Caught (Camren)

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Everything happened in flashes again. From the moment I got the call to the moment I burst through the door at the hospital, I could barely see straight. I'd suffered seven agonizing hours at the airport- one to purchase a flight back home, the rest on layovers that seemed to have no intentions other than to slow me down. By the time I actually reached Lauren, it was nearly sunset. I knew. I knew there was no way on earth that she could have woken up. Her mother's call held a different message, but there was still a tiny part of me that hoped for the best. That one tiny part, that little glimmer of hope, was enough to shatter my entire being when I found Lauren still in the hospital bed, surrounded by sobbing parents and indifferent doctors. I just stood in the doorway and let the door slowly shut behind me while everyone stared. Lauren's eyes were closed. She was still. My heart was in a million pieces. I stepped around to the side of the bed where I'd sat for two weeks, wishing I'd never left. I picked up her hand. It was cold and lifeless. I braced for the worst. I couldn't feel her pulse through her fingertips with our hands locked together as usual. I held my breath and placed one hand on her chest, just above her heart, remaining as still as possible while I waited. I felt nothing at first, but then there was a kick, and then another, followed by dozens more. Her heart was still beating. It was faint, but it was alive. I released my breath and turned towards her parents.

"What's going on?" I demanded. "Why did you call me here?"

A single tear slipped down her mother's cheek as she stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. She used the other to wipe away the stream that the teardrop left behind. For the time being, her face was clear, but the way her eyes pooled with the threat of more tears indicated that she was only putting on a mask for my benefit.

"Look, Camila, the doctors have done everything in their power to keep her alive," she started.

I stared at the tube that was now connected to Lauren's nose instead of her throat, still allowing oxygen to reach her lungs either way. It didn't seem like much of an effort. It was plastic. It wasn't an attempt to save her life.

"We're just...out of options," she shrugged. "Out of time."

"We need to take her off of life support," her doctor explained.

"What? No!" I shouted. "Are you kidding me?"

"We need this room for other patients," he argued.

"She is a patient. She's not in the way. She's not dead yet! Why would you just end it like that?"

"She's not going to wake up, kid," he snapped.

I stumbled backwards, his words hitting me like a freight train in the dead of night. It physically hurt to hear them. My chest ached and my head spun.

"You don't know that..." I choked out.

"Yes, we do," he nodded, accepting a calmer demeanor. "If she was going to wake up, she would have by now."

"You said there was a one-percent chance she'd wake up," I remembered. "Isn't that something?"

"At this point, assuming by some miracle that she did wake up, she'd only have about a one-percent chance of functioning as she did before the accident," he clarified. "She's suffering enough as it is right now. She'll only suffer more if she wakes up."

I looked to her parents. Her father's arm was wrapped firmly around her mother's shoulders. They didn't seem sad or broken or unable to breathe like I was. They seemed numb. The seven hours that it had taken me to arrive at the hospital was obviously enough time for them to grasp the idea that in just a few moments, they'd be returning home without a child.

"You're okay with this?" I asked them. "You're just going to let her go like that?"

"She's already gone, Camila," her dad sighed.