Heartstrings ✓

Chapter Ten

He continued to talk. "Reid sustained  a head injury sometime during the accident. Now ordinarily, this would not be a significant cause for concern to his life, but combined with the stress and trauma of the accident, the odds of brain function being impacted increase dramatically. There is also a higher likelihood of any effects' durations increasing.  For example, his amnesia's duration will have to be monitored.

The brain is a complex organ that we do not fully understand yet, but we can expect to see changes to Reid in terms of his memory, language, personality, and any other function of the cerebral cortex. The physical trauma to the head is less worrying, but you will need to keep an eye on his mental state for some time. The hospital will assign a psychiatrist if necessary."

After the doctor left, I sat limply in a plastic seat with my hands in my lap. I could only pray that this was a nightmare I would wake up from. The writhing in my stomach crashed into empty space. Only a dull ache was left.

I wanted to throw up. Physical symptoms of shock surfaced; chills hitting me when I was least expecting it, and a persistent headache. This was my own personal hell. Fragments of the night before kept hitting my memory; the bonfire glow, checking my appearance in my bathroom mirror, singing tunelessly because my voice echoed that of a dying sparrow. It was all so trivial.

The sound of the door opening brought me out of my thoughts. Tony entered the waiting room with two cups of hot chocolate. He offered me one of them with a sympathetic, if tentative, smile. "I can't imagine how you're feeling right now." 

I said nothing. Tony seemed to know that I didn't want to talk. So we stayed together in silence, sipping our drinks to clear the time. 

I always had an overactive imagination. As a kid, my nightmares felt so real that I had to force myself awake to escape them. I couldn't stop myself imagining the crash; imagining Reid driving somewhere. A sudden blow of force to his car that would change the trajectory of his life.

Tony saw the tears rolling down my cheeks. He moved to crouch in front of my chair, pulling me into a hug. Thankfully, he didn't try to say anything more. He just rocked me back and forth in his arms. I muffled my sobs into his shoulder. I cried everything away until eventually, swollen-eyed and heartsick, I allowed him to lead me to a room with beds. I doubted I could step into a car ever again.

I slept dreamlessly for an hour. Whirls of confusion enveloped me in dreams void of light and shadows. Until eventually, through the bleak patterns of emptiness, I heard someone shift in a chair next to my bed. I cracked open my eyes to look at Tony. Reid's cousin was pale-faced, sitting in the chair next to my bed, with red eyes and bags underneath them. "I should have told you, first thing. About Reid, I mean."

"You have other priorities. It made sense." I said, my voice groggy with sleep.

"It wasn't like that. I thought that I needed to be alone. It was irresponsible and not cool of me to leave you behind, with no idea of what was happening."

"Yes." I said flatly. "It wasn't cool. But like I said, you had other priorities. What would bringing me here change? Everything would have happened the way it was supposed to. Reid would still forget me. He'd still be bedridden, maybe even comatose."

"Stop." Tony looked even paler. "Stop talking like that. How can you be so indifferent about it?"

What he really means is, how can I accept that my relationship with Reid has died? How can I give up when the battle hasn't even really started? I wanted to believe that we could go back to how things were. But we were inevitably going to break or be less than what we used to be. My worst fear was discovering it.

I think that was how I started to believe in fate, in some kind of cosmic interference that shook the foundations of life. It was like a seesaw effect; if there was too much happiness in someone's life, like my own, there was an incoming cloud of darkness to negate it. Balance ruled our lives.

I steeled myself, rubbing at my eyes. "This is the only way I can deal with the fallout at the moment, Tony. I don't know how else I can approach it. If I start crying again, I can't trust that I'll ever stop."

"That doesn't mean you should give up on my brother. Trust me, he'll always be the same person regardless of what's happened to him. I never once thought that you would back away from him, but I can see that you're already considering it. At least talk to him once before you extract yourself from his life."

"But it's not his life anymore, Tony. This isn't mine, either. I have to back away before one of us gets hurt. I'm trying to be the good person in this scenario."

"Mallory, don't you think I understand that?" Tony looked at me with genuine empathy in his eyes. "I'm here for you. Here with you. You don't have to deal with this alone. If you have to cry, I'll cry with you. I'll help you take it one step at a time, every day."

He looked like he did understand me, after all. How could he not, when we bore this grief?

I spoke to Tony for hours that day. We were always close, but I found myself reaching for him. Tony was closest to Reid; of course he knew the most about his cousin. Reminiscing with him fuelled my determination to keep hope. I was slowly healing.

I was stupid to think that I could ever heal from this.