Alone With the Sunrise

Her breathing was shallow.

She wasn’t going to last much longer.

She lost so much blood...

My tears were pouring down my face. Her hand reached up slowly, shaky, to touch my face. I sat on the cold metal bench in the ambulance, holding her hand. She looked me in the eyes, tears filling them, and she smiled a small smile.

And just like that, she was gone. The line went flat. The single tone that I dreaded hearing sounded, and her hand went limp in mine, her grip loosening on my hand. I let it fall and looked at her face, in the same expression. It was absolutely terrifying. I turned away and the tears fell rapidly down my cheeks. The EMT told the driver to take me to the hospital. I wanted to tell them that I didn’t want to go, that I wanted to stay by Elizabeth’s side, just in case, in that little gleam of hope that was buried deep inside me, that she would suddenly come back to life and everything would be okay. The line would start moving again and the calming beeping of her pulse would return. I didn’t open my mouth. The last time I did, it caused Elizabeth’s death. I brought my knees up to my chest and hid my face in my arms, tears continuing to fall. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t talk at all, if I just went on in life as just another guy, walking down the street, sitting in the local café on his laptop, sipping a mocha latte on a rainy day. I don’t need to make a difference in the world, like I thought I did.

The ambulance got to the hospital and my mom and dad were waiting in the lobby for me.

They automatically got out of their seats and hugged me.

“Oh, Stephen, we’re so sorry.” Mom said, petting my hair. “We both know how much Elizabeth meant to you.”

I said nothing, just looking at the ground, tears still falling.

“Stephen Jerzak?” The doctor called.

I looked at him.

“Come back with me, please.”

I followed his instructions.

“We just need to do some quick tests to see if there was any damage done to you in the accident.”

I looked at the floor again and went into the room he said to go in. I hopped up onto the examination chair and he did the normal physical stuff, checked my temperature, blood pressure, etc. I felt like a lifeless zombie throughout the whole thing, and I was glad when he said that there was nothing wrong with me and that I could go home. That’s the only place I wanna be right now.

It started raining again on the way home. The only sound in the car was the frantic back and forth of the windshield wipers. I went straight to my room after we got home and moped around a little bit before looking through some of my notebooks with lyrics I wrote, most of them for Elizabeth. I opened up to one of the songs I wrote, Together With the Sundown:

I don’t even know
I’ve never felt this way before
But with someone like you, it makes sense
And I don’t wanna go
I’ll stay with you forever just as long as you love me too
It’s the way that you talk, and the way that you smile
And the way that you love black and white
And baby it’s the way that you hold my hand in the car
And the way that we lay in the sand
And we watch the sun go down

I flipped the page, tears starting to fall again. Every song I read through reminded me of her. I closed the notebook, throwing it in the garbage. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I looked at my beaten up acoustic guitar in the corner of my room. I’d been rehearsing a new song I’d written to play for Elizabeth tonight. I got off my bed and put my guitar away in it’s case and put it in my closet. It hasn’t seen it’s case in two years, but I have a feeling that I’m not gonna be using it for a while, and to see it would only make my heart ache more...