The Butterfly Effect

Chapter 20

After sprinting across the parking lot, Sean darted through the hospital doors. With hands shaking and breath panting, he asked for the direction to the ICU then back on trotting to the direction after thanking the receptionist.

The memory was still crystal clear in his head when he had been at Allison's Nana's house earlier today. After the bad hunch about Allison in his bones had kept haunting him, Sean finally decided to come there to make sure she was fine. When he saw her Nana start weeping the moment he asked about Allison, his heart throbbed with despair and his hands began to sweat. Although he felt like there was a huge lump in his throat, he still attempted to speak that made his voice tremble.

"Nana, is Alli home?"

"..."

"She's not here? W- where's she?"

"S- she's..."

"Is she okay?"

"S- she's at t- the hospital..."

"What? What happened to her!?"

"..."

"Please, Nana, tell me what happened to her!"

"She... She's in a coma..."

It had felt like something hard punched him in the stomach when he heard that, as if the world stopped spinning and went into a total blackout. And now he was scurrying and scurrying to reach the ICU where she was lying, his head jumbling with bad thoughts. After turning into a hallway, he spotted an ICU nurse desk and immediately stopped his pace.

"May I help you?" one of the nurses asked with a polite smile as he stood over the desk.

"Mackenzie," Sean puffed, trying to catch his breath. "Allison Mackenzie."

"Are you a family?"

"Wha—? Uh, y- yeah, I... um, her brother... from different father," he managed to lie. It was the first thing that had popped up in his head. When the nurse gave him a suspicious stare, he hastily added, "I just got the news about her condition and I just- I just wish to see her for a minute. Please, let me in."

"Uh, okay, this way."

The nurse led him to a not-so spacious all-white room with a lot of monitors and hoses. After obeying the rules to enter the ICU, he stepped over the threshold and it became eerily hush when the nurse left him alone there only with the sound from a heart-rate monitor.

Sean drifted closer to Allison's bed as he watched her pale, peaceful face. His heart plummeted when he took her ice-cold, helpless hand with both of his hands. Tightening his grasps, the tears he had been detaining finally fell. He cried in silence.

"I'm sorry, Alli... I'm so sorry..."

***

"So, what's the real reason?"

Rubbing his face, Kyle felt under a lot of pressure. Before today, he had already prepared the things he wanted to say to Kirsten. But with her sitting across him right now, it wasn't as easy as he had thought. "I was so fucked up. There was this girl..." he trailed off. Actually, he wanted to leave Jessica out of this, but he knew she was a big part of the story. His tongue tied, not knowing where to start telling Kirsten about Jessica.

Kirsten straightened in her seat. "Kyle, tell me the truth."

Swallowing hard, Kyle exerted to put his thoughts into words. "I met this girl when we were, like, seven and we've been each other's best friend since. I don't even know how long I've been hung up on her because for her I'm just... just her childhood friend. I dated some girls in the past years, but it never lasted more than three months. I- I don't know, but there's always something holding me back from falling in love and I know it's her."