“I’m protecting you, because I’m protecting my heart.”
6
There are some things in life that we have always taken for granted. Small, daily things that are so normal we hardly appreciate them. Like the comfort of a bed when one is tired. The crispness of the air as we walk out of our homes. Even the smell of coffee on a hectic weekday morning.
Small, yes. . . but not inconsequential.
Imagine coming home without a bed to welcome us, or waking up without caffeine to fuel us.
We feel hassled when we are stripped off of these seemingly trivial things. No matter how little they may be, they are part of our lives. Part of us. Every single one of us.
When the bigger things are factored, like jobs or dreams or people, losing them are much much more distressing. Catastrophic. Life-changing.
That’s what I call this moment. Life-changing.
As I see the blood staining the broken shards of glass, as the smell of gasoline permeates the air, as I feel his warmth seeping off his skin, there is this voice in my head screaming at me, telling me to move, begging me to call for help. . . but not even sheer will can make me believe the impossible.
He has protected me until the very end.
I should have held him, I should have told him. . .
I should have. . .
Gingerly, I plant a soft kiss on his icy cold cheek and we lay there, trapped, as the sounds around us buzz and the colors fade into nothingness.
“Carla.”
I hesitantly open my heavily-lidded eyes and am immediately engulfed in my mother’s familiar embrace. I lay alone in a tiny private room, on one of the sterile and plain and white hospital beds, have cried myself to sleep, and now have woken up with fresh tears in my eyes.
Warren. . .
I sob softly against her shoulder blades. “Mom.”
“I’m so worried about you,” she whispers, kissing the only uninjured part of my face – my eyes.
“Mom, how is… how is he?” I ask fearfully. A lump has formed inside my throat, and as seconds tick by, it eventually grows larger. “Is he – “
“We don’t know yet, honey.” She brushes her fingers through my hair like she always did when I was younger. I close my eyes in order to reminisce my happy childhood.
But all I can see is blood and his face, as the shadow of death slowly claims him.
My mom tenderly continues, “They’re still operating on him, but he’ll be fine, believe me. Warren is a fighter. He’ll breeze through this into recovery, and he’ll just laugh it all off like some kind of sick joke.”
“Mom – “
“You too, hon. Sleep. Rest, and be there to support him all the way. Okay?”
My vision cannot focus. As I blearily stare at her distorted figure, I nod, mumbling incoherently. . . and soon sleep takes me under once again.
I wake up alone.
Warren. . .
My whole body aches, but I ignore it as I snatch all tubes off my skin and head to the door. I am weak and cold, unbearably cold, and my muscles are stiff as I limp out of the white room. Outside, there are all sorts of people, patients and nurses and doctors, but no one pays me any attention.
Hobble, hobble, hobble
My hand finds the wall and uses it for support. I am about to reach the nurse station when I see a streak of red on the sidelines. Rachelle? I follow my gut feeling and head to the room where the redhead disappeared into.
I hear voices speaking, arguing, and the words that reach my ears make me flinch.
“Can’t you see the condition my SON is IN?!”
“… whose fault it is.”
“But neither of them is awake, and in broad daylight –”
“You can’t be serious!”
“It’s been a week – “
“The charges against him are irrefutable. There’s the CCTV – “
Taking a deep breath, I push the door open and stagger inside, surprising the little crowd that had convened inside Warren’s room. I notice how large it is – the Evangelista’s has always been well-off in society. Inside the room there is actually another room, enclosed in glass. Almost instantly, my eyes zero inside that smaller room, my gaze glued on the bruised and broken body in the middle of it. His body is strapped onto a variety of machines and hardly breathing. Hardly alive.
Warren.
“Carla!” My mom rushes to me. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my fault,” I whimper, burying my face on the crook of her neck. “If I’m not there, if he didn’t come to my audition– “
“Ssh, stop it, stop it,” she coos. “Don’t blame yourself, honey.”
But nothing she says and will say can convince me otherwise. Not when I can see the damage on him. On her. On everyone. The scars and the bruises, the wreck and the grief that I caused in his life. I can’t forgive myself. I can never forgive myself.
Despite my protests, mom and Warren’s parents has thrown me out of the room and back to my own. Because of my weakened state, I can do nothing but stay and force myself to recover quickly. Mom never leaves my side. She doesn’t step out of the room as long as I’m awake, for fear of what I might do to myself.
It is only two days later that I finally get a chance to get out. She receives an emergency call from what I guess is work, and slips out of my room thinking that I’m in slumber.
As stealthily as I can, I ease out of my room and head to Warren’s, easily several rooms away in the same floor. But just as I am about to go in, I hear and recognize a female voice with an unmistakable tone of disgust in it. I turn to the source of the voice and see a redhead with her back on me, talking on a phone just at the end of the hall.
“… left behind to watch over him,” she complains with her hands on her waist. “I can’t tolerate being inside the same room with him. Just seeing that ugly face makes me want to hurl. Hurry and come over, babe… yeah… promise, but we both know he has the money… uh-huh. Love you, babe, always you. Okay… don’t worry. Our baby is fine. His parents are easy to – “
Before I can even process what I’m doing, I am already yanking her hair and scratching my nails on her pretty little neck…
… with an intent to snap it off.
Whew. That last part was intense.
I picture Rachelle as that Ariana Grande. Very... vixen. Picture at the side -->
P.S. Uhm, VOTE and COMMENT? Please?
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