I Promise

39

I run out and without question Matt opens his car doors and I get in, and he guns the engine and we're off. I'm pretty sure I scream the location of the hospital until we reach it. Matt didn't say anything because I'm pretty sure he's still shaken up from the argument we had, and his dad. His eyes are still red.

Before he has time to cut off the engine I get out of the car and run for the hospital entrance. I stop out of breath at the registration and help desk, and I manage to wheeze out that I got a call from the hospital about Marilyn Dawson. The secretary gives me the directions to her room and I'm off. I can hear Matt behind me, but I don't wait for him. All I can think about is my nana.

I stop as I near her door. The room is empty except for a bed and two chairs. Matt is behind me now, and I walk in. I look back in an invitation for him to follow.

I almost break down at the sight of my grandmother, hooked up to a bunch of monitors that keep beeping or blinking at me. She's breathing in and out, and there are oxygen tubes that go into her nose. She looks so pale, I'm almost scared to touch her because I feel like her hand will be stone cold.

When I walk closer, she opens her eyes, and even offers me a small, weak smile. I take her hand and Matt gives me a chair. He stands by the door, giving me some privacy. I don't want him to leave the room, and I think he knows that.

I sit next to my grandmother, and I just hold her hand and tell her she'll come home soon. She takes our her oxygen nubbins from her nose and huffs out a breath of air.

"Rynn, I'm eighty four years old. For god's sake, I'll eventually die," she says.

"Don't say that nana," I say. She shakes her head.

"I may be in here for a while," she finally says. And then her eyebrows rise up when she sees my lip.

"What the hell happened to your lip young lady?" she asks, and I actually laugh. With all the shit that's happened to me, and all the shit that just happened to my grandmother, she asks me the most ridiculous question.

"I got in a fight at soccer," I say. My grandmother laughs lightly, but she looks pained when she does it.

I sit with her for a while and I introduce her to Matt, and it's like she turns into a teenage girl. She just keeps going on about how handsome he is and starts muttering some French words that she still remembers from when she lived in France. And because she started speaking French, she begins to talk about how she lived in Paris during her teenage years, and how it was the most miraculous city she'd ever lived in.

"I want to go back someday. Either in person or in an urn," she says. She chuckles at her own joke.

I smile. "Nana, you'll be better in no time. Look at you; you're already smiling and laughing" I say.

My mother comes into the room an hour later with Peyton and the twins. My nana was supposed to go and pick up the twins from daycare and Peyton from school, but when she got into the lobby she ended up being wheeled off on an ambulance. The twins went to Peyton's school after Mark, the lobby manager, called the daycare from the front desk and explained what happened to the teachers. And then my mom rushed from work to pick up the kids and see nana. And now we're all here, comforting her.

After a while, I walk out and say goodbye to Nana. She's going home in three days, but I tell her I'll visit every day after school.

As I walk out with Matt, we go to the coffee kiosk. I remember the lady that works there because she was there the day I got my stitches. And somehow she still remembers me because she hands me a straw and gives me a small acknowledging smile.

As I walk out the main doors, I hear loud footsteps and my dad is right in front of me, and he stops in his tracks when he sees me about to walk through the door. Of course he'd come running in after getting news of nana having a heart attack. He looks at me, but I take a sip of my drink and grab Matt's hand, pulling him out of the hospital before my dad has anything to say. When I looked at him, all I could remember was the way his face looked when he grabbed me, how angry he looked when he slapped me, and then how his expression became horrified when he realized what he'd done.

I can't shake the imagine out of my head as I sit down in Matt's car. It's beginning to rain again, and by the time we're on the highway it's pouring buckets. Matt goes off at an earlier exit and stops the car, waiting out the storm. Better that then getting in an accident.

We sit in silence, both of us probably thinking about what we said to each other. How our argument was left unfinished.

"I'm sorry about your dad," I finally say, breaking the silence.

Matt gives me a small nod but he doesn't meet my gaze. He turns on the ignition and begins to drive to my apartment because the rain is beginning to slow down.

We reach my apartment and he stops the car. I don't get out right away; I look at him, his thoughtful expression. The way his eyes look like the ocean.

"Did you mean what you said?" I ask. He knows exactly what I'm talking about, because he seems to tense up. He knew it was coming though.

He nods and looks at me. "It's better you don't see me, Rynn. I can't give you anything but a fleeting moment. I can go back into --" he pauses, "my other state and that will hurt you more than this right now."

I feel tears sting my eyes for the hundredth time today.

"Matt, I told you, I'm not leaving you because of this, because you're scared of hurting me," I say.

"Rynn, I'm done. I made my choice. It's better this way," he says.

"I love you," I blurt out. I might as well just say it. He saved me, he was there for me. He helped me figure out how to live, how to enjoy the little things in life. How to let go and breathe, scream "Fuck you" at the top of my lungs from a rock, enjoy the breeze from the mountains, and sit by the fire watching the waves. He drew a portrait of me, a portrait that showed who I can be, who I can become, because he helped me find myself. I never knew he had trouble finding himself too.

Matt stops and stares at me, biting his lip.

"No Rynn. You don't love me," he says. "You fell in love with this version of me. This kind of Matt, who can promise you adventures and who can give you what you want - a life filled with surprise and mischief, adventure and happiness." he says, his voice a whisper as he stares at the rain, which is beginning to pour again. "These kinds of days, adventures, they're numbered with me," he says. "And I cannot, for the life of me, see you struggling because of me."

I look at him, and I can see that there is no changing his mind. There is no going back to us horseback riding, no going back to the mountains to watch the sunrise. The Matt I know is beginning to whither before my eyes and burn like ashes. He knows it, and he's trying to push me away so that I won't see him in his other state. Depressed, lost, unhappy.

I lean over and kiss him even though I'm crying. I open the car door, get out, and close it shut. And then I turn my back and leave. And I'm not doing it for myself, so that I won't have to see Matt depressed and lost. I keep walking and don't look back, because I'm doing it for Matt. For all the days he gave his time to me, all the times he's made me feel free. Because I know it would break him if I saw him crumpled, gone from this world and sunken by an imaginary weight.

Last chapter? EVER? Or second last chapter? I don't know..... you'll have to wait and see.

Yours, 

FanaticWriter15