You wouldn't expect Maddie sitting in the hallway of a hospital on Sunday night, but she was. She was sitting there next to her father, anxiously tapping her foot on the ground and looking at the watch, which was hanging on the wall, from time to time. She was scared, to say the least. She was frightened cause she loved her mother. Was this the end? She couldn't tell, but she tried to think positively. Which seemed like it wasn't working this time.
After hours and hours of waiting the doctor came out from the room in front of them. He had a sad smile on his face. Maddie and Mr. Mackinly immediately got up. She was looking right into the doctor's eyes, trying to find hope there. Just a little hope which would give her lungs some air to breathe. She thought she didn't.
"I'm sorry, to even announce this..." the doctor started quietly and looked down and he could feel the letters being stuck in his throat, unable to come out. He coughed a bit and finally announced, "Your wife...she's in a coma."
The first thing Maddie did was turning to face her father. She hoped for her father to say something better than this news but he just looked like he saw a ghost. That brought shivers down her spine. The room was spinning again, wasn't it? She felt like it was spinning and taking her to the furthest corner of the hospital. To the most frightening one. She didn't understand how she grabbed her father's hand and hugged him, but she did.
"I'm sorry." The doctor sighed and continued, "We are taking care of her so, you don't have to worry that much. We think she'll wake up pretty soon."
Pretty soon. But when was pretty soon? Maddie didn't know. She felt the urge to cry, to sob loudly in his father's arms but she controlled herself and with a deep sigh let him go. She started fidgeting with her skirt.
"Okay uh...Doc can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?" Mr. Mackinly pronounced and looked down at her daughter. Maddie nodded as approval to go ahead. When they went to the doctor's office, she sat down again and quickly grabbed her phone. With her shaky hands and teary eyes, she scrolled down to find a particular name in her contacts. Her blurry vision wasn't doing a good job in helping her but she knew only one person who's name started with R, so she typed in the letter to make her actions faster and when the name appeared on the screen she tapped on it really hard.
From nervousness, she started shaking her leg again because the thought that the person won't pick up crossed her mind. But fortunately, they did. They picked up. A beautiful, sweet and heavenly voice was heard from the other side.
"Hello?" The room was spinning, it never stopped.
"Hey...Rich" she almost whispered and started crying quietly.
"Madds? Wh-why...What's going on?" he answered and he was confused you could tell. Just a second ago the boy was laying in bed listening to his favorite songs with a smile on his face when his phone rang. He was waiting for that call. He gave his phone number to her after they had quite a long conversation with each other about an interesting bird they saw when Maddie showed up to the park with a video camera. She asked the boys to do some tricks so she could record them. Mostly she showed up for Richie. She wanted to film him because she would fill up with so many emotions when that boy was around. She would come to that park quite a lot now and was friends with everyone but never talked to him.
Maddie thought a video camera would make Richie speak to her because maybe she wanted to hear his honey voice one more time. Because maybe after meeting him on the first day in the park she went home that night and laid in her tidy bedroom, closed her eyes and maybe the only picture appearing in front of her was his silhouette. Sitting under that tree, wind calmly blowing his curls to different sides, him nervously shaking his leg all the time and his long fingers tapping on his knee to the beat of the song he was listening to. It was so loud that Maddie could hear what song was playing into his ears. It was Oogum Boogum by Brenton Wood. It seemed like the song was made for him. It suited him so much. And maybe she turned to her right to get her headphones from the nightstand and maybe as she put them on, she searched the song's name and blasted it into her ears. She felt the lyrics and the melody rush through her tiny body. And maybe, just maybe for the first time ever, it felt right, so right.
The first conversation between them was when they saw that bird in the sky and looked at it at the same time. Richie then looked down and after a while, he stared at the girl next to her. He admired her features.
He knew that sunlight reflecting through the droplets of a rainy summer's day is beautiful. A work of art, painstakingly drawn with blood, tears, and passion, is beautiful. Love itself is beautiful. For Richie to say that Maddie Mackinlay was just, beautiful, was an understatement. She was as beautiful as seeing the last beam of light from the sunset illuminate the surface of an endless ocean. She was like a painted masterpiece that could drive the artist insane with the realization they could never achieve anything nearly as perfect. To him, Maddie Mackinlay was simply beautiful, beyond comprehension.
In the evening when Maddie stood up to go home, he stood up as well and realized how short the girl in front of her was. It was quite adorable. But he pushed those thoughts as far as he could. He started examining his pockets to find a pen and when he did he grabbed the tiny girl's wrist and wrote some numbers with his sloppy handwriting. The girl chuckled, "You know I could just save that in my phone, right?" The curly boy came closer to her and whispered, "And where's the fun then?" That action was followed by a wink, on which Maddie responded with a roll of her eyes.
She turned to go and raised her hand, "bye dumbass" she exclaimed which made the boy laugh and respond with, "bye Madds."
Maddie quickly turned around to face him again and smiled.
On her way home she saved the number written on her wrist into her contacts. She was scared it would get lost from her wrist somehow. After the daydream with the slender boy was over, she got a phone call from her father saying to come to the hospital as fast as possible which turned her daydream into a nightmare. Her mother got into a car crash while coming home from the store. Maddie didn't realize how fast she got to the hospital and saw her dad crying in the hallway, but one thing she knew for sure...
For the first time ever, her father looked really scared.
