Behind His Scene (XXXTentacion)

17. Alone & Numb

In the three days my mother laid, lifeless in ICU Seb stayed with me. Both of us taking shifts so my mom wouldn't be alone when she woke up.
Needles and tubes connected her to machines in the room, the most violent of them being the large breathing tube that I knew was connected to another machine which continued releasing and filling her lungs with oxygen.
Seb and I were eating cookies, throwing them into each other's mouth, we should've been laughing but we were straight faced, the fun was more a distraction than an amusement. It was 3am and we were on a 15 in-a-row winning streak.
I'd run out of cookies. I didn't know if it was the doom of sitting next to my mother or how sleep deprived I was but looking down at the empty packet in front of me brought a lump to my throat.
Seb must've noticed the shift in my energy cause he cleared his throat.
"Baby doll, I hate to bring up more difficulty to your mind but you still haven't told me what happened with X." He hadn't been his flamboyant self since we saw each other in the waiting room when I arrived, so he spoke in his usual soft and low tone.
I sighed softly and shook my head, eye wide trying to gather my thoughts. Finally I blinked looking at him with defeat.
"I really love him.. but he tried to keep me from her.." I glanced to my mother. "He deadass told me to stay cause he needed me. Who does that Seb?" I marvelled thinking back on how angry I got at Jah. It took a lot to make me angry but that for some reason, really hit me hard.
Seb sat back, letting his head fall back for a moment.
"D.. You might not be a fan, but I am. I follow his social media, I keep up to date. X is and has always been very..." he looked around the room like he would find the word he was searching for, "he's- he's broken. I don't know the full story but his tumblr is full of him... replying to people begging him not to kill himself. The only reason he doesn't is because he loves his fans." Seb looked back at me now, biting his lip. "If you make it better, if you make him feel better I can understand why he said what he did. Being tempted to die all of the time and then finding someone who makes it all better? Or at least makes you forget sometimes, I would ask them to stay as well. It's not like he said 'fuck your mom and stay here cause she don't mean shit' right? He didn't say that?" He asked me
I shook my head in response.
"See? He just wants to be happy. That's what we all want." Seb concluded.
I rolled my eyes, "I know what you mean.. but he knows about my dad and my sister. I've given myself to him fully, I just can't deal with someone being so selfish.. even if it's their happiness on the line. He's survived without me this long. Surely he can revert back to other people until I'm all good." I shrugged.
Seb shook his head softly, "Maybe he hadn't been so happy until he met you..."
I raised my eye brows briefly trying to process what Seb had just said, "That's a lot of pressure to put on someone. Happiness should be found in yourself, not dependant on someone else."
"D, If you weren't happy for a long time and finally someone comes along and takes your pain away.. anyone would jump onto that person and never let go."
He was right, tears welled in my eyes.
"Yeah.. That's what it was like with him... that's why we latched on to each other so quickly, cause we made each other so happy. He was such an adventure." I looked up, blinking away the tears.
"Was? Are you not going to try again once- If your mom gets better?" His change in words made my heart drop. The doctors had already told me it wasn't looking good. But I refused to believe anything anymore. The ball in my chest was accompanied by a strong sense of numbness.
"I don't know Seb. Honestly.." I took a deep breath. My next words echoed in my mind, "honestly if she dies.. I'm just going to go back to my life, without her or him maybe. I don't want him to have to deal with me like that. I'd have to find somewhere else to live, I'd need to ask if I still even have a job... The medical bills alone-" my train of thought left me. And the numbness took over.
Seb went silent too. There really wasn't a solution, just a very big uphill battle ahead.
-
We'd woken up at noon, both stiff and sore from falling asleep in the chairs next to my mother's hospital bed. A nurse must've put blankets over us while we were sleeping.
Seb yawned softly, cookie dust still all over his face from our competition last night. I sighed softly, looking to my mom a small amount of hope in my chest that she'd be awake, smiling and waiting for a kiss and cuddle.
Three knocks sounded at the entrance to the room, I jumped out of my chair, my muscles protesting.
The ICU doctor stood in the door way, "I'm going to do some obs, why don't you two go get a coffee, we can talk when you get back." The lack of enthusiasm and hope in the doctors expression made my heart drop more. I already knew she should've woken up by now. The doctors had said anything over two days was a bad sign, the bleed on my mother's brain had been extreme. I felt Seb grab my hand from behind me. "We'll just be in the corridor." Seb spoke for me, leading me outside.
We stood for a few minutes against the corridor wall, praying together, hands joined.
But within a few minutes, the doctor called us back into the room, he motioned for us to sit down. So we did, holding hands. Tears were already streaming down my face.
The doctor sighed, and a sob broke free from my mouth.
"Your mother as you know, suffered a very extreme intracranial bleed which resulted in brain damage. We put patients on life support to give their body a chance to heal, her brain needed to swell and by now I would've expected the swelling to come down, but I'm very sorry to say I have to declare her clinically brain dead.."
I felt my body jerk like the contents of my stomach might empty themselves, but I took a deep breath. My chest was on fire and the lump in my throat was making it harder to breath.
"Brain dead..?" Seb whispered softly through his own tears.
"Her Brain is no longer functioning. The life support is keeping her body alive but her brain has completely shut off. And I'm afraid there is nothing we can do to bring her back." The doctor paused softly, he pulled another chair over and sat in front of us.
"You have to understand that our best option is to turn off the life support. I will need Dahlia's permission as next of kin and power of attorney. I strongly advise doing so as I said, the only thing keeping her alive is the life support but she won't wake from this, medically her brain has zero function. I'm very sorry."
I nodded softly, the tears streamed down my face but suddenly the lump in my throat left, and so did the burning in my chest. It was numbness again.
"Okay." I whispered.
Seb let out another sob.
"I'll bring in some papers, you'll need to read and sign them, is there anyone else I can contact for you?" The doctor offered.
"Gloria Fernendez, She works in the aged care ward.." I didn't even sound like myself when I spoke. Empty and numb.
-
Gloria, Seb and I all sat around my Mom. I held her hand, Gloria the other and Seb stood at the end of the bed. A priest from the hospital chapel had come in to say a last prayer, bless my mother and then left. We'd all had a few moments with her, my five minutes I spent, just holding her hand numbly staring at the wall, unable to deal with the grief that came over my whole body.
She was dead. But her heart was still beating and her lungs still breathing through a machine. Keeping her like this was cruel, how could she move on to the other side and by with my sister and father if she was stuck here in this room?
Gloria and Seb both cried as they pulled the plug of her life support, I'd had to look away when they pulled the breathing tube out of her mouth, but within seconds her heart stopped, the nurse muted the sound of the heart monitor flat lining. Like that, the last family I had, was gone.
I thought I'd be used to it by now. But I'd never prepared to loose my mother so soon. I'd placed so much dependency on her as my last living family, my mother. A sick part of me felt regret for doing that.
We'd waited until they washed her, dressed her and took her out of the room covered over by a white silk sheet.
It wasn't until I got home to our empty apartment that everything really set in. I was alone. My mother was with my sister and Dad. But I was left behind.
The overwhelming grief was all consuming and with every cry and sob that broke from my mouth, a stronger one followed behind it. I laid on the couch my face burning from tears until I cried myself to sleep. I'd refused to let Gloria or Seb come home with me. They didn't need to see me like this. It would only scare them more.
And now I was broken. Just like X.