I missed holding her hand on Fridays after school, in the park, having endless conversations about absolutely nothing. I only saw her for less than thirty minutes now, every day after school. I would take the detour bus to town and then walk home. Every conversation with her felt strange. I still held her hand but she felt different, colder. She didn't talk as much as she used to. In fact, she hardly spoke at all. She just stared out the window from her bed. She still couldn't walk on her own but she was getting physiotherapy to help her leg recover.
"I miss you," I'd say.
Her eyes never left the window. "I'm right here."
"No, you're not."
She was lost somewhere in the ICU parking lot. We'd just be silent until a nurse or her parents walk in and I'd leave.
Sometimes the nurses moved her to the hospital garden in the afternoons. I'd find her there, on her wheelchair, glaring into space.
"You've changed," I'd tell her.
She would remain quiet like she never heard what I said or couldn't understand English anymore. And when you least expect it, "Things change."
She would look at the flowers and say, "I really love orchids."
She said that more than once. Every conversation always ended up with her proclamation for her love of orchids. Even when her nurse aid would bring her medicine or meals, she'd tell her, "I really love orchids."
"Yes. They are very pretty flowers," the aid would reply politely, "Very pretty."
YOU ARE READING
When You Are Gone
Teen Fiction...I guess I didn't love her enough because I didn't understand. I didn't understand how people could just disappear from one's life like they never existed. How Daniel could drive the Range Rover and never look back, how Jonah could just leave for...
