Lasting Dreams.

I can’t really remember the last time I cried.

It must have been such a long time ago that it doesn’t even really matter anymore, or maybe it was just a really fucking stupid reason that I was crying that I can’t recall what had brought me to tears. Although, I will admit that there aren’t many things that can make me cry, and if I could remember why I’d done it last, it probably wouldn’t have been such a stupid reason. It’s just that, by this point, I really wish that I could remember why, and I’m trying to tell myself it was stupid because I feel like a goddamn imbecile for not remembering.

So I guess I’m a little more than forgetful. I’m a liar, too.

As I’m laying in my hospital bed, and Adrienne is sitting right next to me, and she starts taking me by the hand and leaning her head up against that cold metal that’s designed to keep me from going anywhere, and she keeps on saying to herself, “I can’t believe you’re alive,” I start to really think about why I’m in this hospital in the first place.

It’s cold in the room. It’s past the point of freezing; my skin feels frostbitten and it’s hard to move because I’m so frozen in place that I can’t bring myself to do anything else except just lay there.

I don’t say anything. I just sit quiet and listen and feel as she’s running her thumb across my hand, and how she’s got this relief just choking on her words like it shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But I still can’t believe that she’s even here, because I remember how she used to hate me so badly it made her start crying on the phone, and how she’d yell at me because I was such a fucking jackass. And I knew it.

But I still can’t believe how she’s right here with me, and how she’s relieved. And it just kills me how I know I was an asshole, but she took it and lived with it and now she’s back.

And so I’m just laying here like a guy straight out of hell, half-dead and freezing as shit. And all that I know right now is that if things could stay this perfect forever, I’ll die happier than I have ever been in my entire life.

I’d be such a happy guy, I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself. And I could just stay like this, right here, in this moment, and I’d pretend like I’d never get any older or younger, and I’d think how nothing could ever change, and I’d feel high and unremorseful and free for the rest of my life.

A nurse walks into the room. I miss my cat a lot; I think about it as soon as she walks into the room, with her hair all orange and speckled with salt and pepper at the roots. She’s got skin falling off her like curtains. Their lines seep all the way down from the corners of her eyes to her fingertips, where I can tell they’ve been worn arthritically for the past thirty years or so. She looks so empty, though, and so saddened and coarse that I can’t imagine what must have happened to this old lady. I wondered if she had grandchildren. I wonder if I’ll ever have grandchildren.

The nurse doesn’t even have to check her clipboard.

“Dallas Green, is it?” she asks, as if she isn’t quite sure if I am who I look. And it’s probably because I’ve been in here for so damn long that she knows exactly who I am; she’s probably had to check up on me, and she’s probably had to change my pee bag, and change that liquid that’s hooked up to a needle in the crease of my arm that just keeps on dripping.

“That’s him,” Adrienne replies, like she knows I can hardly even get myself to speak or move or do anything. “He’s finally woken up, you see.”

The nurse nods. “I know you’ve been pulling for him,” she tells Adrienne, taking slow steps toward us. The door closes behind her right then, and it shakes everything in the room a little bit. “You’ve been in here enough to know what had taken place, all of the medical procedures he’s gone through…” She continued speaking, but I think I tuned a lot of it out. I just started thinking back to the fact that Adrienne was next to me, and how that nurse had said that she’s been here a lot. More than once, at least.

And it’s now that I really just wish I hadn’t been such a dick and that I hadn’t written her off because I was being a selfish prick; I wish that I would have just stayed with her, even though I’d had more opportunities than anybody I know.

I don’t even know how I feel. I just wish I could take some stuff back.

“So,” the nurse starts right back up again, “Mr. Green, you are aware of the circumstances, correct?”

I don’t know what she’s talking about. Confusion strikes, and even though she’s not making any sense, I’m still not really listening. I’m just thinking and thinking and thinking about how much I missed Adrienne and how foolish I must sound. And how absolutely illogical my thinking pattern is, and how irrational I’m being about the only circumstances I’m aware of.

“Oh,” Adrienne says. She gets a look on her face like she’s afraid of everything that nurse is talking about. Like she’s too ashamed of something to say anything about these new circumstances that I’m guessing everybody but me is aware of.

“I…” she trails off.

The nurse looks at her expectantly.

She bites her bottom lip; it’s thick and juicy and a pale pink. It blends in with her skin. And she’s wonderful.

“I haven’t gotten around to telling him yet.”

The nurse looks right at me, her face all saggy and wrinkled and intent on receiving some sort of an explanation from me, like I did something God-awful and vile and sickening. And her eyes are staring through me in that sort of way that makes me feel transparent and broken.

She clutches her clipboard to her chest. I notice how she’s got age spots dotting all along her wrists and knuckles and up the sleeves of the nurse outfit she’s got on.

“You’re going to have to tell him soon,” she says. “Are you intending on telling him at all?”

Adrienne gulps.

“Well,” she starts. And then she stops. And then she starts back up again. “I have to, I think.”

The nurse nods, looking back down at her clipboard. She studies it hard with her old eyes that make you feel like you’re aging when you look into them. She wets her lips and says, “Anyways, as for you, Mr. Green. We’re going to have to run a few tests before we can let you leave, but it seems as though you’re up and ready to leave.”

My mouth opens, and some raspy voice I can’t even recognize as my own comes raking out of my lungs. It’s foreign. I can’t stand it.

“How long?” I ask.

She smiles at me, but it’s one of those smiles that’s half-meaningful and half-forced. “A day at the most. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be on your way home.”

That sounds really great, I think. I really would like to just get out of here, and get back home. I miss it so goddamn much I can’t even explain it, other than saying it enough times so that I won’t forget it.

Eventually, that nurse leaves. She takes her clipboard and her loose skin and her arthritis and leaves the hospital room. I close my eyes for a moment before opening them back up and looking up over at Adrienne. And I see how all of the sudden, she isn’t holding my hand anymore. She’s got her arms wrapped all around herself and she’s looking down, and how she occasionally sniffs and has to bring her hand up to her eyes and wipe them. Her face turns redder and redder, until she’s just a big blubbering mess. I’m so glad that the nurse isn’t here to watch this. I don’t even want to watch this.

I have to look away as soon as she starts coughing on her tears and gagging herself in a way that I think she’s killing herself with them. I feel like this emptiness she’s shedding shouldn’t be done with me here. I want to know what gives me the right to be here while she’s crying and sobbing and just shooting tears down her cheeks that leave long red bullet stains. And I just wish that I could get up and leave because I’m so lost as to what’s going on and why she’s suddenly acting so lost and afraid and hopeless. And her shoulders are shaking again. I can’t remember her ever crying this much in the whole time I’ve known her.

She starts trying to form words between the salt and the rain that’s pouring down her cheeks. And as much as I think I shouldn’t be listening, I do it, anyway. I try to make out the syllables and bits and pieces of words that she’s whispering to herself. I wish that I had been a better listener to her.

She’s beside herself.

And I don’t even know what to do.