In my deep dream state, I was parading through a one-story unfamiliar mall, almost seeming fake as the two ends of the building were visible to the human eye which shouldn't be a characteristic of a shopping center. The stores' gates rose from the ground, symbolizing the beginning of the day for both the crowd and the employees who were setting up displays in a cute, orderly way to attract more people into their store, earning them more money.
The hallways soon flooded with a sea of different faces and nationalities, along with the stores on each side of the long corridor. Workers preparation for the long upcoming hours were over and everyone had their own conversations sparking up. The commotion was deafening, that is until I woke up to the sound of our doorbell vibrating throughout the entire house.
I paused for a few seconds to regain my composure and comprehend the difference between reality and my dream state before heaving the covers off my body, the brisk air from our built-in air conditioner slapped my skin and formed goosebumps.
My thoughts roamed to my closet to change out of my sloppy apparel consisting of pale gray joggers and an old black spaghetti strap tank from Aéropostale that had blotches of a repugnant red color, the outer rims a pasty pink from fabric bleach that I had spilled on the cloth from back in ninth grade when I dyed my hair an abnormal color and thought bleach would get the cream out of my top.
However, the ringing of the bell pulsing throughout the house had pried me out of the comfort of my bedroom, and instead of switching to something more decent looking and appealing to the eyes, I vacated my room with heavy emotion evidentially causing the corners of my gold knob to collide at full force with the wall, the sound of plaster breaking had been hypersensitive to my ears.
At the moment, splitting the wall was the least of my problems. There was a highly persistent person at my door, who I assumed to be none other than my neighbor Kian. He is the kind of person to be completely clueless about someone who's potentially avoiding him or just isn't home, so he will keep knocking or pressing the doorbell.
The soles of my bare feet smacked against the frigid wood of the steps when I stomped down them in order to get to the door before the irritating ringing noise would pierce my ears again.
With my hand clutched tightly around the knob of the front door, I swung it open using every muscle I could, continuing to clutch onto the edge of the door to prevent it from splitting more plaster on the walls in the house. Just when I was about to roar at the person on the other side of me who was standing on my doormat, my mouth unwillingly closed shut with invisible adhesive glue, my eyes meeting those of a short, built guy in a police officer uniform.
"Hello miss," the man with buzzed brown hair spoke, his eyes were a mesmerizing shade of brown, specks of yellow glimmering against the sunshine. It was almost hard to look away from his gaze, but it would have been awkward if I continued to stare at him, therefore I tore my sight away from him and noticed that my knuckles were turning a porcelain white color.
"Uh hello," I replied, moving all of my weight onto my right leg as I held the door in my hand, two fingers, my index and middle, tapping on the wood while I was glancing nervously between the two.
"We work for the Los Angeles Police Department, and--"
"May I please see your badges?" I interrupted him, at the moment I didn't care about how rude it was to do so or the guilt that built up inside of me when I replayed how nasty it was to cut the stranger off like that, but it was always a rule of my mother's, to always look at their badges to see if they're telling the truth whenever there were people at the door claiming to be police officers. She says nowadays kidnappers and bad people are becoming clever.
Both the men pulled their badges out and I took them into my hands to inspect them, making sure that the designation of rank engraved on their badges matched what they told me and verified that there was a reasonable five digit number before handing their possessions back to them, letting the muscular man continue what he was saying.
"We work in the Special Victims Unit," he finalized.
My entire voice sprinted away the second he had said 'special' because that was the unit my mother was transferred to, and there's no way her coworkers are here for a casual chat, especially since she just started her job there the other day.
"Your mother is Lesley McDonough, is that correct?" The short one asked, and I nodded stiffly, my left hand trembling by my side as I shifted my weight to the opposite foot yet again.
"May you come with us, please?"
Slipping on my torn apart, ratty Converse and nightwear, I followed the officers out to their squad car without any further questions. I'd follow anyone if they mentioned my mother, as sad as that sounds because she's my world and I need to make sure she's okay, even if I die in the process.
"What's uh," I had to clear my throat in order to continue speaking, seeing as my voice completely gave out, "Going on?" I finally spit out after a few seconds of coughing up mucus buried in my throat.
It was a minuscule detail, but I did happen to notice the pudgy officer glancing at his more built partner that was driving and the look they exchanged, the guilty glimmer in their eyes, it made my heart drop to my feet and sent my stomach into a whirl of knots.
As the built officer's palms clenched around the steering wheel, he leaned his body to the right a bit, almost unnoticeably, until we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital downtown. While I didn't want to believe that my mother is potentially in there, I had to pinch my eyes shut and cover them with my sweat ridden hands just to keep me from having a mental breakdown in the back of their car.
The silence was deafening, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears and every time I gulped, I could hear it so distinctively that I was afraid of everyone in the parking lot hearing. There was a person smoking behind her van regardless of the no smoking signs placed everywhere around the campus and there was a man in a wheelchair being pushed around by his caretaker.
After taking in my surroundings, the two policemen were staring at me with an unreadable expression in their eyes, it seemed as though they were putting on a mask in front of me and I had a bit of comprehension about why they would do that, though I'm very indenial about the reasons why.
The sliding doors of the hospital opened laggingly and I stepped inside, the air became thick with uncertainty while I trailed behind the people who brought me here. We approached two sets of elevators, one had a sign above it that said 'ICU' while the other one went to the normal floors like the pediatric unit.
It felt like someone slammed their foot down on my heart when the stubby finger of pudgy hit the up arrow on the Intenisve Care Unit elevator. There was no denying that my mother was in a room on that floor, it was fairly evident by now like all the steps that got me here have clicked together to complete the puzzle.
The doors creaked shut and being in this small, confined space with the mood I'm in made me feel like all four walls were closing in on me. Even though I'm surrounded by everyone in the hospital, I feel so alone and wished more than anything that someone was here with me to coddle me and tell me everything was going to be okay.
Chipped paint fluttered to the ground as gracefully as a feather when the metal entryways departed from each other and the doors were shaking in their tracks, they wanted to break free from the depressing enviroment as well as I did at this moment, but I knew I had to stay to make sure my mother was okay.
There was a moderately sized waiting room that we stepped into the second we exited from the elevator, and at the end, there was a door that separated us from the actual unit.
Pudgy and Muscular approached the entrance, pressing a button on this intercom as they whispered some words into the black box and minutes later, there was a clicking noise and they were able to pull the door open and the commotion of the unit smacked me in the face.
I followed behind them, my stomach too queasy to go off on my own. They approached the desk and Pudgy wrote his name down on a piece of paper clipped to a board, I assumed it to be a visitors check-in before Muscular met me by my side, placing his hand on my shoulder reassuringly. He knew that I was aware of what was happening at this moment.
"C'mon kid," Pudgy mumbled, nudging his head towards the left hallway and I took a glance at the nametag he had clipped to his shirt, Edward.
As we walked further down the corridor, I almost collided with Ed's back as he stopped in his tracks, turning his body towards the door we were in front of, room 223 with the last name McDonough written sloppily on a white piece of paper that was taped to the middle of the door.
"Your mother's in there," Edward said, dawdling away from where we came from. Muscular rubbed my back in an effort to comfort me, but honestly, nothing could do that right now.
"We'll be waiting outside," he said and I nodded stiffly, glancing at his nametag that read Michael. I watched as he shuffled away to catch up to his partner, and I waited until no one was in sight before I finally mustered the courage to approach the door. My hand was shaky as I held it out to turn the knob and it only took a kick of the tip of my shoe to get the door to move.
"You can do this, Ryley. She's okay, you know she is, what are you worried about? She'll be okay, she'll be home tomorrow and you guys can watch CSI Cyber reruns together," I whispered to myself, most likely looking like an insane person to anyone who could have passed by, but I didn't care, I needed to reassure myself.
With my sights set at my feet, I stepped into the room and lifted my head up slightly before looking away with my eyes pinched close. My knees almost gave out on me, I thought I was going to collapse to the floor or blackout, but I paraded through, sitting down on one of the cushioned chairs by her bed.
She was in such bad shape, the person I leaned on in troubling times, the person who was always so strong for me, was now hooked up to a ventilator with a tube down her throat and colorful wires were scattered across her chest. I couldn't help but chuckle lightly when I saw them all tangled, knowing that my mom would hate to wake up to messy wires. If she was awake, I knew she would be doing anything she could to sort them out neatly. Everything needed to be clean and orderly, it was a pet peeve of hers.
Her skin was paler than the winter snow back in Rhode Island, so light that all her veins were visible to the human eye. Her breathing was faint, almost as if she wasn't alive and I would've thought she was dead if it wasn't for the monitor beeping every second.
I grasped her hand in mine and when she didn't make an effort to squeeze back or show any signs of life, that's when all the emotions I've been bottling up inside of me just burst open, the cap was thrown off and I started bawling with tears rolling down onto my shirt, some even dripped from my nose and onto my mother's hand.
"Momma," I croaked, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, "Damn it!" I bellowed, dropping my head in disappointment, "I don't even know if you can hear me, momma please, I love you so much, please don't leave me this soon, I, I need you."
Just as I said that, the one noise I never wanted to hear sounded, it was constant and the line was straight, the jagged mountain like ones fading away, just like the person on the bed. My eyes went wide and I panicked, making my way out to the hall and I began screaming for help, as loud as I could for as long as I could until my voice gave out and I saw a doctor rushing over to me.
More came after that and I was shoved aside watching as they pumped on her chest with their hands, gave her mouth to mouth, and tried just about everything they could, but the beeping never started again, that straight line never became a mountain.
"Time of death," one of the nurses announced, looking at the watch latched to her wrist, "12:23 PM."
At a rapid pace, my head shook vigorously and I couldn't breathe, "No, no, no, no, no!" I screamed, sprinting towards my mom, only to be held back by someone in a blue smock, "Let go of me! She's not dead, she can't be, there has to be something else you can do!"
The lady rubbed my back, but it wasn't helping me at all, my numbness overtook my whole body as I shook, realization finally setting in when I saw them prop the stands up on her bed and start wheeling her out of the room. My sobs couldn't be contained, I wanted to scream and punch something.
"Where, where are they taking her?" I asked, stuttering my question as I looked the nurse holding me in the eyes.
She sighed and lead me to the chair to sit me down, my knees were shaking and were about to give out any second, so I'm glad that she motioned me over to the chair, "They're taking her down to the mortuary at the institute of pathology in the basement of the hospital. If you want to say your last goodbyes before her funeral, I can take you there."
"Um no thank you, I'd, I'd prefer not. I just, I want to go home," I sobbed, standing up from the chair and almost falling over when I tried to walk away. The nurse took hold of my arm, but I slapped her hand away because I couldn't deal with anything right now. It might have been rude, but I needed to get out of this hospital and get home.
She nodded, "Stay safe sweetheart."
I made it to the elevator as slow as possible, the heels of my Converse scuffed against the tile flooring. The tears haven't stopped, but at least I wasn't crying as badly as before. Everything was numb, I didn't feel anything right now except for the overwhelming tiredness that developed from crying so hard for so long. When I pressed the first floor button, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep the pain away.
Outside, Michael and Edward were waiting for me like they said they would. They looked at me apologetically when they saw my tears and how emotionally drained I was. I'm sure they knew what happened in there, everyone knew by now, it was evidential in my features.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Edward said, going towards the squad car and opening the backseat door for me.
"Too soon, you idiot," Michael slapped the bare skin on Pudgy's arm and he muttered an 'ow' before rubbing the red spot.
I rolled my eyes, their friendship reminded me of Sara and I's relationship, which wasn't a good idea to think about at this moment when I was this vulnerable. Anything could set tears to my eyes and I started crying again, I couldn't help it.
"Told you," Michael whispered towards Ed's ear before he rushed to my side and helped me into the car.
My eyes burned from the number of tears spilling down my face mixed with the lack of sleep regardless of resting for nineteen hours. It felt like I was being dragged out of comfort by handcuffs as my chest felt tight from screaming too much inside.
Today marks the day my mother left me forever, some say she'll be in a better place and give their condolences, but to me, she was my safe haven, the one who kept me standing when all I wanted to do was fall and now there was no one to keep me from tripping into the same hole I was in three years ago.