You're my reason

 

 

I don’t think my heart ever pounded this hard or this fast. Fear was seeping under my skin and through my veins. Is this how it feels like watching your loved one struggling to survive?

 

“Mummy” I whimpered whilst sobbing hysterically. “Don’t let go.”

 

I watched the medics hovering over my mom in the small space of the ambulance, trying their best to stabilize her while the heart monitor emits the horrific and bone-chilling sound of her frantic heartbeats, reflecting not only her physical condition but my emotional one.

 

“Please. Oh God, please.” I pleaded to anyone who might be able to hear me. To save her, my mother, my sole reason to live.

 

*

 

Watching my mom lie on the hospital bed as her steady heart beats echo around the room wasn’t a pleasant sight; but knowing that she’s alive was enough to calm me down as I pretended that everything was ok.

 

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold myself together, to be strong.

 

“Ms. Jackson,” I heard the doctor call me from my behind. “Is there an adult that I may converse with regarding your mother’s medical condition?” He asked professionally. “Your father, perhaps?”

 

I was lost to how I should answer his question. How could I tell him that my father was the reason why my mom had a heart attack? How was I to tell him that right now, he is most probably on his way to another country so as to stay as far away as he can from us.

 

So I answered neither. Instead, I did what I do best.

 

I lied.

 

*

 

After having dealt with the doctor and nurses and making phone calls to my aunts, I found myself collapsing onto the chair outside my mom’s room. I took a couple of breaths trying to pull myself together but before I know it, tears were streaming down my face and hysterical sobs were coming out from me.

 

It was so close, I thought to myself. I could have lost her. Never in my life have I felt so alone, so filled with despair.

 

I don’t know how long I’ve been crying but something at the back of my mind told me that I was being watched. I looked up and realized that I was right.

 

A man, most likely only a couple of years older than me, was staring at me openly. His attire told me that he’s a patient of the hospital as well. I narrowed my eyes and stared at him back, expecting that he’d look away but he didn’t.

 

So I snapped at him “What are you looking at?!” in a manner so rude, even I was shocked.

 

Still, he stared.

 

“Are you deaf?! I said, what are you looking at?!” I repeated loudly.