Casper wouldn't answer my burning questions until he got me home safe and sound, but that didn't stop me from asking them.
"What do you mean you know? How do you know? Are your memories back? Did you find something at your house? Did you follow your mum to the hospital? Have you been to the hospital?" The questions came out jumbled and rushed, the realisation of Casper coming back to me sobered me up pretty quickly, and now I almost ran at his heels, trying to keep up with his quick pace to my house.
He didn't answer any of them, and his eery silence sent a wave of panic and dread into my stomach. What if he hated me? What if he came back to shout at me and tell me how I ruined his life?
Tears welled up in my eyes and I had to stop to try to remember how to breathe. "Please," is all I say to him.
He stops slowly, not turning around.
"Please talk to me, Casper." I choke out another, "please," before he turns around to face me. He gradually walks over to stand in front of me, still leaving an arms width.
I look up into his bright eyes, but the beautiful blue is dim and hard. I swallow down another sob.
"You hate me."
He stares into my eyes for a few more painstakingly long seconds before shaking his head, looking down to the floor.
"I don't hate you, Leah," he sighs.
"You- you don't?"
"Of course I don't, it wasn't your fault."
"Everyone keeps saying that, but it feels like it's my fault. If I hadn't been on that road, at that party, if I hadn't been born-"
"Hey!" He raises his voice at me, bending his knees a little so he could look into my eyes better. If he could touch me, I'm sure his hands would be holding my face still so he could really look at me. "For all you know, I could have killed myself. Maybe you actually saved me."
I snorted at him, "saved you? You're in a fucking coma, Casper!"
"A coma is better than being dead."
"Not if you don't wake up it isn't," I counter.
We both scowl at each other, neither of us saying anything else in fear of the little fight getting more heated.
"Why were you gone so long?" I finally ask to break the silence. My once hard voice, now softened to a slight whisper. My insecurities showing.
"After I found the note, I just walked around for a bit, trying to wrap my head around it. From what I saw in my house, I had a nice life. I still don't understand what could have made me want to end it all. It messed me up a little, so I came back to see you-"
"Wait, you came back?"
"Yeah, which is when I overheard you and your mum talking."
"Oh," is all I manage to say.
"I heard what your mum said, and I don't know. I was already so messed up, I felt angry, confused and so alone in everything- but," he adds quickly, seeing my hurt look, "I didn't want to burden you with everything going on in my head."
"Casper, that's what I'm here for. Why else do you think I'm the only one who can see you? We're meant to be there for each other."
"I know that now. After learning about my coma, I went back to my house and followed my mum to wherever she was going. She went to the hospital, and that's where I found myself, in the coma. It was pretty weird, a bit trippy to be seeing myself just laying there."
I nod my head, intent on hearing the rest of why he was gone for so long.
"I stayed there a long time, listening to the people who came by who talked to me, trying to piece together my life. I wanted to learn more before I came back to you, to tell you everything I learnt."
"You idiot." I say calmly.
He raises an eyebrow at me.
"You should have told me, do you know what those two days did to me?"
"Clearly, I found you dangling off a bridge drunk off your ass."
I roll my eyes at him, "see, bad idea dummy."
"Obviously you couldn't cope without me," he smirks.
"Obviously," I repeat, my own smirk creeping onto my face.
"So what did you find out? At the hospital I mean." I ask, trying to distract myself from the heat forming in my stomach from the look Casper was giving me.
"I have a best friend called James. He visited me for a few hours, told me some stories about how we used to cause loads of trouble at school, and that the teachers hated us." He recalls, laughing to himself. "My mum stayed most of the day, just reading a book sat next to me. She sometimes cried if she looked at me for too long, so she tried not to." His happy tone from telling me about James fell once he told me about his mother.
Sometime in between his talking, we both had sat down on the kerb of the road, our legs stretched out in front of us.
"Maybe you could wake up." I say, speaking into the night. I didn't want to look at him, not just yet.
"How so?" He asks, his head turning to look at me.
Still not looking at him, I say, "maybe now you know you're alive, and not dead, you could wake yourself up."
He doesn't respond to me, but he's still looking at me. I sigh a little and turn to face him, his face closer than I had expected.
I swallow the lump suddenly in my throat and explain. "Maybe, if you lay down in your body, or touch your body, it might be how you wake up. Maybe the reason we're connected is because I caused your coma, but also because we both couldn't remember the accident. Maybe we needed each other to learn about the other. I needed to know you and know you weren't dead to be alright enough when I did find out you were in a coma. And maybe you needed me to help you learn about your life, learn how to live again. So that when you did find out you were in a coma, and woke up, you wouldn't want to end your life again. Maybe we needed each other to both live again."
He doesn't say anything for a while, doesn't move. Just stares at me.
"You know, we've only known each other for what, nearly two weeks now? Yet I already feel like I've known you forever, like you were meant to be in my life." My heart swells a little and I lean a little closer to him.
"Promise me something, Leah." I nod, searching his eyes for this promise. "Promise me you'll be there when I wake up. Promise you'll be in my life with me."
I smile at him, a big goofy grin. "I promise, Casper."
* * *
Casper and I sat up talking most of the night, which reminds me of how we first were once we got to know each other a little better. Although it's only been a short time, like Casper said, it felt like forever. I felt so comfortable with him now, like he was always going to be part of my life.
Today was the day Casper was going to try to wake up.
We had decided that Casper would go to the hospital by himself and try to wake up, as he knew you had to be family or close friends to be able to get in his ward, so he would need to be awake to tell them to let me in. I would go in my car and wait outside his wing until someone came to get me. And if it didn't work, Casper would come get me so we could both research ways of him waking his body up. We had already done a little research into it, and as far as we both knew, him laying down into his body should do the trick, but if not, there was more books and blogs to look at.
We had decided on a time, both set off at 8am. Of course, Casper could get there quicker than me, but he figured the doctors would want to do loads of checks on him once he was awake. So my driving should be long enough time for them to do it.
It was 7:45am, and I was already sat in my car, bouncing up and down in the seat from excitement. I wanted to be there with him, see him wake up, but I was okay with just seeing him, feeling him. God, I'd actually be able to touch him.
After an eternity, my cars dash clock turned to 08:00, I started my engine and accelerated hard. I knew I needed to drive slow because it would mean less time waiting outside the ward, but what if Casper was waiting for me already? What if he was awake right this second? My giddiness accelerated just as my car did, my foot lowering further down on the pedal.
A big stupid grin plastered my face as I imagined running into his arms, being a cliche romance movie. I hated those movies, but I wanted to do that run so bad.
My grin faltered a little as a painful flash of memory came back to me. It was from the crash. I remember the car spinning and the pain in my chest from the seatbelt digging into my chest, making it hard to breathe.
I felt that pain in my chest again, I couldn't breathe. My chest rose and fell in rapid little short breathes, my hands clammy. The flashes kept coming, a wave of dizziness washing over me, a high pitched noise in my ears, deafening me.
Quickly, I pulled over at the side of the road before a junction to ease my panic attack. I slipped the hand brake on and put the car into neutral, flopping my head back onto the headrest.
Deep breathes. In and out. I counted four seconds for my intake of breath and then four out. Slowly, my breathing evened and my panic attack ended.
What the hell was that? Why have my memories suddenly come back now?
My hands were still shaking, a new fear of driving twisting in my stomach, but now my clock read 08:17 and I didn't want to be late to see Casper.
He would be awake, people would actually be able to see him. I wonder if if he would remember me, remember our time together?
Would I be able to call him Alex? Could I ever get used to his real name? I don't think I could, Casper suits him too much now.
I smile to myself, calming my nerves a bit. I'm going to see Casper, the real him.
Putting the car into gear, I checked my mirrors before pulling back onto the road.
Images came back to me, but these were images from my life. The memories I had long thought I'd forgotten, memories of my dad, my dad and mum looking happy.
Memories of the first day of secondary school, I was so anxious. That's when June found me, as we stood outside our first lecture to assign us to our new classes.
Then there were more recent memories, Casper. Our first meeting, how scared I was seeing a strange boy sat in my room.
Casper comforting me in college, sat next to me when I had to sit with June.
They always do say your life flashes before your eyes.
I hadn't realised I was hidden from the junction.
The truck didn't see me in time.
_______
The end is near, the next chapter will be the last one. This book I started a year ago will be ending. My first book I've actually finished after being on Wattpad for 5 years.
The last chapter has been written, but it needs a lot of work until I'm actually happy with it, hopefully it won't take me too long.
Thanks for reading!