~*2 Days Later*~
“Girl, you look like a mess,” Madison told Phoenix truthfully, sitting nice and comfy in her wheelchair, her first surgery on her ankle in a few hours. Phoenix has been at Ethan’s beside ever since she found out about his coma. She went right to work, her right hand absentmindedly massaging his neck. She held his left hand gingerly with her left hand, gracing her thumb with her charm bracelet she placed in the palm of his muscular hand. She hoped it would give him luck. “Have you been home at all?”
“I went home this morning for an hour to change and cry,” Nix responded morosely, sacrificing her hygiene and fashion sense for frizzing hair and pimples and red sweatpants and a black Champion sweatshirt. Her smile was weighted down with devastation, her itchy blue eyes staring at Ethan’s pale face lazily, hoping he would snap back to life at any moment, like he was playing a cruel joke on her that she’d punish him with no kisses later. “I want to be strong for him.”
Madison sighed sadly, not enjoying seeing her best friends going through so much pain, not pain like she was experiencing darting up and down her legs, but pain that makes the heart break away and fall apart. “God sees everything, you know,” Madison began earnestly, wheeling around the bed to Phoenix’s side. “He will make things right, one way or another.”
“We’re all he’s got, Mad,” Phoenix reminded her, her eyes filling up like dry wells, salty tears crawling down her tanned face, “His parents are dead. We’re all he’s got.”
Madison was going to suggest that if he does leave this earth, he’d be with them again, like the moments before his parents left his home for a meeting at school and got into a car accident…under the almost exact conditions, but she glanced up at Phoenix’s heartbroken face and decided against it. “I better go get prepped…” Madison began uncomfortably, feeling like she was abandoning her friends at their time of need. Nix looked down at her, reading the expression on her face crystal clear. “For surgery.”
“Oh, Madison!,” Nix cried selfishly, jumping from her chair and wrapping her arms around Madison’s neck like a bow, smelling the faint scent of ‘Cucumber Melon’ in her brown hair, “I’m being so selfish. You’re going through a lot of pain, too.”
“Don’t worry about me, Toots,” Madison assured her, rubbing Nix’s back when she began to feel tears sprinkle her hospital gown, “Worry about Ethan. He needs your attention, your faith, your love.”
Phoenix stood up at looked down at her little Madison, feeling an itch of a smile stimulate her face, “You’re too good to me, Lovey.”
“You know me,” Madison told her, blinking away tears, “Too good to everyone.” With that, she rolled into the hallway.
“Good luck!” Phoenix called after her, pacing back to the bed, sitting down on the Smurf pillow she brought from home. The chairs in the hospital were always so uncomfortable, like they wanted you to do more than sit and wait. Sliding the gray chair even closer towards the head of the bed, she leaned over and attempted to instill some vivacity in him with a kiss on the nose. Nix then cupped her left hand over the bracelet and her right hand over his heart, falling asleep to the slow drum of his heart…
~*~
Benji paced outside room 712, Ethan’s room. He could feel the hairs on his arms levitate toward the ceiling and the hammering of his heart against his rib cage. Clutching the bouquet of daffodils, tiger lilies, and carnations with a shaky hand, he knocked lightly, not wanting to intrude on a personal moment. After a few moments, he slowly clicked the door open, peeking in like he was a robber scouting out a new house. The sight almost made him drop to his knees.
He saw Ethan, as he learned that was his name, like a rag doll perched up in some doll bed. Ethan’s eyelids began to get the slightest hue of purple, his skin paler than a full moon, his breathing very slow. His eyes traveled down to a peaceful girl, her hand tucked in nicely with Ethan’s like a piece of a puzzle, her head listening to the rhythm of his heart. Her eyes flickered open slowly like a candle, focusing in on the person standing in the doorway. She was a very light sleeper, but didn’t mind the interruption because she needed to get a snack from her backpack. Stretching from like a 1000 years of sleep, she clicked her tongue inside her mouth and finally took a good look at who stood at the door. She abruptly dropped her arms to her side, staring blankly at him like he wasn’t even there, just air.
“Do you mind…” Benji began uncertainly, inching baby steps in his black Converses forward, her expression not changing as if it was ice. It was just as chilly. “…if I come in?”
“Not at all,” Phoenix began plainly, her tone turning malicious as she let go of Ethan’s hand and cupped his hand close, her square face nothing but distraught. “I mean, you go out, party, do whatever, and then don’t have the decency to stand up to your buddies when you’re all trashed to not drive.” She advanced toward him with lightning speed, standing almost nose to nose with him, her eyes scalding through his, her arms were stiff as boards, shaking as if ready to strike. “You don’t take the backroads to wherever you were going, run a red light, put my friends in the hospital, Madison is in surgery right now!” She pointed to the door with a firm hand, the heat firing from her extremely intense. “Her legs are fractured in 5 different places. I mean...I wish I could…hit you!!!” she bellowed angrily, Benji glancing down at the floor in shame, “I wish you could feel a morsel of what my friends and I are going through right now! But I don’t have the strength or belief in violence. Then again, you put my boyfriend…my boy…” Her wall of control began to crumble, droplets of salt leaking from her eyes. Phoenix austerely turned her back to Benji, laggardly sitting down on her pillow to try to summon up her composure. Water works totally turned on, hunched over her boyfriend’s morbid body, she continues, glancing over at Benji, “He’s in a coma. He’s probably…no...he might…”
Benji walked over to her, Phoenix’s bubbling anger melting into complete sorrow. She looked up hopelessly at him, curious as to what he was doing. Benji grabbed a tissue from a box on the table by Ethan’s bed and gently handed it to her, his eye gazing helplessly into hers. “Thanks,” she simple said, pressing the tissue to her eyes.
Benji placed the flowers on Ethan’s bed, rubbing his hand over his mouth as he gazed at Ethan. “There’s…” he stopped, turning his attention to Phoenix, her eyes and cheeks red. He dropped to his knees, placing his hands on her arm. She looked down at his gesture with disdain. “I can’t say anything to make this right or better. I can’t do anything to take this back. I know being sorry is not nearly enough…”
“Yeah,” Phoenix interrupted, yanking her arm from his and crossing them firmly over her chest.
“I haven’t slept well in 3 days,” Benji told her earnestly, tears crystallizing in his brown eyes, running his tongue over his lips to try to collect his thoughts. “I am torn into pieces over this. I have nightmares about that night. I picture me in Ethan’s spot and my dad driving that van…” Phoenix’s expression began to soften, confused at what he was talking about. “I can’t stand living in my own skin. I can’t stand the fact that I’ve hurt so many people in such a small amount of time. I’ve destroyed lives. I might have ruined my own life. I’m sorry…this is not about me. I…don’t know…what to say. I guess it was just an accident which I caused. I…hate…myself. I do. I am a despicable person. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
Phoenix reflected on Benji’s little monologue, her eyes not angry but intense. She gazed at the love of her life laying lifelessly, and yet, she felt a tingle, a message from some other place, some other force, to stick to her roots, stick to what makes her character great. “I have a lot of compassion and forgiveness for people, but…this…I love you guys.” She expressed a silly smile, rubbing her hand over her eyes and rotating back to him, “I absolutely love your music. I can’t comprehend how someone I’ve supported from Day 1 could hurt my friends so. You can’t understand how twisted I am inside.” Her emotions shattered like a rock through a window at that point. Convulsively crying like the world would die tomorrow, she made attempts to sniff back tears, her hands blanketing her eyes as if to push the tears and sorrow back inside, Benji’s reaction to her being so upset causing tears to streak down his eyelined lines like a sad clown. Being macho, he blinked away the tears, knowing nothing he could say would subside her pain.
“I think I should go,” he whispered to her, standing up brushing away tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his MADE jacket. He waited for her to control her emotions, feeling leaving with her sobbing her eyes out wouldn’t be right.
“I think that’s the best idea,” Phoenix agreed, pulling back her hair with a convenient hairtie from her wrist. “I can’t…it’s not right to talk to you when my attention should be turned to him.”
Benji nodded solemly, casting her one last lingering look before he briskly exited the room.
Phoenix shook her head, a migraine pounding against her skull as she crawled carefully upon the bed and cuddled against Ethan’s warmth. “God,” she whispered breathlessly, placing her hand gently below his hairline behind his neck and caressing it with her fingers, “Give me strength. Please, I need to forgive, I need to love, I need…” Nix laid a long kiss against his cheek, too drained to finish her prayer.