Wished

27. "Thank You."

There's always the hospital cliché - sterile white walls, a series of beeps and green lines that tell you if a person is dead or alive.

When I run into the hospital, I am a wreck.

"Please, please, tell me where Toby is." I cry, and a nurse leads me to a crisp white door. His parents are here, crying, and I wrap my arms around Mr. and Mrs. Finnigan.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." I cry into their shoulders.

"It's not your fault." They say, and I can tell they truly believe that.

I'm a murderer though.

"Yes, it is! I, I-" I stutter, and choke on my tears.

Mrs. Finnigan's mascara is running and we look like death.

For years, I have been friends with Toby. He was someone always there for me.

He loves me.

I need hundreds of thousands of tissues. God, I'm going to be sick. I dart into the bathroom connected to Toby's rooms. There's so many doctors in there, rushing and speaking in hushed voices. What they say might be veiled but I know what they're saying.

I hunch over the toilet and I wish I junped in front of that bullet - I wished I saved him.

Stupid, naivë me. Every book kills off some characer in a situation like ours. I exit the bathroom and walk back to Toby. His parents are holding his hands, his cold, red hands. The doctors are gone.

"Where...?" I can't finish my sentance, and Mrs. Finnigans eyes tell me everything.

"He - they can't do anything. It's too late. I'm sorry, my dear." And Mr. Finnigan buries his head in his sons arms and his shoulders shake. Toby is still breathing - can you call sporadic breaths breathing?

"Toby." I say softly, choking on his name on my tongue. I rest my hand on his rosy cheek. "Stay with me. I need you."

His eyes flutter open, eyes full of pain and suffering.

"I..." He begins, and his mother loses it, sobs ripping through her chest. "I love...you...guys." He smiles sadly.

"Thank you." He closes his eyes, and peace floats through him.

The machine beeps wildly as he flatlines. My best friend, gone from this world.

The doctors rush in, and shake their heads, pitiful.

I walk out of the hospital, past the doctors and nurses and patients, outside. I breathe in the air deeply but my lungs burn.

I don't even have a right to be alive.

Everyone outside looks at me with pity. They know what took place - the stand off with the robbers, the murderers, and the fatal shooting of Toby Finnigan, Arabella Harmen's best friend, poster boy with good grades, kind and caring and "oh, what a lovely boy that Toby is."

"The poor teenagers dragged into this. Their poor minds."

I walk into the middle of the road, and scream at everything as I hear the screeching of tires before I black out.