Of course I'll be fine, I'm always fine. But we have to fight, because it's just us now. There were five of us and now it's just you and I and it can't be just me. It can't be. I will go down swinging for you, Ross. You know I will. But that means y...
I might've asked the entire staff if they had caught the person who shot Ross but there were no traces. And I might've checked in on the kids from time to time but really I was stalling from seeing Ross in that bed, vulnerable like I've seen everyone else who has died in my life. I tried to keep to myself, occupied and headstrong, but being apart from what I knew stretched my soul into opposite directions.
I kept taking excessive deep breaths like they would eventually help me. They didn't, neither would they ever. My lungs were so full, every cry I thought I might let out, stayed in. I didn't know how to be in this situation without wanting to throw up or fade away. I didn't know anything... it's like my brain was empty but so full at the same time.
It was months and months of back and forth. I kept pinning myself in a grave, I kept blaming everything on Ross and because of that I was willing to die quicker. I'm not saying what he did was justified but I'm saying I would forgive him in a blink of an eye if I knew this was going to happen - Why was this happening? To me, again?
I wanted to scream, but I kept my mouth shut and sulked down the hallway heading to Ross' room. The hospital knew absolutely nothing of the attacker, and had no comforting tactics for me... and I couldn't call anybody right now because if I spoke of what happened, I would crumble into oblivion... and I most definitely didn't know how I was gonna survive if I did.
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I put my hand on the door knob but I could not seem to move after that. I knew exactly how he would look, and with that glimpse of looking into the future, I was not fine at all. I was staring at the door waiting for him to run through it and hold me, and stop my heart from hurting but that was the stupidest thing I could've done to myself.
Eventually I jerked the door open. I stood directly in the door way looking over Ross. Looking over him, It had another tragedy written all over it. The complete opposite of optimism, and good will. The bad luck you wish away. This was what falling a part was like in a crisis. This was the organ damage. The type you have, even when you are alive. I didn't blink him away... I just walked over to him. That's all I could do. That's all ... I could do.
As my paces of breath had gotten harder, more dreading, I reassemble everything that had gotten me here. The phone call, the kids, the cold. Now I was here in the middle of the night looking at his bloody blonde hair wrapped around the white head wrap. I cursed at him, as if he could hear me.
His eyelashes were basically covering his eyes in a way where it looked like he was already peacefully in another world, safer... I could cross my fingers and hope for hope, but God, oh God I had known better. He was hooked up to the tube that Allie was hooked up to months ago before she died. He couldn't breathe on his own, just as well as Allie couldn't and it was so selfish that I would trade places with them both if I could.
It was supposed to be me. Not him nor Allie.
I sat in the chair that was already next to his bed. Not taking my eyes off him, I realized this was not like the time when his Dad stabbed him. This was not a silver lining, this was real life. And what did I do to deserve real life? I deserved loads more fighting, and denied hospital appointments, and hours of uninterrupted moments. I got none of it. I told him to let me go.
