Always

fifty-one

K Y L E R
"What would I do if there wasn't a you?
Would you sing about me like I sing about you?

I had never imagined that the day would come when I would be sitting in the hospital's blindly white waiting room as the girl I loved lay just a door away from me in the worst state imaginable. But here I was, sitting in the uncomfortable metal chairs, with my heart almost bursting out of my chest as I waited for the doctors to come out and assure us and that she was fine. Or that I would wake up and realize that all of this was just a heart-wrenching nightmare and Luna was completely safe and sound back in her house.

But with every passing second—every slow, heartbreaking second— I knew that none of this was a trick which my mind was playing on me. It was reality. It was the unbearably painful reality. And every time I closed my eyes, I was reminded of how real it actually was.

I was reminded of the sound of Tanner's sobs as I ran through the already open front door and up the stairs, with my heart slamming against my chest with every step I took because everything in me dreaded the thought of what I was about to see.

I was reminded of how my breath was knocked out of my lungs when I barged into her room and saw her almost dead looking body laying in Tanner's lap, the way her skin was as white as these hospital walls and her lips had turned a bright shade of blue akin to the color of the pills scattered all around her.

I was reminded of how my heart was shattering into a million pieces at the sight of her wrists, those wrists which were supposed to be strained, not lined with horrible scars which left barely a single patch of skin undamaged.

I was reminded of how badly I wanted to run up to her and just hold her in my arms as the paramedics rushed her body into the ambulance and began attaching all sorts of tubes and wires to her limp body, and how I wanted so badly to kiss her and tell her I loved her, to beg her to stay, to beg her to not leave me—not leave us.

I was reminded of how my mother, upon seeing the entire scene, insisted on driving me to the hospital and I didn't have the energy to say no to her and upon running into the waiting room, the first thing I saw was Tanner with a phone pressed to his ears and heavy tears rolling down his cheeks.

And then, I would open my eyes and all those memories would disappear, leaving me behind in this blank, white waiting room, with Tanner sat on the row of seats on the other side of the room, his eyes shut as he leaned his head back against the white wall. I wanted to go up to him and comfort him, because I couldn't even imagine how he was feeling knowing that his sister was fighting for her life in the room just next to where he was sat. I didn't know how he was dealing with all of this, especially with his parents out of state for work, and him here all alone now.

But every inch of me felt like lead when I tried to move, every word dried out on my tongue when I tried uttering it, every thought that entered my head would turn into a huge, blurry cloud of nothingness, until I felt like I was going insane.

But how could I move, how could I speak, how could I think, when Luna, my best friend and so much more, was possibly dying right now.

That thought itself was enough to make tears spring to my eyes.

She had looked dead.

Luna, the girl who had made me unwillingly fall for her from the day I met her, the girl who had somehow managed to build an incredibly special place in my heart, the girl who knew me inside out, the girl who I loved with my whole entire heart, had looked dead. She could be dead.