Cold as Ice: The Heart of Stone

Chapter 33 - Things Have Changed

Hearing all these voices of people I don't know sort of merge into one, threw me off but then again nothing surprises me anymore. Jesus could walk in front of me and offer me that holy wine and I would take it like a vodka shot with nothing but a wide smile on my face.

My head however, felt the heaviest it ever has. Maybe I did drink that holy wine? It was like someone has physically hit me with a brick over and over again. I can't say it's a feeling I overly liked but if my god damn eyes could open then maybe I could do something about it.

"Shut the fuck up, would you?"

—

Izzy's POV.

It's been a month and a bit. A month and a bit since I arrived back from Australia to the news that my baby sister has had a terrible accident and fallen into a coma due to an infection a little after her initial rib surgery that nobody could have avoided.

I can't say when I watched the video I didn't cry, but the way everything unfolded since has just been something out of a fucked up film.

It's been rough, to say the least. There has been no guarantees what so ever. I have been here everyday wether I could or couldn't afford to make it. Come rain or shine, I've been by her side just looking at her lifeless body.

Preparing for the worst. Because preparing makes the blow a lot easier.

I would consider, by this point that the hospital as my home. The home I never wanted, nor would ever wish on my worst enemy. Yeah, I may shower here or grab some food, but I come right back. Communications with my own family is always strong and the kids have always been to visit there favourite person in the world.

Their auntie Rori.

I know many wouldn't agree with allowing kids to see such awfulness but for the most part, she looks peacefully in sleep. I explain as best I could to my children about what was going on. I didn't want to lie and get their hopes up incase the worst came and they never saw her again. That could break a kid in itself, no explanation, just 'she's gone away' for them never to see her again. How awful is that? I couldn't do that. That isn't how the world works and I want my kids to know how life works. I don't want to fill them with empty promises and lies.

They don't really understand now, but regardless of the outcome, I hope they will when they grow older. God, I hope Rori is around when they are older, but the sad reality is, she might not be.

I read that, the deepest wounds often come from the truths we try to avoid—that despite our best efforts, we can't control everything; people we love will hurt us, in ways they don't even mean too and sometimes the most profound growth arises from the most painful experiences. Facing these raw realities is gut-wrenching, but it's the crucible in which resilience is forged.

I'm trying, I'm trying to be resilient.

The football girls initially visited every singly day but now, they come and go but as their schedule gets busier with the season nearly over, they have found less and less time to come and visit, especially with the internationals but that's only natural. Beth constantly texts me for updates which is the only thing my day provided me to bring me out of a slump. It gives me that little bit of happiness that people are thinking of Rori because I had this fear initially, she would be forgotten but then I remembered, she is once of a kind and nobody could ever forget the path she left before this. When texting Beth, it's almost like, for a second, I'm not staring at the same four walls of an ICU and I transport into the world of my phone where things seem sort of normal. It is obvious, for the most part that they are not playing how they should. So much frustration is coming out onto the pitch and that much is clearly from the amount of yellow cards flying out towards the team. With Katie, it's obviously the reds these days.

But things aren't normal and haven't been since Rori slipped into a coma not willing to come out on her own accord.

She always has been a stubborn fucker.

Things have changed. Travis, now no longer lives in Australia. He felt the same as me when the news spread world wide and when back, offered to take up shifts with me at the hospital to give me a break, but I couldn't do it, eventually he understood and visits more than he is at his new home. He tries to decorate or so he tells me, but I don't think he has got that far and simply ends up coming here, telling Rori shitty stories about his botch job that make me laugh and I reckon, would make her laugh too.

For the most part, it's usually the same stuff everyday. The same nurses coming to monitor, giving me a sympathetic smile and then leaving after saying everything is still the same. Sometimes it's different people, but having been here for what feels like eternity, I know them all.

Everyday I look at my sister, my little sister, who looks almost skinnier and fragile as the hours go by and I often think about what Rori is thinking about, if she's thinking about anything at all. If she can think about anything at all. The thought of her seeing black and only black in some sort of confused daze, having no idea what is going on—sometimes makes me sick to my stomach if I think about it for long enough. I wish for her to feel nothing at all compared to that.

I don't know if she can hear me or feel me holding her hand but by god I wish she does.

"Would you like a coffee. Izzy?"

I haven't realised a nurse had walked in, "Uh—yes, please." I smile at nurse Johnson.

That's another usual occurrence not realising much along with, coffee, coffee, coffee.

I'm scared. Scared for the that a doctor could potentially tell me that Rori has gone to the fourth state of a coma which is the 'brain dead' faze. Meaning, ultimately...she will die.

—

Today was like any other in the routine I have found myself in for the last god knows how we long. I think it's Sunday, but I can't be sure unless I look at my phone in which I'm too tired to do so.

I miss my kids, I miss the life I had before this where I didn't think about an awful lot. I think about this often, but I know if I'm not here she will have no one and that thought alone makes me shiver. I hate it.

Hasn't she been through enough?

As I skim thought the latest copy of hello magazine that nurse Johnson brings me most days, I hear movement. That isn't something I often here when I'm here alone. Brushing it off, I continue to read the latest scandal of 45 year old Tina who's husband cheated and ran away with their child 7 year old child.

Interesting read.

Hearing a noise again, I look up and see Rori's legs move as her face contorts, scrunching up with a painful expression.

My heart dropped.

Standing to my feet, I freeze just watching on. There are some reflex's now and then that come from Rori—more like twitching—but the doctor have always maintained that's normal with the state she is currently in. Like a doctor hitting your knee reflex and the bottom half of your leg flying up with nothing you can do to stop it.

This felt different, this was different.

Quickly throwing the magazine to good knows where, I think my way around everything. I run towards the door like Usain fucking Bolt, hanging out keeping it propped open wifh my leg and call for help.

In no time people fly towards the direction of my screams while Rori continues to move around, fidgeting manically on the bed.

"She's waking up!"

That's all I needed to hear, all I needed to hear to fully break down onto the cold floor, sobbing.

A million thoughts ran through my head. I had no idea what Rori would remember or feel when she woke up. I had no idea what she has been through in her a comatose state.

Maybe nothing, maybe everything.

The doctors told me the possibilities and I thought I had processed them but nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for what was to come.