broken dreams-a seaycee story

three

Sean

_________

December 26th. 

Kaycee had five days to wake up.

Holly entered the room, setting a mug of coffee down on the bedside table. "How you doing, sweetie?" she asked, taking Kaycee's pulse and bustling around her tubes and monitors. I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. "Ok."

"The hearing is today, right?" she asked. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. "Yeah. I'm heading right there from here."

"I just can't believe it's taken them this long to come to a sentence," she said disapprovingly, shaking her head. "He did this to this poor girl. He killed your daughter."

My what? My jaw dropped and I slowly lifted my head to face her, unable to comprehend. "My-my daughter?"

"You didn't know?" she asked, concerned. "Honey," she cried, getting up and pulling me in a hug as my body began to be torn apart by convulsing sobs. "I'm so sorry. I thought they told you."

"No," I said, dumbfounded. "They never said anything. Just-that it was gone."

"I never knew her alive," Holly said sadly. "But she seemed amazing."

"She was," I said, and then quickly corrected myself. "She still is. You'll see when she wakes up."

Holly tightly smiled and patted my hand reassuringly. "For your sake, I hope she does." She got up and dusted her knees off. "I'll leave you guys alone. Come back with the news, alright?" I nodded, and she dipped her head and was gone, leaving me with Kaycee.

"Kayc," I said, my voice breaking. "You gotta wake up, baby. I-I just found out about the baby. It was a girl, Kaycee. We were going to have a daughter. We still can, baby. We can do this again. It was real to me from the minute you told me-but now, knowing that she was-a she-" my voice broke, and I wiped my tears. "It hurts even deeper, Kayc. I can't do this without you anymore. I need you back, baby girl. I need you back here with me. So we can do it again. And I promise I won't let anything or anybody hurt you. Or our kids. Ever again. I promise. Just give me another chance, Kayc. Come back for me, baby, please."

My phone buzzed at that moment and it was a text from Devon. I'm outside. Don't trust you driving alone today. Mom thinks it's for the best if we're all together.

I kissed her forehead and left, brushing the tears out of my eyes again. "Good luck, Sean," the nurses chorused. Everybody watched me as I headed down towards the elevator. Once I got to the quiet inside the shaft, I slid down the back, my head in my hands. Everybody knew the story of the famous dancer who was put into a coma by a drunk driver, who the state had waited to sentence for 5 years now. It was all over the Internet, but our managers and the hospital staff had done their best to put the story to rest. It was painful enough already, but having our every notion poked into and all of our private emotions thrown out into the open and exposed. 

I walked out, where Devon was idling in the car outside of the glass doors. "Hey man," he said as I opened the door and slid in. "You ready?"

"How can you be ready for something like this?" I asked remorsefully. 

"I hope that son of a bitch pays for what he did to my sister," Devon said, cracking his knuckles as I strapped myself in. 

And my daughter, I thought, but I couldn't tell him that. 

The rest of the ride was in silence. 

*****************************

Inside the courtroom, it was packed. All of the kids from our old Imma crew, Will and Janelle, JoJo, Tricia, Alex, Jake, Tim, Brian, the reporters, some of our fans, and a majority of our family members. "Sean, Sean!" one guy yelled, waving his microphone around. "How do you feel that the state has taken this long to sentence the man who killed your fiancee?"