The Glass Passenger

To say that Alex was reeling would be a gross understatement.

He was stood in the centre of his very own hospital room and was shouting, swearing at the top of his lungs, trying to get rid of all the frustration that he felt when he watched the world play itself out in front of his eyes whilst he himself could do nothing.

He had witness the whole episode with the doctor, he had seen Rachel walk out and he had seen her return with ‘Peter Pan’ clutched in her hands.

The clashing emotions inside of him were fighting so much that he could almost feel the sharp jabs inside his stomach that could only be the result of great conflict. In the end the best way to let everything out was to just scream and scream.

Annie watched him from the usual perch on the window-sill with some agitation on her face. She knew that the past days had been anything but easy on him, but still she kept quiet. After all she was not here to tell him how to feel or act, she was simply a guide and Alex yet had to grasp onto this idea.

Once Alex had let out his last frustrated shout, that left him with a sore throat, he took a deep breath in and tried to calm himself by scanning the room, taking in all the flowers and the ridiculous mountain of post that just seemed to grow taller with every passing day. It felt like he wasn’t a part of this life anymore even though he could still call it his own. He was stuck in the sidelines, invisible and unreachable, whilst others took control and steered his life and he was simply the transparent passenger. The Glass Passenger. He was sick of being unreachable and sick of the fact that the only contact he could have was with a girl who had been stuck on a spiritual plane since 1954, and that in itself wasn’t a very comforting idea.

Maybe this was some sort of torture for the life that he had been living prior to everything that had happened. Maybe to watch his friends and loved ones live their lives without him whilst he was stuck, was his payment for having lived such a reckless life and having indulged in so much that could only be described as material. Maybe this was his punishment. This was his limbo.

Alex had never really thought about how he would die.

His theme tune was the soaring chords of ’21 and Invincible’ by Something Corporate and he lived by the words that Andrew McMahon had put forward so clearly. Dying simply wasn’t part of Alex’s thought process, he had assumed that he would live a long and happy life, it never being put near the danger of being cut short. But maybe that was tempting fate.

Fate had it out for Alex from the first time that he had been in a car crash some years ago. When your number is up, it’s up.

“Have you calmed down now?” Annie asked running a hand through her light brown hair.

“Have I fuck!” Alex shouted back at her, wheeling around so he was stood directly in front of her. “Do you have any idea how this feels? To watch everyone live past you? To watch everyone live their lives and do all the things that you are meant to be doing?”

“Of course I do Alex, if anyone should understand how you feel it’s me. I’ve been feeling like that for fifty-two years.” For the first time that Alex had met Annie her voice wasn’t level and calm “I watched my family move on after my death, I saw my sister get married and I watched my parents die in an old people’s home so don’t think that you are alone don’t be that selfish.” Annie said hotly trying to control her temper.

There were still a thousand things that Alex wanted to say, but he felt that after the last line of Annie’s angry speech he felt that he no longer had the right to say those things.

He was about to start up on a completely different subject to clear the air between him and Annie when the door of his hospital room literally flew open, banging with great force against the wall causing some of the white wall paint to flake off.

“A vacation?” Rachel screeched as she stormed in the room, her blonde hair long and wild around her face.

Rachel’s mother trotted in after her seething daughter, holding two cups of coffee one obviously intended for Rachel. But it appeared that coffee was the last thing on Rachel’s mind at the moment.

“Yes Rachel a vacation,” Mrs Margot said softly, trying not to cause even more embarrassment to herself. It irritated her slightly that her youngest daughter was so impulsive and acted out so much on her emotions. “I think it would be good for you.”

Alex watched the mother daughter get together with a rather amused expression. Rachel had always been far closer to her dad than her mother. Her mother had always been putting her on diets and criticising her daughters for their appearance whereas their father knew this would only upset them. Mrs Margot had been furious when Rachel took up the work in the bakery and she had not always approved of Alex. She had secretly hoped that someday he would catch a horrible STI and then Rachel would dump him.

But this had not happened and so Mrs Margot had watched the two year relationship grow stronger and stronger. Sadly by the time she had reconciled herself with the idea of Alex as a permanent fixture in her family he got run over by a car. It was irony in its most horrible form.

“Mother can you seriously expect me to go on a vacation right now?” Rachel said taking some deep yoga breaths in, just like her instructor had taught her for times of great stress.

As a way of avoiding her mother’s imploring eyes Rachel went to straighten Alex’s pillow and brush his outgrown fringe to the side, gently trailing her fingers down the side of his cheeks.

“You need to get out of Baltimore for a bit, see then sun, go somewhere warm,” Mrs Margot continued, placing the cups of coffee on the spare table before putting her hands on her hips in a way that showed she meant business.

“I don’t need to get out, in fact quite the opposite I need to stay here,” Rachel said stubbornly taking a stand as she challenged her mother with her eyes.

Mrs Margot sighed and looked at her worn out daughter. Over the past days she had apparently been dealing better with the situation but she still walked around with the black circles permanently drawn under her eyes and her t-shirts hung off her in a way that would cause warning bells to sound in anyone’s head.

“Rachel,” Mrs Margot said softly walking towards her daughter, “it’s been almost two weeks. You heard what the doctor said. Most comas don’t extend past two and a half weeks. You need to get away from all of this. Why don’t you go back with Charlotte and Jake to Hawaii and spend some time with them?”

“Hawaii? Right now? Out of all the places on this planet you would send me to Hawaii?”

Annie was confused by Rachel’s anger. Any normal person would have been delighted to be ordered on holiday to Hawaii but not Rachel. However Annie had learnt over the past two weeks that Rachel truly was anything but ordinary.

“I don’t understand,” Annie began but she already knew before she even finished her question that Hawaii had a strong connection to Alex.

Alex pointed at the globe charm on the charm bracelet.

“It’s the first real vacation we took together.”

New York had always been cruel during the winter months and Rachel despised the cold. She waited for the days when she could finally shut down the art gallery for its winter break and then be able to go home and spend the holidays with Alex, even though Baltimore was probably just as cold as New York was.

Alex had visited Rachel as often as the weather permitted, often being caught in snowstorms and the like. He came up from Baltimore bearing gifts of scarves and hats that had been knitted by his mother and Jack, who had found a guilty new pleasure.

The second to last day before the gallery shut down for the holidays Alex helped Rachel gently pack up the photographs and paintings for storage. Rachel was comforted by his presence and thrilled by the fact that soon she would be off the hook from work for at least a little while.

He had spent a week up in New York with her, living out in the rented apartment during the day whilst she worked and in the evenings taking Rachel out to gigs in the city that never really slept. He saw that she was tired and in need to get out of New York for a while. She needed to see the sun and she needed to see her sister.

Alex had become relatively friendly with Charlotte during the various family get togethers that both Rachel and Alex endured without complaint. Despite the slightly off relationship between Rachel and her mother she still valued her family and shared a close bond with her sister. Alex suspected that at times Charlotte knew more than she let on.

Whereas Rachel was generally more focused and contained, Charlotte was wild and impulsive. She had eloped with her college mentor to Hawaii, got married, settled down and had baby Joshua. Rachel and Alex had lived this whole debacle through the reactions of Mrs Margot and knew it would be better not to aggravate the situation anymore by visiting Charlotte.

However the evening after Rachel locked up the gallery Alex had presented Rachel with two tickets to Hawaii for a week. It had brought his savings balance to almost nil but it was the best Christmas present that Rachel ever received.

Charlotte had welcomed them both with open arms and went out of her way to make their times spent as a family the best possible. She knew that Alex and Rachel could only benefit from the time away from the city and the other influences that distracted them from their relationship.

The success of the time spent away from all the noise and action of the big city was evident on the second to last day of their glorious holiday.

Rachel and Alex had spent a dreamy week together in the warmth of the Hawaiian sun and the gentle lapping of the sapphire sea. They had surfed, swum with the fish and just lay in the sand enjoying the feeling of genuine freedom. At night Rachel would sometimes look after baby Joshua whilst Charlotte and Jack went out on a date, Alex would watch Rachel gently handling the baby from a corner of the room where he was crouched over a thick notepad that held all his lyrics that were inspired from the holiday.

On one such night a single truth hit him.

He genuinely loved and adored Rachel.

Despite their so far long running relationship neither Alex nor Rachel had dared to drop the ‘L bomb’. Both of them were sure that the other felt the same emotions, but both too were frightened of what might change if the emotions were acknowledged aloud. It could potentially make their life so much harder especially when tour moments or Rachel’s job made their presence known.

But then all of a sudden Alex realised that being scared was part of loving someone, because once you move past the fear and doubt you become a stronger person and you can genuinely love someone and be the best person possible.

With this in mind Alex simply stood up, casting his notepad aside, walked towards Rachel, took her hands into his and looked her straight into the eye.

“I love you.”

There was no romantic set up, no candles, no five star restaurants, and no fancy displays of affection. It was an unpretentious moment that did every part of their relationship justice. The declaration of adoration and love reflected their relationship perfectly: frankness and clean dedication without embellishments.

When Rachel spoke those three words back to him Alex had never in his life felt more alive, and he knew from then that his life would hold no regrets and that he had done everything in his power to make things right. He had moved on and become that better person and for a little while it felt like he and Rachel were the only two people on the face of the whole wide globe.