Wish You Were Here

Chapter Nine and Ten

Chapter 9

    After many days of only getting up to eat, use the bathroom, take medicine and give vitals, I was finally able to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time. I was still relying on the bipap and breathing tube, but I was pretty sure it was possible for me too finally breathe on my own. I told Dr. Crawford this, but he didn't seem very satisfied.
    "Well, we can try, but if you can't breathe were putting it back on."
    "Okay." I said, rolling my eyes at his obviousness.
    "Okay, well then, let's try." He grabbed the clasps of the bipap and removed it. My face felt really weird without the big hunk of plastic around it. Before I could reach up and feel, Dr. Crawford was removing the tube. He took the tape from my cheek, and then turned to me and said with a concerned voice, "Are you sure you want to do this?"
    "Yeah. I'm sure."
    He shook his head in disbelief and slowly began to inch the tube out. It hurt worse than I thought it would, and as much as I tried not to, my face twisted into pained expression.
    "It's okay, it's going to hurt a little bit. Do you want me to get it over with?"
    With just a small nod of my head, he was ripping the tube out so quick that it was gone before I could even react.
    Once there was nothing to help me breathe, I was back to doing so myself. I was breathing like usual, my chest moving up and down, but it hurt like hell. It physically hurt to breathe, seemingly because it was incredibly difficult. After telling Dr. Crawford, he decided to keep the bipap on but not the tube.
    "Thanks for letting me try." I said after he had successfully placed the bipap back over my face and I was breathing steadily and painlessly again.
    "Anything to help my patients." He replied in a bored tone.
    He looked at me for awhile. Lately, everybody was looking at me strange. My worry was beginning to increase. Every time a doctor or even a nurse would come in my room, they would always leave either shaking their head or with a twisted face.
    "Well, Atticus I'm not supposed to tell you this, but..." He trailed off, trying to find the right words.
    "But what?"
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"Well, we're afraid that you may have something more serious than just heart disease. Our
problem is, well, we don't know what that is."
    "You're telling me that you're not sure what I have? Like, an unclear diagnosis?"
"Well, yes and no. We are sure that you have heart disease, but you have something else that we haven't been able to identify yet."
"... Oh." I said, unclear of what else to say.
"Well, we are going to try a variety of treatments until we figure it out. Don't be worried." He finally replaced the empty IV bag with a new one, but this time it was just clear liquid.
"Fluids?" I asked, confused. I was drinking fine.
"No, just another treatment." He said while scribbling something onto his clipboard that always seemed to pop out of nowhere. He was always writing on it, but I never see it until he writes something.
He finally left the room after staring at me, seemingly trying to piece everything together.
There was nothing to do. I switched from watching TV, playing the same three games on my phone over and over, and deciphering the emails just about every hour. With doing these things, I wasn't getting anywhere. I couldn't figure anything out from the emails, TV was boring, and my three games all sucked. I wanted to go home, and hopefully get to the bottom of this email business.
    I looked to the door. I hadn't had any visitors lately. I was thankful, because my dad wasn't there, but I was also really lonely. Ever since Riley abruptly and miraculously ended my depression, I actually wanted to be around people, unlike the days where I was always isolated.
    I didn't question why I saw Riley. Most of the time, if someone experienced what I did, they would be confused, questioning everything, never the same. True, it would never be the same for me, but in a great way! I was sure that I actually saw Riley, it wasn't a hallucination. It was a sign, a sign that I needed to get my life together and move on. It didn't take me long to come up with that realization, and it was the only one that was believable to me. Nobody was going to convince me otherwise. She was an angel now, and she healed me because she knew I needed it . It was my turn to heal others that I know need it, such as Daisy, wherever she was, and Sean, which wasn't even hard because he was willing and, well, here.
    Anyway, I was glad that had tried to kill myself. That sounded a dumb thing to say, but it was really good for me to see Riley, for she healed me when I needed it the most. I was never, ever going to self-harm again. She opened my eyes. Now I can see the harm I caused myself and others, and do everything in my power to fix it.
    "Atticus? Do I have the right room?" I heard from the doorway. I was turned on to other side, so I couldn't tell who it was. The voice seemed familiar but I couldn't identify it.
     Turning over, I saw Miles standing in the doorway. "Sorry, but the kid you are looking for is in another castle!" I said sarcastically.
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"Oh, wait, but you look like... sorry." He said, blushing, before he turned to leave the room, clearly incredibly embarrassed.        
"I'm kidding! Miles, it's me." I said, trying to get him to come back. I desperately wanted someone to talk with, even if I had only met them a few days ago.
"Oh. Sorry." He stepped back in the room with a guilty look on his face, and god it was hot.
"It's okay." I said, smiling and trying to hide the fact that I was very attracted.
"Sean said you weren't much of a jokester, so I thought I had gotten the room wrong."
"I wasn't myself for a while after an incident."
"Sean told me. Riley?"
"Yeah."
"Was she your girlfriend?"
"Well, yeah. But only for a little while."
"I feel you, man."
"What do you mean."
I watched him as he opened his mouth to speak, but then tears began to well in his eyes and he stopped in his tracks.
"You can tell me, I won't mind."
"Someone I loved died too."
"Oh, do you... do you want to talk about it? It might make you feel better."
"It was a long time ago. I just get a little upset when I think about it."
"Well, you can still tell me."
"You won't judge me, will you?"
"With the amount of things I get judged for, I'm pretty much immune to giving or taking
judgement. Being a depressed, suicidal, bisexual kid doesn't exactly earn you a fan club if you know what I mean."
    "Oh. Well, it all really started about three years ago on my 15th birthday. Me and my best friend knew everything about each other, so I thought. He knew I was gay, but he didn't know I liked him, so I thought. For all I knew, he was straight as an arrow. Well, present time came. He 'forgot' to get me something. So, we went to my room later and he gave me a present, which was my first boyfriend. Man, it was perfect, we were the perfect couple, I loved him so much!"
    "Wow. That's so sweet!"
    "Well, yeah, for now or, then I guess. Anyway, just last year, we found out that he had a tumor in his brain. They thought they could remove it, they thought they could save him, but..."
    Miles trailed off and looked down at his feet. After a minute, he sat down in a chair in the corner and put his head in his hands.
    "Oh, Miles, I'm so sorry..." I said, unsure of what to say. But, then I remembered what I wanted to hear when Riley passed. I wanted people to know how I felt. In this moment, I knew exactly how Miles felt. "I know how you feel, and it absolutely sucks."
    "First time I've had anyone actually understand."