Passing Looks and Disappointed Faces

Days had passed. Days had passed with no sign of overall recovery, no sign that he would awake. People had come and gone along with patients. One had died in this little room, died while I lay awake, staring up at the ceiling, dry-eyed and thinking. The only thing I could think of was him; there was nothing else on my mind. They had dismissed me by the second day, seeing as there was nothing more serious than the broken arm but before they did, they questioned me about the bruising on my neck and photographed it for reference - for the trial. The next day, I came back. Every single day I came back early in the morning, sneaking past the nurses and doctors to sit by his chair.

I waited, waited until my eyes drooped and they forcefully expelled me from the hospital. I waited until they had to shake me awake and kindly redirect me outside. I waited, ignoring calls from my family, from my friends. I just sat there, occasionally retreating to another seat or leaving the room whenever his family came by. They came by during visiting hours only to find me already there, staring blankly at his sleeping face. He hadn't woken up. They knew what had happened whenever they saw my face; all traces of hope had gone from it as I stared at him. He wasn't here; he wasn't being Gerard. Time passed, people passed. I willed him frequently to get better, to wake up and smile, do something, anything. He didn't seem to want to comply.

I stayed until it became frustrating, until I wanted to destroy the entire room and tear out my hair. He had been relocated once without their informing me. They didn't inform me and when I entered to see his bed empty, empty of the warm body, I screamed. I screamed and cried and kicked the walls. I pushed the cot and tore at the curtains until hospital personnel subdued me and they calmly, casually, notified me that he had been moved. I felt foolish but I didn't necessarily care. He was alive and that was all that mattered. It was a surprise they hadn't just banned me from coming into the hospital; I was getting to be an annoying prick there, refusing to leave, refusing to do anything more than sitting by his side, watching his chest rise and fall gently.

To see him breathe was a sense of comfort. If he was breathing, he was alive. As long as he was alive, I was fine, he was fine. It was another one of these days. It was October 30th and the next day would be my birthday, the day I would finally be legal, the day I could finally get out. The routine had been the same. I had come in through the doors quietly, quickly, seating myself on a waiting room chair, obscuring myself behind a magazine, until the nurse at the station was either sufficiently occupied or called away. At that moment, I seized my opportunity and raced off down the hallway as quickly as I could without rousing suspicion, scouring the area repeatedly for any person that could catch me. Then I had snuck into his room and seated myself next to his bed and had begun my daily vigil over his unconscious body.

The tears had stopped by the third day; I tried anything to make them come back but they wouldn't. There had been something oddly satisfying about sobbing, about whimpering and crying and weeping and pressing my face against the crinkled sheets. Now there was just this numb feeling, this empty, hollow feeling taking over that disgusted me. I grasped his hand gently in mine; he was warm so I was comforted for the moment. He was always warm, no matter what, no matter how much time he had spent here. He was just naturally heated, naturally safe. I never spoke; I found there was no need to torture myself further by talking to an inanimate living corpse. The doctors said that speaking to him might bring him back but it felt so silly to try to talk to him when his smile wasn't present to encourage me, when his eyes weren't glinting in response. Inside, I was screaming, begging for him to wake up; outside, I was a shell.

"Hey, Gerard." To hell with it, really. Sitting there staring at him wasn't helping anyone and the doctors had said that it would probably stimulate him. "You haven't really talked to me or anything after all the time I've been here. I mean, I'm almost sure the nurses and doctors are keeping something from me. I guess I can't blame them; they don't seem to like me very much. Then again, getting hit with a cast probably doesn't please too many people and I really shouldn't even be here at all but I don't really care. It's weird to not have you, Gee. It's weird to not see you smiling and laughing and talking and walking and jumping and dancing and joking and singing. I guess it's weird of me to miss that; I haven't known you that long, remember?"

My sad little attempt at a laugh ended up a sob, my smile a grimace. There was an oxygen mask over his face so that he could breathe easily; his lung had been damaged in the collision. They had said, countless times, that there was a chance that he would have problems for life. His hearing could go; his vision could leave. Inside I had been yelling, kicking and telling myself over and over that nothing could happen to him. But the truth of the matter was that anything could. He could suffer facial paralysis and could experience damage to his overall movement. Anything could happen and it frightened me so much. What if he did lose his hearing? What if he couldn't sing and dance with me to the movies we loved or when we just felt like it? What if he couldn't see the lights of Newark up on that roof? What if he couldn't see the ocean he had showed me again?

Voice choking, I continued. "I want to go with you to the ocean again. You know, I really did have a great time. I would gladly go back to that day with you and repeat it over and over and I wouldn't ever get sick of it. It was really special and it was thanks to you. I still have that seashell I found, Gee. It's on my bed and I know it's kind of silly but sometimes I'll fall asleep just holding it and thinking to the day. You can really hear the ocean on that thing though Mikey says it's just the echoing of the sounds in the air. To tell you the truth, I know he's right but I don't want to believe it. Isn't it nicer to think that it's the ocean, that beach we went to together?

"I sound silly, don't I? I just don't know what to do anymore. You've been here a few days already but it feels like it's been so much longer. Your parents and Mikey come by every day to visit you and they talk to you. Can you hear them? I bet you can't even hear me right now. They're so terrified of losing you. Mikey broke down the first time he saw you; he just broke down and he nearly had an asthma attack. Good thing we're in a hospital, right?" My lame attempt at humor and my wry laugh trailed away very quickly. The family was due for their daily visit soon and I wanted to have my time here with him before I moved away. I didn't like sticking around when they were here; it was uncomfortable and horribly intrusive.

"They're coming to visit in a few minutes. They always get here just when visiting hours start so they can have as much time with you as they need. I'm not as nice about rules as they are. Sneaking in here isn't really that hard and I think they probably let me by now; the nurses and the doctor ignore me whenever they come to check on you. I'm home with my mom again. She seems to have forgotten that I stole a pack of cigarettes. She's been really nice to me these past few days; she even took me to that record store down the street from Cabel's place so that I could pick out whatever CD I wanted. I think it's her way of making it up to me; she told me she was so worried when I wasn't in the place she had left me. She told me she came back a few minutes later to take me back home and nearly called the police when she saw I wasn't there.

"I picked out the Adore CD. I didn't have it and it's really nice; it's got black and white artwork in the booklet and I've been listening to it nonstop at home. I reminds me of you. You know, I still want to borrow the vinyl; don't think my getting the CD will get you off the hook on that. It's just really nice to listen to it at night. I still get nightmares, actually. It sucks because they get more and more frequent and I can barely ever sleep. That's why I take Gee into the bed with me; it reminds me of nice times. Then again, it's really horrible to sleep with that shell in bed; I woke up once with it digging into my stomach and it was so uncomfortable. I had marks on my stomach for the rest of the day. It was actually kind of funny in a way.

"Uh...I stayed with Dad yesterday. You haven't met him but I'm sure you'll like him. He's a really nice guy and he's a musician; he and grandpa were the ones to inspire me to actually get into music. Granddad was a drummer, hard as you'll find that to believe. He's still got the drum set; I'd like to show it to you next time you come by so we can fool around on it. I want to give you a formal tour of the house and shit; the time you came that didn't exactly happen. I need you to wake up, Gee. You don't know how hard it is to come back here every single fucking day and you're still asleep, just laying there. It hurts to see that disappointed look your parents always have when they leave, clutching each other. I feel like it's my fault. If we hadn't gone out all day, we would have been just fine. I should have stayed awake and talked to you and joked and laughed and confided in you and you would be fine right now."

I paused, hearing footsteps in the distance. It was his family; I was certain of it. I needed to make a rush job now and leave before they could see me sitting here again. "I'll see you tomorrow, Gerard, okay? I'll make sure to get here early again; I'm not going to leave your bedside until you get up, okay? Even if I have to wait for years, I'm not going to just leave you. I'm going to visit you every day until you get better. You're going to get better, you'll see." Pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead, biting my lip after my savage rant, I turned away, dropping his hand gently back onto the crinkling sheets. It seemed so quiet now without my own voice filling the air and it felt horrible. I wanted to return home today; I wouldn't stick around until they threw me out.

When I opened the door, there were already three people clustered around it, one of them already reaching for the knob. They automatically looked at me, their faces filling with hope that was quickly dashed from them. They didn't ask me how he was anymore; all they had to do was look into my face and the question was answered. "Hello, Donna, Donald, Mikey. I was just leaving." They nodded; it was like this every single day they got here. I would greet them and then proclaim I was departing. They would nod and enter the room as I exited. It was a little dance we performed every day, a little routine. This day was different though.

Suddenly, there was a hand on my arm, a hand whose nails dug into my skin, wrenching me back into the room. Suddenly there was a voice whispering in the air, a quiet demand. "Look." Slowly, I turned around, almost afraid of what I would find, almost afraid that the monitors would flat line and Gerard would be gone forever. There was no such thing. "Holy shit." His molten gold eyes were open, a smile curving his lips, arms neatly folded over his chest.

"Hello."