My eyes felt heavy as I tried to open them, and after I manage to fight the unknown force resisting my action, specks of light inflicted rays of pain into my pupils. They snapped shut once again. After a few moments of fading in and out of an immense darkness, the mass constraining my eyes lifted.
The soft hum of a heart monitor beeped quietly with the rhythm of my heartbeat beside me. A sleeping figure with curly chocolate hair held my left hand as he slept soundly on a chair beside me.
Three months ago, Ethan had lied in a hospital bed hooked up to various machines and lacked muscle movement, while I sat in a chair like the one he was sitting in now, holding his hand as I waited for him to wake up. Now he sat in the same seat I sat and I laid on the hospital bed he lied in, thinking of how ironic our situation was.
After a few moments thinking alone, the weight my eyelids had fought earlier had decided to retaliate. Blinking farewell, my last conscious vision was a curly head stirring awake.
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For several hours, I fade in and out, unable to open my eyes again, but I can hear Ethan talking to a nurse, Andrew, Melissa, or a Doctor. Nobody else comes visit me, not even Lauren, Madeline, or Caroline. Through my momentarily conscious periods, I realize Ethan never leaves my side. His mother came during my second awakening and told him to go home, but he just replied, "No" and stayed by my side.
Through my periodical conscious awakenings, I managed to catch what had happened to me.
“Are you her boyfriend?” A foreign voiced asked.
Ethan hesitated but answered, “No, I’m just a concerned friend.”
Intense pain struck my chest, and even though I was sure if I cried tears would not break through and reveal I could hear, I fought the tears struggling to break through. Ethan said we were just friends. That meant things had changed between us. Something had caused him to break up with me, without exactly telling me he had.
“We just got her test results back,” the doctor replied, unmoved by the previously announced friendship, “I'm going to need a family member to come in and inform them of her condition."
"Her mother is in the ICU ward," Ethan began. "Her brother and father are with her as we speak. She needs to wake up, Doctor. Her mother...isn't doing well."
There was a long pause, before the doctor sighed and replied, "I know. Chelsea is showing signs of early onset dysthymia and anorexia nervosa. I think it would be best to...keep her under a medical induced coma until we know accurately uncover what direction her mother's health is heading."
"That's not fair. She deserves to know, even if it hurts her," Ethan argued.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wright. But that is not your decision to make," the doctor responded before placing something on the stand beside me and heading out the door.
I felt a warm, gentle hand hold my right one. "I'm sorry, Chelsea," Ethan whispered before placing a soft wet kiss on my forehead.
I wanted to move my lips and tell him it was okay. He did what he could, but the darkness was returning and swallowed me before I had the chance of doing anything.
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The blanket of darkness is rising and unleashing me from its heavy hold. There's a voice ringing in my ears, muttering words of emotion and sadness, declaring unrequited love. As my blurry mind clears and my eyes gain freedom from the invisible gates that once were tightly shut, I recognized the voice and the familiar words they were producing. For some reason, Ethan had left me alone. Maybe to go to the restroom or to sleep in the comfort of his own home, but during that momentary absence someone new had entered my room.
YOU ARE READING
Monsters of Manhattan
Teen FictionPeople aren't called monsters because they paint rainbows and snowflakes. No, they're called monsters because they have a limitless ambition to achieve what they want and maintain what they have, and in Manhattan, what you want and what you have mig...
