I parked my car in the hospital parking lot and walked to the main door. The lady at the front desk eyed me curiously as I passed back and forth in the door way.
“Can I help you with something sir?” She finally ask with a great sigh.
“Yes. No. Wait. What was the question?”
“Are you here to see someone?”
“Oh, um, yeah. Mary Stone, please.”
She nodded once and typed her name into the computer. “Are you family or a friend?”
“Neither.”
She raised one eyebrow at me.
“Excuse me?”
“What?”
“You’re neither family nor a friend and you want to go see her?” She asked.
“That’s right.”
“Okay well let’s try this again. Which are you closer too? Family or a friend?”
I thought for a long time “I don’t know. I’m so confused. Firs she was my best friend then she likes me but I’m with Layla and I’m not just going leave her. Layla’s good to me. You know for the most part. But whenever I’m with Mary I’m so happy and whenever I’m not I fell like shit and ugh, I don’t know. I want to have some sort of claim on her but I can’t be her boyfriend but I feel too much for her to just be her best friend. But family? That seems like it’s enough but in the wrong way. I don’t know. What do you think?” I rambled this all out so quickly I wasn’t even sure what I had said exactly.
“Dang, boy. I just need to know so I can tell you about her visiting hours. I didn’t ask for your whole life story.” She looked at me with a bazar kind of stare.
“Oh, umm, sorry. Friend I guess.” I shrugged.
“Okay. She has two visiting hours left. You can go now. She’s in room C12 on the second floor.”
“Thanks.” I said.
I began to walk away when she called back to me “Wait, boy.” I turned “If I were you I’d pick Mary. I don’t know who this Layla girl is but just the way you talk about Mary makes me think you want to pick her.”
I smiled, nodding “Thanks.”
I pressed the number two on the elevator and tried to calm myself down as it raised me one floor closer to Mary. I stepped out and walked down the hall until I came to her door. I knocked on the door once and bit my lip hard when I heard her voice call “Come in.” I opened the door to find her sitting crisscross on her bead, fully dressed, with a guitar in her hands.
“Oh, it’s you. Get out.” She said taking a sip of water from the glass next to her bed.
“What did I do?” I asked.
She hadn’t even let me get one foot in the door before she rejected me.
“Everything. On top of the fact that I just simply don’t want to see you anymore you promised you’d believe me, you promised you’d always be on my side, no matter what, and you weren’t.” She looked down at her guitar and plucked at a few cords before turning her head to look at the song book she was playing from.
“What song is that?”
“If I Die Young.” She answered not looking up at me. Her words meant so much more than she said.
“Oh, can you play it?” I asked inching towards her.
She looked up “Yes. Do you know the words?”
“Enough.” I said sitting down on the other side of the bed. Like a magnet, she automatically moved a good five inches away from me. I sighed.
She seemed to see the hurt look on my face and looked away, than she began playing the song without any warning.
“If I die young, burry me in satin lay me down on a bed of roses, sink me in the river at dawn, send me away with words of a love song.” She sang in her perfect voice, “Lord, make me a rainbow I’ll shine down on my mother. She’ll know I’m safe with you when she stands under my colors. Oh, and life ain’t always what you think it ought to be but it sure feels wrong when she burry her baby. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.”
She let the notes after she sang play out a little bit longer than they were supposed to while she nodded me to sing the next part.
I clear my throat before looking down at the pages of paper she had laid out before her and beginning to sing “Oh but I’ve had just enough time.”
She smiled at me then began to sing, as she sang her smiled faded and her gaze ripped apart from mine “Oh, there’s a boy here in town says he’ll love me forever, who couldn’t have known forever could be severed by the sharp knife of a short life? Well, I’ve had just enough time.”
When she sang about the sharp knife my eyes traveled down her perfect form to find her wrists, still scabbed, and bloody.
She nodded to me and we sang together “If I die young, burry me in satin, lay me down on a bed of roses, sink me in the river at dawn send me away with the words of a love song. Oh, oh. Oh, oh”
I smiled as she continued to sing by herself the next part of the song, I wasn’t really listening though, her voice was like a beautiful background to match her beautiful face.
Then it was my turn to sing again “A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I’ll sell them for a dollar. There worth so much more, now that I’m a goner. Oh. Funny when you’re dead how people start listening. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.”
Together we sang the chores again and she finished the song alone, with the last few lines.
“So put on your best boys, and I’ll wear my purls.” She looked up after her delicate fingers had fumbled across the last of the cords. “You’re really good.” She said.
“Not as good as you. And you can play guitar. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“I taught myself when I was five years old.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
We smiled until my phone beeped and it was Layla texting me.
“Who is it?”
“Just Layla.”
I looked up in time to see Mary’s features change. Change from the light smile to the cold, hard mask.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.” I complained putting my phone away.
“Do what?”
“That.” I said. You’re much more beautiful when you smile.”
A sarcastic grin stretched across her face.
“I meant a real smile.”
“Whatever. I’m tired, get out.”
I starred up at her in disbelief. “You’re kicking me out?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I just want to know why you’re pushing me away all of a sudden. You don’t care, you don’t want to be around me, and I sicken you. I’ll go but I just want to know why. The truth this time.”
She starred at me for a long time “You wouldn’t believe me.” She said crossing her arm.
“Try me.” I pleaded.
“No, I’m done taking chances on you. Get out.”
“Done taking chances on me? Please, you never take chances.”
She stood, hurt written all over her face “Never? What about that night at the party when I kissed you? What about the night after that when I almost kissed you again? What about going to eat dinner at your house?” She said stepping closer to me with each word. Again and again until we were no more than two inches apart “What about every time you let I down and I kept coming back. And most of all, the biggest chance I ever took. Letting you in. Letting you change me. Become a part of me. Letting myself care. Allowing feelings to…form! What about all that?”
She was right there, so close we were touching. So close all I would have to do is lean down…
Her dark brown eyes found mine and we looked at each other for a long time. Being this close to her felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room and I couldn’t think properly.
“I’m sorry.” Was all I could manage.
“For which one?”
“All of them.”
Her cold, hard mask slipped for just a second to allow emotion to show on her face but as soon as it had come it was gone again.
“Say you forgive.” I said reaching a hand up to touch her face. She smacked my hand away. “Say it.” I wound my arm around her waist “Say you forgive me for everything I’ve done. Because I’m so sorry.”
Before I knew what was going, she kissed me. Her lips were warm and soft. She kissed me in a way no one had ever kissed me before, and maybe they had I just hadn’t notice because it wasn’t important. She, this, us, those were all important.
Her warm hand was on my cheek and with a strong grip I held her face close to mine. Eventually we had to come up for air and we broke apart, my forehead resting on hers.
“I forgive you…if you forgive me.” She whispered closing her eyes.
I laughed “Forgive you for that? I think I should be thanking you. I didn’t mind at all.”
“No, but Layla might.” She said then with one swift movement, and incredible strength, she pushed me backwards out the door and closed it behind me.