As I approached the hospital room I prayed it hadn't been him lying in that room unconscious. I prayed that it hadn't been my fault he was driving. I prayed he hadn't gotten into an accident and was now brain dead.
But it was and he was.
He was the person lying in that plain room, tubes down his throat and needles connected to his arms.
I could've sworn I almost hyperventilated when I saw him. Could've sworn I'd be bald from how hard I was pulling at my hair. Sworn it was all my fault.
And in a way it was all my fault. He had been driving to beg for my forgiveness in the first place, right? The flowers with the notecard said it all. It's a shame he had to die to get it.
The doctors called his parents and they flew over straight away. I don't think I've ever seen a grown man cry as much as his father did.
It's bullshit really. Parents aren't supposed to have to attend their child's funeral. Shouldn't be forced to go pick out their coffin.
The surgeon had explained to them the same thing he explained to me. The whole there's a chance he may wake up and miracles do happen.
So they gave it a month. They didn't want to have their child's body lay in a hospital for years, but they also didn't want to say they just gave up immediately.
I visited everyday. Talked to him about, well, everything. About my grandma, sister, told him stories of my past, filled him in on world events. Stuff like that.
I know that it was probably more for me than him, but I somehow hoped he could hear me.
I stopped believing in God when my mother had been so tragically ripped from us, but now I couldn't help but hope there was some kind of heaven out there for him.
"Y'know, my sister can be a real bitch sometimes. She actually thought it would be smart to use my razor." I cackled to myself.
"I told her how disgusting that was and she acted as if I told her that she was fat or some stupid shit."
He didn't respond. He never did. I would've liked to think he'd say, "Oh stop being so dramatic, she's your sister." Or "God, you two never get along do you?". Something snarky like that.
When a month was up they pulled the plug on his machines. Dylan, Cole's parents, and I were there. They sobbed and held each other, but I held his hand. Combed through his hair with my fingers and told him it'd be okay. That we'd be okay.
I knew that was a lie. We wouldn't just, be okay. My mother passed years ago and it still haunts me everyday.
Cole cared for the people around him, so I knew that if he somehow could see his mother sobbing into her husbands jacket and refusing to watch as they turned off the monitors, he would be having a fit. So if he could somehow hear me, I wanted to comfort him through it all. Even if it was just his corpse I was talking to.
The service was nice. People said nice things. Talked about times and laughs shared with Cole. Though, I didn't say much of anything actually. Cole always tried to keep his personal life private. It felt wrong sharing our times together with a room of people I had just met, even if it was his family.
The internet was a giant mumble of things. People sharing pictures from his past movies and shows, talking about how much of an impact he had made on their lives. Some couldn't care less that he was now just a corpse, buried underground.
Just like in the hospital, I visited his grave everyday. Talked to him about everything. I didn't bring flowers, because Cole was never a fan of flowers in the first place. It felt meaningless.
Instead I brought photographs. It didn't matter what I was doing or how busy I was, I made sure to spend the time photographing things. In a way I felt it kept me sane. Gave me a purpose that wasn't just him, even if it was for him.
I was in love with a someone who I could no longer see or touch with my own eyes or hands, so his photographs in a small way made up for that.
I spent hours going through photos he took, putting them into books. I smiled, cried, and got angry as I searched through the photos. I found some of me, photos I didn't even know he had taken.
My favorite was of me on my phone. I was so entranced in my screen, ironically, seeing as we were at a museum. One full of art to be looked at.
It had his sloppy writing on the back of it, a little note in pencil. "The future is within her eyes", it read. It could mean many things. Maybe saying that the modern generation is so obsessed with technology that we soon won't be able to take a glance at the beauty around us. Or maybe it was just him being artsy. You never could know with Cole.
I now keep it in a drawer with a photo of my mother and underwear.
Everyone always asks me if it hurts to think back on my time with him and the answer is always no. If anything it encourages me to get up in the morning, or spend time with my sister.
Cherish things y'know?
I remember now, when I first met Cole. It wasn't in the hospital either. When I first spent the night at his house he had told me he would watch me read under the willow tree on our school campus. Told me he had never spoken to me in fear of interrupting my peacefulness.
About four months after his death I had come to awareness, he was lying.
