Ordinary Quirks

Chapter 2 - Clare

Our neighbor, Lucy, stands in front of me, and I can smell the waft of burnt cookies that follows her no matter where she was. Her cane is nowhere in sight, the damn thing having chased us out of her yard too many times to count. She has never hit us, though. We thought she was crazy. She probably is.

"Get out of my yard, you little bastards!" she screams at me, her already-scratchy voice cracking at the end. Something's wrong. My insides are screaming for whatever it is that I'm feeling to stop because I don't remember sneaking into my crazy neighbor's yard at all since Nick decided that we needed to stargaze and that her roof was the only worthy place for our so-called stargazing to take place and because I suddenly have a headache and I'm screaming, now, just wanting Nick to come up behind me in that cheesy boyfriend-girlfriend pose that we both hate but always end up in anyway. Then I stop. My mind races, and I'm spinning around and I can't find him and I just need him to be there so that I can breathe, but he's not, and I'm freaking out and where is Nick? 

I need him here, by my side, as we've always been. Nick and Clare, side-by-side, against the rest of the world. Best friends. Together. I picture his hand in mine, fitting together perfectly, as I close my eyes and wish on everything I can think of.

I open my eyes to the taste of his kisses, our smiles melting together, to every single moment of our friendship, and to us. But when look around, all I smell are the flowers next to my bed, which may or may not be artificial, and all I hear are annoying beeps coming from the machines beside me and my mom and dad snoring into each other's shoulders.

I try to raise my arm to grab my phone, but at that moment, I realize with a burst of excruciating pain that my left arm is in a cast, and that my phone is nowhere in sight. And neither is Nick.

The monitors next to me start beeping faster and faster, slurring together, and it scares the hell out of me. 

Suddenly, both my parents are gripping my hands like they're afraid if they let go, I will fall through the cracks, though all they're succeeding at doing is killing my fingertips. And there are nurses and doctors around me and everybody is screaming at me to calm down, that everything is okay, that I just need to breathe, and I can't deal with it any longer and my arm is screaming at me because I just moved it and I just want to let go and slip through the cracks I'm already falling into. I'm just so tired and I can't find Nick and my thoughts come to a slur of undistinguishable notes as the nurse slips an oxygen mask over my head.

                          ~

I open my eyes to sunlight streaming through the blinds, fading to dusk. My parents are nowhere in sight, which is strange considering how worried they were however long ago it was when I almost stopped breathing. My eyes immediately look around the small, hospital-issued room, looking for him and I know that I'm too dependent on him and that I should be worrying about more important things right now, but I can't seem to think of all those articles I've read about people dying in car accidents and how he slammed his head into the steering wheel when I blacked out, and I just can't let go of that memory, no matter how I try, no matter how many good memories are playing through my head.

And I know I sound like one of those girls in one of those god-awful cheesy romance books who is always saying she can't live without her boyfriend. But I can't help that he's my best friend, the person who knows everything about me. Can't help that I love him more than anything. Can't help that a lot of the time, he and his worn-out Converse walk into my mind, talking about Star Wars and his crack-pot theories about Sherlock. I can't help that I fell in love with him the moment I saw him step out of his dad's car and into my life. If this were some high-school romance story, I'd say we were soul mates. But it's not. It's reality. I know somewhere along the road, we'd set off on our own paths. But no matter where we end up as a couple, I'm always going to be his best friend, a shoulder for him to lean on, and a hand for him to hold. I'd say we're made to be each other's best friend. It's just that along the life we've made for ourselves, we fell in love. And I can't forget him can't lose him can't be on my own again can't focus on anything else if I don't see him again, Nick, alive and full of words, full of lame jokes that I loved anyway. I need him to be what I am to me. I need to know he'll always be there for me to lean on. I need him.

My mom runs into the room, her eyes red, like she's been crying, though she never does. At least, not in front of me. She's wearing clothes that she usually deems too inappropriate for everyday wear. I haven't seen her wear anything less than a pantsuit out of the house. Ever.

She reaches my hospital bed, and picks me up, like she used to when I was little, almost as if I was still six years old. I can't help but fold into her arms, releasing everything that's bothering me and burrow inside my mom. I almost wish I could be that little girl again, wish I didn't have to deal with anything wish I could just curl in my mother's arms for what seemed like forever. Wish I didn't have to pull away from my mom and stand up and pick up the pieces of me, Clare, that I see scattered all over the too-clean hospital floor, and put me back together again. 

I know. Somehow I know before she tells me, before she starts crying, which makes me cry. I know even before she takes a breath to break my heart again. I know when she hesitates. I know when her eyes start to squint and I can see the tears welling up in her eyes. 

She opens her mouth to speak, and everything comes rushing at me at once, and I can't breathe anymore because I'm sobbing and my mom's in front of me, holding me and sobbing and our tears are mixing together and I can't tell me from my mom, where I start and she begins because I just want to go back and change things and make them so that it is no longer my mom holding me, it is no longer my mom telling me that my boyfriend is in a coma, but Nick holding me and whispering nerdy things in my ear. I know that's unfair. I know I should be glad there's someone here helping me someone here who holds me someone who loves me. But I can't help but wish things were different.

Nick hit his head on the steering wheel when we crashed. And it was because of me. Because I left him take his eyes off the road, because I was distracting him, because I love him. I did this to him. Me. Clare. I did this to the person I love.

He might never wake up. And if he does, he could have serious brain damage. If he wakes up at all. He's out there, laying in his potential death bed-a bed he would hate to die in, if he were conscious, and I'm here, I'm not with him, I'm not holding his hand, and hugging his mother, and, and, and.

I did this.

I

did

this

.