Winter Wakes

White walls were no strange thing to me. A slow, surreal pull into the waking world was greeted by that very sight; initially I had paid them no mind. There was heaviness to my mind; it seemed bogged down with a continuous exhaustion and weariness as I tried to blink away the haziness that had overtaken my vision. I wasn’t ready to wake up; I was still too tired. My brain pleaded for one thing: more sleep. I heeded its call, only after acknowledging the warmth that encompassed my right hand and its source. A blurry figure with brown hair was the last thing in my line of sight as I dozed back off again.

The second time I awoke, it was thanks to the murmurings around me; voices that really weren’t so low, but my senses had merely dulled until I pulled into a conscious state. A dull throbbing in my skull also seemed to increase exponentially. The throbbing became a pounding sensation as the volume of the voices shot higher. I raised a heavy hand to my forehead, the voices refusing to cease.

“Shut up,” I moaned softly. “For the love of all that is good and pleasant please shut up.”

There was a sudden silence, quiet grasping the room and pleasantly spreading through my aching skull. I heaved a shaking sigh, swallowing shortly thereafter only to realize my throat was painfully dry.

“Maggie?” A shrill voice called, shortly followed by the patter of feet. A pair of small, warm arms pulled me into a tight embrace, my face pressed into their chest in a nearly suffocating manner. “Oh my god, Maggie, you’re awake. How’re you feeling? You scared the hell outta me.”

I caught a glimpse of Katie before I squeezed my eyes closed again, burying my head in my arms, “Headache, so bad.”

“Oh, shit. Babe? Give me one second; I’m going to go see if I can get the nurse to bring you some medicine for that, okay? And I need to go tell them you’re awake, I’ll be right back, I promise.” The shrillness in her tone had vanished in an instant, replaced by a soft one that reminded me of a mother’s.

Then, though, one word hit me. “Nurse?”

I tried to get past the throbbing pain, pulling my face away from my hands to get a very painful glimpse around the room. There were white walls, much like mine, but colder, blanker. The bed was even white; a faded pastel chair was at its right side. My gaze was pulled to a darker spot in the corner of my vision; a brunette college boy stood near the door Katie had recently exited, dark eyes focused unabashedly on me. I stared back with equal blatancy. Who was he? Why was he here? Wait, why was I here?

I barely noticed the flicker of movement in the corner of the room; with the neutral color matching the room’s I probably more than likely wouldn’t have if it—he, hadn’t shift. Glancing over the white shoulder of his shirt, a pair of pale blue eyes tiredly watched me from between white-blonde curls. He was huddled against the connecting point of the two walls with his back facing me. I could only feel a flutter of concern rise in my chest at his awkward, unusual position.

“Ms. Walton?”

My attention jerked back to the opposing wall, where a small, wide-framed woman in scrubs with Katie at her side entered.

“Um, yes?” I looked apprehensively between the two.

The woman turned to give Katie an odd frown, before facing me again. “Sweetheart, do you know why you’re here?”

“No,” I responded quietly. But I did know something for my headache would have been nice.

“I’m Dr. Keller.” She stepped forward. “How are you feeling, dear?”

Like shit was the response that shot to the front of my mind, but I decided on something a bit safer. “Headache, my throat’s dry, I’m tired. I’m sorry, why am I here?”

She looked down, focusing on the clipboard in her hand. “Well, you had a mild dose of rohyphnol in your system, and from what these two tell me, you were at a party before this. It appears that someone tried to drug you, Ms. Walton.”

I didn’t say anything as her words finished; they didn’t feel right, didn’t want to process. I tried to remember what I had been doing before this, most of it was indiscernible, muddled in the chambers of my memories. I remembered getting to the party in Katie’s car, talking to Simon once she had gone on ahead, seeing the chair Simon had died in, and from there things became fuzzy and faded, like a dream. There was no specific part I could recall, just a haze of faces.

“Lucky for you, these two noticed something was wrong and got you here as soon as they could.” She pulled her lips together, drumming on the back of the clipboard. “Can you remember anything?”

I numbly stared in Simon’s direction, where he remained curled, returning my gaze without wavering. Not one solid memory surfaced from the party. There was a slight shock to hearing I had been drugged, but the majority of my silent state was due to the fact that I hadn’t been able to get, or remember, any information that may have involved Simon’s death. My presence there had been for nothing, only causing more trouble than necessary.

“Nothing,” I replied wistfully. “Can I just get something for my head, please?”

“I’ll have one of the nurses bring you something,” She jotted something down. “Just hang tight. We’re going to keep you here for a few hours just to make sure you’re okay.”

Dr. Keller retreated from the room, leaving me, Katie, Simon, and the strange brunette boy to the company of each other’s silence. I paid the two living no mind, still settled to focus on Simon. I was upset with myself, for letting him down, for making him look the way he did. If I had been able to attain any usable information, if I had been able to avoid whatever had brought this on, perhaps he wouldn’t look this way. I ached for him, because I had let him down.

“Do not give me that look, Daniel Adriens,” Katie’s ire-filled southern voice refocused my attention rather quickly. She had a hard look on her delicate face, blonde hair a mess as she glared daggers in the direction of the brunette. For the first time, I actually looked at him. He was tall, with gelled brown hair, a wrinkled button up with burgundy and white stripes on it, and deep brown eyes that boiled with irritation.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here, Katie!” He roared.

“Oh, don’t you dare start with that crap again. You were the one who brought her to the car! You were the one who got me out of the party! You were the one who said someone had slipped roofies in her drink, Daniel!” Katie’s voice quickly escalated to the high shriek from earlier, like nails on a chalkboard in my throbbing head.

“One minute I was watching you play beer pong and the next thing I know I’m waking up here, with you and…” He looked at me for a brief second with an accusing finger pointed at me. “Her! Who the hell ever she is!”

Katie’s lips tightened, her nostrils flaring as she slowly breathed in and out, “You were the one who told me she was in your Algebra class, Daniel. Are you on crack? Did they slip roofies in your drink, too? Huh?”

I watched it all with a pounding skull, desiring nothing more than to rip their vocal chords out to allow me the silence I so yearned for. Vomiting seemed like a perfectly reasonable response as the pain seemed to channel itself throughout my body.

“Um, Ms. Walton?”

I lift my head to find a very concerned looking nurse standing in the doorway with a cup in either hand. She continually shift her focus uneasily between Katie and Daniel, before cautiously stepping between them to bring me pills and a small cup of water.

“Thank you,” I mouthed before tossing the pills back with the water. I heaved a sigh, setting both cups down on the table beside me.

“Is there anything else I can, um, get you?” She queried uncomfortably. I looked past her towards the two who seemed to have no volume control, before giving her a pleading stare. It took a second before she smiled knowingly, and gave me a short nod.

“Okay, you two, how about you come with me. There’s a bit of paperwork I need your help filling out.” She stretched both arms around them, ushering them very forcefully from the room. Only Katie looked back in frustration as they left.

The hospital room surrendered to a much appreciated, but very uncomfortable silence. Then there was only one being left in my room; one who was always around, one whose presence had become expected, if not slightly wanted. I feared him, yes, but in that time, I felt guilty with his presence, upset with myself, not him.

“I—I’m so sorry, Simon,” I stated softly, desperately. He only watched me from over his shoulder, eyes filled with an unexplainable emotion.

“You? You’re sorry?”

I nodded, I could feel my throat tightening as a pathetic sob threatened to creep up it, and toss itself into the room’s atmosphere. “I fucked up, didn’t I? I don’t even remember how I got here, Simon, let alone if I learned anything about you being…”

“You are a stupid, stupid girl. You know that?”

I blinked. I watched his figure heave with a heavy sigh, eyes closing slowly. He shift, pushing himself off of the ground with a blank face and made his way over to the bed. Though emotionless, I could still see hints of exhaustion, and fatigue in his eyes no matter how hard he tried to mask it.

“If you think I’m upset, well, you’re right, there,” He stated, seating himself in the worn chair at the bedside. “But you’re wrong on what you think I’m upset about.”

“I am?”

He nodded into his hands, before squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his forehead against his joined hands, “Maggie, do you have any idea how utterly frustrating you are? I know I’m mean, I know I can be cruel, trust me, I know. But do you honestly think I would be upset about not getting any information when someone at the party intentionally drugged you? To be frank, I don’t give a damn about that right now. For the past nine hours I’ve been worried out of my fucking mind about you. I somehow possessed the president of the fraternity, punched out George, and sat at your bedside because I was worried about you, not about what you may or may not have learned about my death.”

He paused, looking around, anywhere, everywhere, but my eyes. I could feel the chill that hung in the air around him. I couldn’t peel my eyes away from him, I didn’t want to.

“You are the only person I have, Maggie. No one else—my mother aside-- even knows I exist, and even then she can’t see me. If something were to happen to you… I… I don’t know.” He was fixated on the white sheets of my bed that were pallid enough to match his skin; I was fixated on him.

“Simon, what happened?” The words came out weak and quiet as they slipped through my lips. Something wasn’t right; Simon never acted this way unless something was bothering him, and I could recall nothing. I was incapacitated and helpless to assist him thanks to the roofies someone had slipped me; I felt useless.

“I just told you what happened. George Max drugged you. I possessed Daniel Adriens and knocked his lights out, and then I brought you to the hospital. I can’t believe I was friends with that bastard.”

I couldn’t fight the harsh frown that pulled my lips downwards, “No, Simon. That’s not what I’m talking about. What happened to you?”

The blonde phantom finally raised his bright eyes to meet mine again, the exhaustion they held not even attempting to hide itself. The right corner of his mouth pulled up into a sad smile.

“How do you do that?” He gave a defeated laugh. “How do you just know?”

I didn’t respond, just sat silently and watched the telltale signs of pain and frustration fall from him in his motions and actions. I knew pain when I saw it, more so Simon’s pain and frustration. He had two kinds of barriers; the angry wall he had set in place most of the time, and the silent, half-hearted one that barely protected, let alone covered his frustration and pain. The truth of the matter was, I cared about Simon, worried about him, despite the hell he may have put me through, and he was also the only one who had been there for me during hard times as of late; even if it was in his own odd, awkward way. One of the simplest, most obvious ways to show I was there for him, I couldn’t even do; yet he could, and he had. I couldn’t touch him; I couldn’t give his hand an understanding squeeze, or run my fingers gently through his hair like he had mine on that cruel night.

I sighed, settling for a half-lie on the matter. “My dad owns a funeral home, Simon. I can tell when someone’s hiding their pain.”

He shook his head, scoffing. “Of course; I shouldn’t be surprised. Anyhow, you really wanna know? Fine, I’ll tell you. Partially it’s because of some information you did get, it wasn’t much, but hell, and at least it gives us somewhere to start. Just, the person who leaked my death was no accident to you was George, Maggie. The guy I thought was my best friend knows I was murdered, why though, why does he know? Why the fuck does he have to be the one who knows? I trusted him, Maggie, when I couldn’t depend on anyone else at that damn university, I trusted him. And he was the one who drugged you, so you know what that leads me to think? He’s into this a little bit more than just the “knowing” factor. He was involved, and I don’t want to know how much, god, I don’t. But I need to, I need to know who did this to me, and why. So there’s part of it.

“And then there’s something that’s just kinda bugging me.” He stopped for a moment, glazed eyes focused still on the bed sheets. “The second time I possessed you, I didn’t think too much of it, really, just pushed it to the back of my mind for the most part. I thought it was just my imagination, until it happened with Daniel too, only a little worse. I had a little bit of difficulty getting out of him, more than I had getting out of you the second time, which wasn’t exactly easy, Maggie. It was almost like quick sand, the more you struggle the harder it is to get out. And now that I’m out, I’m just… Tired.”

My heart dropped as he spoke about George; I could feel the betrayal and anguish with every word. I knew how much it hurt to have a friend betray you; I knew that all too well. But to have one do something on that level? Now that, I couldn’t fathom. How much did that hurt? How much more pain had it thrown on him?

The second part of his confession came with a different feel; one that bottomed out my stomach even though I didn’t understand it. It made me uneasy, and I wanted so desperately to ask him about it, try to pull what it may have meant, what he thought it meant. But I couldn’t because it scared me. Some part of my brain had registered that the answer may not be something I wanted to hear, something that may horrify me more than what he had told me did. For once, my fear won over my tendency to blurt out whatever I was thinking. I couldn’t ask, not knowing I couldn’t do anything to console him when his answer came, I could barely stand the fact I was incapable of comforting him as it was. It hurt me that he was in pain, yet there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Yet he had been able to provide me with solace for my pain after the Darren and Chassie fiasco. I couldn’t do the same.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered for a second time; this time knowing just what I was apologizing for. I’m so sorry I can’t do anything to help you.

He looked up at me, more defeated than I could remember him at any other time. “Stop apologizing. There’s nothing you can do.”

I felt warm tears welling in the corners of my eyes. He didn’t have to tell me that, I knew. I wanted more than anything to reach out and hold his hand, to let him know I was there for him without the use of words for a change. But I couldn’t do that. I would never be able to.

Something cold pressed itself against my hand; I nearly jumped until I realized it was his. “Don’t cry, Mags. Please don’t cry. Why are you? Please don’t tell me it’s for the stupid ghost sitting at your bedside. He’s nothing to cry for, trust me.”

I didn’t flinch as his other hand raised, a cool thumb wiping a tear from my cheek. I tried to give his hand that was tightly wrapped around my own a squeeze, only to have them go through, my fingers touching the warm center of my own palm. I couldn’t stop the next wave of tears or the crashing sob that tore at me. He merely gave me a sad smile and ran his fingers gently through my hair.

“I’m here for you, Maggie, any time you need me. I swear.” His gentle words ripped at my heart.

I never knew it hurt so much to be unable to hold and comfort the one person you wanted to; the one person who needed it more than anyone else.