Ophiuchus

After

In the hallway outside Matthew's room, Camille sits with her head on Daniel's shoulder, tearing away at the edge of the packaging of a candybar she'd bought a few hours ago. Her mother was curled up in a chair sobbing into her arms, while George stood nearby, taking a phone call from a client.

Gently, Daniel nudged her. Camille picked up her head and looked up at him. Her big brown eyes were rimmed red and looked tired.

Daniel gets up and stretches. "Why don't we go get some coffee? I could sure use a cup." He says holding back a yawn. He reaches down and smoothes her frizzing curls. She nods and gets up, following after him. She pulls her blazer closely around her. The halls of the ICU were freezing. They walk past busy doctors and nurses. The patients are being wheeled around in chairs. There's a staggering look of demise in all of their faces.

They sit at a round wooden table across from each other with cups of untouched coffee. Across from them there's father trying to get his two children to sit down and eat. In the corner a young family sits around, huddled in prayer. Daniel runs his thumb along the rim of the cup. He takes a sip, swallowing back the bitter taste of black coffee.

"It's my fault." Camille says after some time. Daniel looks over at her. In that moment, he realized how small she looked. It was like the bench was engulfing her.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asks softly. Camille sighs.

"He asked me to go with him. He wanted me to skip class and go up to the lake. If I'd just gone with him, none of this would've happened."

"You don't know that, Camille." Daniel replies. "You could've gotten hurt too, or worse."

She leans towards, looking up at Daniel with glassy eyes. "You don't think he did this purpose, right?"

"It's hard to say." He says trying not to meet her eyes. Daniel is almost 100% certain Matthew had meant to drive his car into the lake. Given the ordeal that he'd been through over the past couple of weeks, he had a feeling this was something he'd been planning for some time.

"We don't really know much. He could've been drinking, or could've just lost control of the wheel. It's a bit of a twisty road going up to Stralsund." Daniel says trying assuage her worries.

She doesn't saying anything else. She pulls her knees in towards her chest and leaned her head back against the bench. She can't help the big teardrops that roll down her cheeks.