A Not-So-Muggle Life

Realisation

10. Realization

I froze, not daring to move.

"It is Flora. She is in her car parked about a mile from here." Said a girl. She sounded like she was Alice.

So, in a second she had travelled from her house to me and back again.

"What is she doing there?" asked Edward.

"Nothing. She is just sitting in the car." Alice answered.

I started the engine and drove away, still processing the information I'd just received. The Cullens were vampires? Of course they were! How stupid I'd been. They never ate anything. Edward's skin was so cold. The color of his eyes kept changing. He had reached me in an instant when I fell down at school. And I thought they were the victims when the spell pointed towards their house.

But at least they weren't responsible for those deaths. It was some other vampire they were trying to locate.

But surely they also need blood. How can they survive without it? Why were their eyes not red? And how did they manage to live in a community?

I was still in shock when I reached home. To my surprise, there was an ambulance parked in the driveway. I rushed inside to find paramedics carrying dad on a stretcher. He was unconscious.

Mrs. Boyle told me what had happened, in between her sobs. Dad had gone to the kitchen and fell down taking down the refrigerator. The noise woke her up. He was conscious when she found him, complaining of intense chest pain.

I drove to the hospital as fast as I could. My vision blurred by tears. God, please don't let him die. He was the only person I had left. We had started to...... No, he would be all right.

An intern cornered me as I asked for dad at the reception.

"We're taking him for an emergency aneurysm repair. I need your signature on the consent form. Dr. Cullen would be here soon."

Dr. Cullen? A vampire, a creature who couldn't contain his bloodlust, was going to operate on my dad, opening his chest while blood spurts from his aorta.

"Isn't there anybody?" I asked, trying to sound calm.

She looked confused at my reluctance. "No, Dr. Cullen is the only surgeon on call, and you're lucky he is. He is the only one who might pull this off."

So, I had no choice. I remembered Dr. Cullen saying that killing people was not who they were. I hoped it was true and signed the consent form.

I sat down in the waiting area, barely able to keep myself from breaking apart. They were already suspicious of me. He wouldn't take it out against dad, would he?

"Flora, what are you doing here?" it was Jacob's voice. I looked up to see him standing near the ER entrance about a meter away from me. He looked at me with a worried expression.

"My dad." I managed to choke out.

His cell phone rang. "Yeah, dad. Mark is fine now. It was just an asthma attack." He answered. "I'll have to stay here for a while." He said, looking at me.

He sat down next to me. It provided little comfort.

"You should go. I'll be fine." I told him, in a firmer voice than earlier.

"I'll stay." His tone indicated that it was not debatable.

I was not able to sit still. He held my shaking hand. "He'll be fine. Who's treating him?"

"Dr. Cullen." I answered, mincing my words.

"See? You've nothing to worry about. Dr. Cullen has never lost a patient."

Yeah? Well, you don't know what I know about him, I thought. I didn't say anything, though.

Jacob stayed with me till morning. That was really nice of him. At least I wasn't alone. He wasn't even leaving in the morning. I actually had to beg him to go, telling him repeatedly that I'd be fine.

A little while after he left, I saw Dr. Cullen walking towards me. I braced myself. I could see the blood on his scrubs.

"Flora, your father is out of surgery. We were able to repair his aneurysm. He'll be fine." He told me, smiling.

I was not expecting that. "Thank you. Can I see him?" I avoided looking him in the eye.

He instructed his intern to take me to dad.

He had saved my father. A vampire, considered monster by everyone, had saved a dying man. 'This is not who we are.' I remembered. I felt so guilty of judging them like that. They were also humans....... Metaphorically speaking. Yes, they needed blood for survival, but that didn't necessarily make them killers. Maybe they used blood banks. It didn't matter. They were living in a community and were saving lives rather than taking them, and they had every right to do so.

I forgot everything about the Cullens when I entered dad's ICU. He was lying there, almost looking like he was sleeping, with multiple i.v. lines attached to him. He had a big thoracotomy scar on his chest. But he was unmistakably alive.

I sat down on the chair, put my head next to him, and silently cried.