look after myself?
"It's okay, we'll get you back on track." Mum reached and grabbed my hand.
"I have to see him." I struggled to get out of the bed my mind began racing again and I knew I had to see him, my feet hit the floor but suddenly gave way again dad quickly caught me by the elbows and eased me back up.
"You need to rest, you need to stay here, he'll be okay." Dad helped me back into bed before leaving to tell the doctor I was awake alongside mum.
"What the fuck is happening." I breathed out looking at Mads.
"God knows, but Meg he's awake that's amazing." Her soft smile struck a cord somewhere in my heart and the tears began to fall.
"Hey don't cry." Mads came over and sat on the end of the bed.
"I just don't know what else to do." I sobbed out, Matt was awake and that was amazing but what will his quality of life be? What if he was just better of dead, I'd rather that than him being in constant pain.
"Look the doctors are confident he'll make a strong recovery, it's going to baby steps to get him there, and you, but the first massive step has been taken, him breathing on his own." She paused a second looking me in the eyes. "It's going to be horrible no one is denying that, you're going to cry so will Matt so will we all, you'll have days where it all seems to go wrong. You'll take one step forward and take two back, but you will get there, we're all here to support you both, you need to look after him but Megan you also need to look after yourself your no use to him if your relapsing." The sadness in her eyes became evident and I felt guilty, I knew what I was doing I just chose to ignore it hoping no one else would notice.
"I'm not relapsing." Maddie raised her eyebrows at me, her lips settled into a sad smile.
"You know as well as I have you are, you knew what you were doing you knew what was going on in you're head, you just hoped no one else did."
"Well no one did." I snapped.
"We did, we all did, none of us knew what to do we your so fragile and none of knew how much you could take before your broke all we could do was watch. It may seem counterproductive but it was the only thing we could do." Maddie was right and she knew I knew that. If they'd tried to force me to eat, to sleep to do anything other than think of Matt I would have broken and god knows what I would have done, everyone was in a situation of picking between two evils and they chose to ignore, they picked the lesser of the two. I've undoubtedly caused damage, but that was inevitable regardless.
"It's going to be okay, not right now  but it will be, little by little it will become okay again." I nodded my head, Maddie opened her arms and I slid into them but they weren't the arms I wanted, they weren't his. We sat there in silence Maddie letting me cry, she rocked me and comforted me but eventually the tears stopped and we just sat there, the door burst open causing me and Maddie to jump apart in terror and in shock Dad ran toward me and grabbed my hands in his.

"He's awake."

~~

I'm back.

Xoxo - H