Short Story Collection

The Last Goodbye

"So there's nothing you can do?"

I can hear the hushed voices around me, but the world is black in front of me. Why can't I see? I think back to the wreck, the metal crunching on metal, the fire licking up from the engine in the seconds before the water flooded in, the flames burning me, the water drowning me. Maybe I've lost my sight in the chaos? I try to move, to speak. Anything. But it's useless.

"Her brain activity is still hopeful. She's breathing on her own. Her heart is slow but steady. She's stable, but that's all we know."

"So why isn't she awake yet?"

There's a pause. The doctor trying to phrase the words correctly, I suppose. In the silence, a picture begins to form. Bright and blurry. So, not blind, I guess. Not entirely anyway.

"Your daughter's car was submerged in the lake for nearly ten minutes before she was pulled from the vehicle. Before the car hit the water, Nina sustained multiple traumas, including a skull fracture. The engine exploded on impact, causing severe nerve damage. Her spinal cord was nearly severed when her neck broke. All in all, we're lucky to have come this far. But there is nothing any medicine we can give her or procedure we can perform can do right now. In cases like these, we often find that time is the best therapy we can utilize."

The image before me is sharpening—I can see the hospital room around me. I can see Mom and Josh, holding each other as they talk to the nurse. I can see the anguish in Mom's expression as she looks down into the hospital bed at—

Me. What the Hell? I stumble backward, away from my creepily still body. Oh my God. In that moment, I am sure that I am dead. How can I not be? The burns, the cuts, the stitches. The casts on both my arms and one of my legs. The bandages covering next to all of my skin. There is even a foam ring around my neck, holding my head in place. It is actually a wonder I recognize myself at all. A cannula is stuck in my nostrils, supplying my sleeping form with oxygen. I see my eyelids flutter as I dream of exactly what I am seeing right now.

No! This isn't some teen movie. I won't let it be like that.This is just a dream, and I am in complete control of it. I can wake up whenever I want to.

I step forward adamantly, past my mom and stepdad and the nurse,past the doctors attending other patients, through the open ICU bay doors—

A pain stops me in my tracks, lancing through my chest like a hot knife as I pass the doorway. I scream, knowing full well that no one can hear me, and collapse to my knees. Behind me, I hear doctor's cries of"code blue" and the loud constant blaring of a flat-lining heart monitor. I know that it is mine. I gasp, holding my chest as I fall backward into the ICU once again.

Suddenly, the pain is gone. I hear the heart monitor resume its casual slow pace. It's real. I know in that second that it is all real. I can actually die right now. And the choice of whether to leave or not is in my hands and mine alone.

So that's it? Does everyone get a choice? Do other people in comas actually have to choose whether they get to live a full life or die because they don't want to fight anymore? Is it a choice everyone gets? I mean,I'm only 23. I've just started to live. So the choice is obvious, right? I have so much to look forward to. Graduation next month, the professional soccer contract I had signed just hours before the crash... But, as I look at myself,lying on that bed, all those injuries... I know that can never happen. I'll never play soccer again. Hell, I probably won't ever walk again. But soccer is my life. I played with Dad from age 2, right up until he died. I've played ever since as a way to feel closer to him. What can I do without that? Who am I without that part of me in my life? I lean tiredly against the ICU doors, the decision weighing me down like pure lead.

"Kitten." The whisper comes so quietly, I almost miss it. But I haven't heard that reassuring voice in years and now, when I need him most, I jump up and call out for him.

"Daddy?" I look through the ICU doorway—only I can no longer see the waiting room on the other side. There is only a very clichéd bright light that almost made me laugh. That and my father, standing there, clear as the day I'd said goodbye, a kind smile on his face and a hand held out to me.

"My kitten," he says fondly. "It's time for you to leave. Come. Come with me."

I shake my head. "But Mom—"

"She'll be okay. She isn't alone anymore. It will hurt her,but she will get through it, I promise. Follow me, kitten. It's time for you to rest."

He stands directly in the doorway now, hand still outstretched. "Just one more minute. Please," I whisper. He nods solemnly. I turn back around to Mom one last time, knowing what I have to do. I step over to her, a single tear finally falling down my face, and I whisper into her ear."Goodbye. I'll always love you, Mommy. And I'm sorry." I brush my hand against hers briefly and I swear, for a moment, I see her actually feel it and search the room around her for me.

Finally, I turn back to where Dad stands, still in the doorway,waiting. His hand beckons me forward as he turns away and walks further into the bright light. I am more scared than I ever have been before. Not of dying,but of what comes after. I have always been a believer in God and Heaven and the afterlife. But now, I find myself hesitating. What lies before me? I know there is only one way to find out. Bracing myself for the part I dread, but that I know is coming next, I too leave the room, pressing bravely forward into the blinding light and feel all the pain of the accident and my injuries come on me at once until suddenly—nothing. I am free.