Forever Is A Long, Long Time

1

"The meds aren't working."

Phoebe stared numbly at the bleach-white tiles of the hospital floor. The meds never worked.

"I'm sorry. We can't change your prescriptions until these are out."

They could never change her prescriptions. Every time she came in, complaining about her night terrors and pain and unending depression, they had a brand new excuse as to why they could never give her anything that works more than once.

She was so tired of it all. 

"Could you get in contact with Dr. Yuma? She'll-"

"Dr. Yuma already contacted us, Phoebe. We can't put you on anything else right now." 

The pity in her doctor's voice pissed her off.

"Then why am I still here?" She looked at the IV bruise in her inner elbow. "You already shut off the drip. Let me out."

"We're waiting on your father, Phoebe. He's going to be taking you home."

"I can drive just fine." She spat bitterly, the prospect of becoming a burden on her father souring her stomach. 

She had been doing so well before the accident. He'd just feel sorry for her if he had to step in.

Her father, Alexander Burr, was a tall, proud man, who had cared for Phoebe on his own until well into her early 20's. Phoebe could still remember the way he had smiled when she had moved out to live with Nikolai, a sort of half-smile that said "Finally! Finally I can be on my own doing important things instead of caring for my needy child!"

Phoebe got up from the paper-coated examination seat and excused herself to go change out of that horrifically breezy hospital gown. She was spooked, just a little, by her own reflection in the mirror hanging above the tiny examination room bathroom's sink. Her eyes were puffy, wet with tears she wasn't even aware she had started to shed, and sunk into her pudgy face. Her hair, which had been chopped short after the accident, was sticking up in the back and was matted down on the sides. 

She glared at her own reflection, wiped her eyes, and walked out, in a fresh sweatshirt and clean jeans. The baggy clothes hung loose off her shoulders, hiding the depression weight she had put on. Alexander was already in the examination room when she got back, holding his car keys in one hand and was running his fingers through his short crop of salt-and-pepper hair with the other. He smiled when he saw her, in a way Phoebe almost read as a warm greeting. 

"Hey, kiddo. Ready to head home?" He hesitated a second before gently clasping his hand on her shoulder. His weathered hands still felt the way they always did, rough with work calluses and warm, even in the well-conditioned hospital. 

"Yeah, let's go." Phoebe resigned, not meeting her father's eye.

They walked out of the hospital and towards Alexander's almost comically tiny Kia. The deep blue paint still looked fresh as the day he bought it, clean and glittering under the December sun. 

The drive up to Alexander's house was almost unnecessarily long, neither on feeling quite ready to break the silence and speak to each other. Alexander cleared his throat once before turning on the radio, and that was the most conversation they had the whole ride there. Phoebe stared out the window and watched the strip of trees and foliage thicken as they left the city for the lushly forested country. She had driven along this same route time and time again. Every holiday she could, she drove out to see her father and his husband, and up until that summer, with Nikolai and Gwendolyn in tow.

She was crying again as gravel crunched under the tires, the little car pulling up into Alexander and Aaron's driveway.