Sleeping Beauty

Chapter 16

Shawn

When I get there, I rush through the doors. I push and shove people over which is probably not exactly a good thing, especially since I'm in a hospital. I take the steps because the elevator isn't quick enough. My feet run me down the hallway. 

This is not happening. It can't be.

All the muscles in my chest are strained, like a giant weight is crushing me. I have to remind myself to breathe. 

She's going to die. America is going to die before I ever hear her voice. 

That's when I run straight into Dr. Allan. I shake my back and forth and try to wake myself up. I mumble a quiet apology to the obstacle blocking my destination and try to move past him. When he moves in front of where I'm trying to go, I realize he's trying to tell me something.

He wraps his hands around my shoulders and holds me there.

"Shawn, listen to me-"

"Let me go!"

"Shawn! Wake up!" I turn to face him. Tears start rolling down my face because of all the frustration and fear I'm feeling right now. Dr. Allan continues. "Listen, I did everything I could. I've always said that being in a coma is a mental situation. You either choose to die or you choose to live. Sadly, America has chosen to die."

I swallow and try to hold back the tears, but can't. They just keep coming and coming. Before I know it, Dr. Allan has wrapped his arms around me in an effort to make me feel better, but it doesn't. Friends only hug friends this way when something terrible and awful happens.

Then I wipe away the tears and he nods to me. "Twenty minutes, at most," I'm told.

I slowly push through the door. I drag the chair across the floor and a loud screech pushes through the room like nails on a chalkboard. I wince. Once I reach the side of her bed, I stop moving the plastic blues seat and sink into it.

"So this is it?" I whisper. "You've decided to..."

She can't respond. Her eyes have closed. America's body is already shutting down.

"I just don't understand why you would want to die." I cover my face with my hands. "You were getting better, America. Didn't you understand that before you made this stupid decision?" I shake my head. "Sorry, I said that. You must have your own reasons." I stand up and the chair moves a couple inches behind me. "I just... I thought that we..." I can't say it. What's the point? If I say it, it's true and if it's true, I'm not going to be able to live after she's dead. It all bursts out at once. "Now I'll never get to see you. I mean, of course I've seen you, but looking at a sleeping girl is like looking at the ghost of you. I want to get to know you. I want to talk to you. I want to know what you smell like when you haven't been living in a hospital for weeks. I want to meet your friends and family. I want to be in the photographs you take and come to your soccer games. I need you, America. I love you."

I don't mean to say the last part, but it comes out anyway and I don't mean to do what I do next. You might consider it more of an instinct or an act of fear. It was a goodbye.

I lean over and kiss her lips as softly and gently as I can. I'm scared that if I put too much pressure on her, she'll break into a millions pieces and feel the ache I feel in my heart right now. Then I hear it.

I don't need to hear it to know she gone. I get the sudden sensation like I'm the only one in the room, but still the never-ending long beat comes from the heart rate monitor and I know that there is only an empty body sitting in front of me.

I shake my head. "No." It comes out as a whisper. "No," I say a little louder. Then I break. "NO!" I run over to the window and try to pry it open so I can breathe, but it won't budge. I push and push until finally it flies open and something falls on the ground. I was too insane to realize it was locked. I push my face against the screen and try to breathe in anything but hospital, anything but her. I try to forget the taste of her dead lips. I take the half alive balloons in my hands and punch and tear them apart until they're all just shreds. "NO!" My knees fall to the ground as I simply give up and collapse. Tears stream into the palms of my hands as the cover my face.

America was dead. She was gone.