Even If Saving You Sends Me to Heaven

Zane didn’t catch a wink of sleep that night. I tried my hardest to get him to close his eyes, but whenever he did he jumped himself awake and forced them wide open.

Since I knew what he was thinking, I knew he was afraid that I would be gone when he woke up. I assured him I wasn’t going anywhere and held his hand to try to prove it to him, but nothing worked.

He’d made up his mind that I was the only thing he had left, and he didn’t want to die alone. No matter what I told him, there was no way for me to convince him that he had complete power over me now.

The morning came very slowly. We’d slipped into a silent understanding that he refused to sleep and there was nothing I could do about it. I knew eventually he would have to close his eyes, but he pushed that thought out of his mind. He ate the breakfast the nurse brought him quietly.

I went with him for his radiation treatment like every other morning. This day, though, he didn’t feel alone.

I knew he was still very confused by my presence. He didn’t speak to me unless I spoke to him, and even then he wasn’t quite there. Finally, after hours of him laying in bed that day – sometimes looking at me, sometimes looking away – I said, “We can’t go on like this. Don’t you know what you think? Don’t you feel anything?”

“I don’t feel anything,” he whispered to me. “I don’t know who I am anymore.” But when he said that, he did begin to feel. He felt overwhelmingly lost and depressed.

So I told him who he was. “You are Zane. You barely remember your mother. You grew up with an uncle that never loved you. Those things hardened you. They made you into a strong – maybe even ignorant – person. But you also know what love it.” I took his hand. “You gave up your own happiness to protect the girl you love. That is not ignorant. You are afraid you are going to die.”

He chuckled grimly at me. “I know I am going to die.”

I frowned at his statement. “That’s not true,” I told him. “I know as well as you do that you want to die because it’s what you’ve planned for.”

He looked away from me and wouldn’t meet my eyes. He drew imaginary lines on the sheet of his bed with his fingers while he was deep in thought. “Where were you, before you came to help me? Where were you the first seventeen years of my life?”

I pitied him, but his almost accusatory question set me on edge. “I was living my own life,” I retorted.

He was shocked, suddenly frozen into awareness. He looked at me again. “You mean you’re not just some angel from heaven? You were a person?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “Then I –” I stopped myself, unable to tell him what I had been about to say. “I died.”

Now that he was intrigued by my story, he forgot his caution. He leaned in closer to me. “How did you get here, protecting me? Did God send you here from heaven?”

I smiled at his ignorance. “No, Zane. I haven’t gotten to heaven yet. God decided I wasn’t ready.” I remembered the angel I’d met who had assigned me to Zane. She had smiled when she saw who I’d been assigned to, and she’d guessed that I hadn’t believed in God during my lifetime. Now, her meaning became clear to me. Part of my mission in protecting Zane had simply been to help me accept that God did exist.

Zane was confused. “So you couldn’t go to heaven, and you’re obviously not in hell,” he stated. “Where are you?”

I couldn’t help but grin at his confused expression. “I’m in purgatory. It’s the place where you learn what you did wrong. It’s more like… community service, or probation, as opposed to an after life sentence in hell.”

He actually allowed a small smile to creep onto his face. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “God sent you to protect me to punish you and make you learn something?”

I knew where he was going with it, so I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I guess so,” I allowed, “but when you put it that way, it sounds really bad.”

His smile disappeared, and his expression was serious. “Well, it is really bad, isn’t it?”

“Not as bad as you seem to think it is,” I assured him.

“Why not?” he countered. “You get the worst job possible. You have to protect the whiney, heartbroken, drugged-out kid that’s dying from something you can’t save him from. What could be worse than that?”

I grimaced. “That is what I thought of you at first. I didn’t even know you were sick, and I already hated you,” I admitted.

Zane closed his eyes and took a deep breath. My words stung him even though I hadn’t meant them to. “You have every right to hate me.” He spoke to himself as mush as to me. He already knew I was aware that I had hurt him, and that made him frustrated.

“Zane,” I prodded gently, “I said that’s what I thought of you at first. Everything is different now. I couldn’t hate you.”

“Why not?” he asked. “Because you feel bad for me? Because you know you have to save me to get to heaven?”

“No,” I said firmly. “It has nothing to do with me. It’s because I knew you. I couldn’t hate you because I knew everything you’ve ever thought of. I knew why you do and say the things you do. I knew everything you’ve been through, and every single thing you regret. You are not weak and ignorant and reckless like I first thought you were. You are only innocent and broken, and I will do everything I can to fix you.”