Quandary
/ˈkwänd(ə)rē/
noun
a state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation
There are certain moments in life that make you think of all of the bad things in your life. They make you rethink the last thing you said to your significant other or they make you rethink your morals in life. Either way, they cause you to reflect on the majority of your life and usually they happen during the times when you can't do anything about it.
These moments always seem to happen when the body thinks it is dying. The body senses deterioration and it signals this to the brain who, in turn, causes you to reflect on the good or bad things in life. This is where we get the phrase 'my life flashed before my eyes.'
The brain's effect on our subconscious is to take us through these moments right before our death, slowing it down and allowing us to relive it before we are gone; however, sometimes the body messes up.
Sometimes the body thinks that it cannot take more but it really is able to. Sometimes the body rushes to this assumption too fast and the memories replay for someone who is not dying, causing the person to receive severe mental trauma. Sometimes the replaying of the memories sends the body into a state of shock and allows it to release less blood than expected in an injury. Sometimes the body has a heart attack from the shock and the person passes before the memories finish.
Although everyone likes to believe that the human body works perfectly, it doesn't, which is why tragedies happen.
The lights of the emergency tent never ceased to amaze me at how bright they were as I opened my eyes for the first time since blacking out in the snow and seeing the entirety of my life being relived in front of me. Swarms of nurses were in the room, taking my vitals and setting up IV fluids; however, it took the glance of my boyfriend to notice that I had woken from the haze I was in after regaining consciousness.
My eyes observed his broad frame walking between nurses to sit at my bedside, gripping my hand in his as he placed a kiss softly on the upper side.
"We have got to stop meeting in here," he whispered, tears spilling through the ducts of his eyes. I laughed slightly, nodding my head in agreement as the doctor walked through the door finally.
"Good to have you back Melissa," he smiled warmly as I nodded back at him. His eyes scanned my chart quickly before looking up at me with wary eyes and returning them back to the file once more. This process repeated until I was sure that he was either going crazy or extremely confused.
"Is something wrong?" I asked the doctor, finding his stare oddly confusing and off putting.
"Have you been getting enough sleep?" he asked, genuinely concerned, which caused Luke's eyes to dart from my face, where they had been the entire time, over to the doctors, fear covering the entire orb.
"She has been waking up in the middle of the night, why is something wrong?" Luke's voice asked warily, taking in the doctor's concerned face.
No matter how many times I had seen the medical staff in my year here, year and a half if you count when I was being held by the White Coats, their quizzical looks always scared me.
"The fainting spell," he began, "it was caused by a massive shock wave running through your body."
Luke's eyes knitted together as we both looked at the doctor, expecting some obvious answer to permit from his mouth. "What does that mean?" I asked softly, not wanting to disturb Luke's state as he seemed very distraught over the thoughts looming in his mind.
"Ms. Jennings, this may be a suitable conversation to have with Luke outside?" he offered, giving me a look that made me agree with his statement.
"Luke," I spoke softly, taking in the look of surprise on his face as he exited the room quickly, stomping his feet as an angry child would.
Luke's POV
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My anger had subsided only a few minutes after leaving Melissa in the room with the doctor; now the only thoughts filling my mind were awful and made me feel powerless and exposed. Therefore, when Michael had approached me about a meeting in the boardroom, I had left the trauma center immediately, asking one of the nurses to inform Melissa where I was and ask her to stay with Riley until Ashton could come get her.
My feet made their way to the room on the opposite end of the colony, rapidly placing one in front of the other as if my life depended on it. When I arrived, I noticed the seats were all taken accept mine. The grave looks covering their faces gave me an incline as to what this meeting was to be about, making my heart hurt a little more than it already had.
"We need to heighten the security on the colony," Bob spoke as I found my seat beside Janice. "By securing the west wing-"
Bob's voice continued to drone on while I leaned over to Janice, hoping to find some insight on what was happening. "What are we talking about? Riley left the colony and we found her, so why do we need maximum security?" I whispered, finding the whole idea a bit trivial.
"Because now he thinks that if an eight year old can get out, what difference would there be to a bot getting into the colony," she replied, keeping her voice the same loudness as mine. "How's Lissa by the way?"
"She's awake," I said softly before listening back to the ideas of my father, watching Janice roll her eyes at me before returning her attention to him as well.
My mind began to wander throughout the meeting, forgetting everything Bob said about the positioning of my men and simply allowing Michael to answer all of the questions as he was second in command. The only thing I could think about was the idea of Melissa being rolled into surgery while I sat in a meeting, unable to comfort her.
As the meeting came to a wrap, everyone growing antsy due to the amount of time we had been needed in emergency operations, I began to grow tired of sitting in the confining chair. Nothing seemed to be alright as my gut told me that I needed to see Melissa, but I also knew that if I left this meeting, I would never hear the end of it from my father, who would most likely threaten my job.
I was the first out when the time came, practically running to mine and Melissa's shared room. The door was locked, leading me to question if Melissa was even inside. When I finally was able to enter the room, my eyes traveled throughout it, not seeing my beautiful girlfriend lying on the bed as I thought she would be. My feet led me towards the bathroom, only to find it halfway open without Melissa inside of it, leaving me in a state of panic as I made my way to the infirmary as I remembered telling a nurse to have her watch Riley and my nerves settling instantly while I made my way over there.
Melissa's POV
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My mouth was dry as cotton while I absorbed the information that the doctor had told me, trying to hide the effect of his words from the young girl beside me currently. Riley had woken up only a few minutes after I had gotten the news, leaving me with no time to process the notion that the doctor had provided for me.
"So how are you and Luke?" the brunette beside me asked, looking at me with innocent hazel eyes, similar to her brother's. "I know that you two are together."
I looked at her in fain shock, shaking my head at the thought of Luke and I together. Her face remained stoic as she stared at me as if I just insulted her intellect.
"You do know that I'm not eight anymore, right?" she asked, straight faced and anger covering all of it. "I'm not stupid."
"Yes, you are nine and I am well aware of that," I told her, shaking my head at her attitude. I assumed it was something that came with age as she was never as persistent about these type of things before; however, I was growing fond of this change in Riley's behavior.
"So are you working with his post traumatic stress?" she asked, not finding any type of remorse in her question as I looked at her solidly, unsure of how to answer the question.
"What did you ask me?" My voice was mostly gone as I absorbed the shock of the doctor's news and Riley's babble.
"Luke's sister died, I assume you know that, which means that he has post traumatic stress, the main component being his part of her death," she explained as she pet her stuffed animal as any eight year old would.
Riley never failed to amaze me. She was the little sister I always wanted; however, she grew up much too fast for my liking. Only a year had gone by and she had stopped drawing fairies and playing with dolls in her free time; instead, she drew closer to me and attempted to learn how to fight, much to Ashton's displeasure. Her vocabulary grew and so did her understanding, leading her to skip a grade in the colony's school system.
"You have to promise that this is between us, okay?" I asked her, finding her innocent nature and direct questions irresistible.
"Is this sister talk then?" Her hazel eyes lit up and laughed at the sight, finding that she was still so much like a little kid, even though she wasn't by first glance.
"Yes," I simply answered, climbing into her hospital bed and wrapping my arms around her as any big sister would. "So Luke and I are very serious and we are actually dating, which took a lot of effort and compromise to do."
She hummed in response, "That sounds like Luke. He likes to be tough, but in the end, he can't be when it comes to us."
I giggled at the thought, realizing that she was fully right. "Well one of those conditions was that I had to understand that he would never be able to entirely commit to us, which I think is bullshit-"
"Lissa, what's bullshit?" she asked, her hazel eyes catching the light at the right angle to receive a bit of sparkle.
"Oh my god! Don't say that!" I laughed, holding my side as pain flared through me and I attempted to hold it in. "It's a figure of speech, and it's not really a good thing to say."
"Ashton says it all the time though," she explained to me, causing me to laugh harder. Even though I felt pain searing my entire side from the doctor's prognosis, I knew that Riley would catch on if I let on for too long.
"Why don't you ask him then?" I encouraged her, nudging her shoulder softly. I tried to keep myself preoccupied with her innocence so that I would be too lost in her to feel pain, but as it progressed, I found it to be far too unbearable. Gradually my body grew accustomed to it and all went back to normal, but I was left to think about what would happen when the pain came back.
"He told me to never ask again last time I asked him," she told me, laughing with me slightly as I doubled over laughing. "But Luke does love you. Don't doubt that," she spoke again, making me stop laughing and look at her with tears in my eyes from her words and the laughing.
"How do you know?" I asked. Truthfully, I wanted her wisdom, which sounded weird coming from an eighteen year old girl, but Riley was one of the only people that I could truly trust in to tell me the truth.
"How do you know he doesn't?" she retorted, leaving me speechless as I hugged her tightly, separating as Ashton peaked his head in the room, smiling at his sister.
"Thanks for watching her," he said as they left.
"Anytime," I told him, watching Riley skip by his side before walking towards mine and Luke's room, only to run into the blonde haired boy on the way. We laughed at our accidental collision as he stared into my eyes, making me remember the young girl's words.
I had never doubted that he loved me, but when I had been thinking about his inability to fully commit and marry me as any other couple would normally do, I found myself at a loss for words. Why would he have a relationship with me if he was 'too scared' to commit on that level? It made no sense.
"Can we talk?" I asked him, taking in his nervous face as he nodded.
"Of course," he said gently, leading us back to our room to discuss the awful topic I had been hiding. "Are you okay?" he asked, taking in my guilty facial expression when we finally reached the confines of our room.
"I'm sorry," is all I could get out of my mouth before my façade gave out and tears began to roll down my cheeks. As we had been making our way to his room, I found myself torn between wanting to tell Luke the news and not wanting to ruin this relationship we had.
Luke had been clear from the beginning that he did not want anything to hold him to me because of how he had lost Cynthia, and I knew deep down that his fear stemmed from his anxiety due to that. For that reason, I was on the fence of telling him that it was just a fainting spell, but I knew better.
I knew that my fainting was due to something more than just a fainting spell or lack of sleep as the doctor had said to get Luke out of the room. My only question was, would Luke be angry about the actual reason?