The Weight of Her

6 Weeks.

6 Weeks, 3 days.

6 Weeks, 3 days, 27 hours.

6 Weeks, 3 days, 27 hours, and 45 minutes since Kennadi had been in the hospital. To an outsider it may have seemed pathetic to them that Shaun had actually been keeping count. But that was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment. He never left her side once. Madison had to force him to eat and other things. He hadn’t been home at all, so Madison had subtly sprayed febreeze on Shaun, though he hardly noticed or cared. His focus was Kennadi.

The doctors told him that it was proven that if a coma patient was talked to it would possibly help them to wake up and/or recover faster. Once hearing that, Shaun never shut up. He was always talking to her as if she were never asleep and they were back at home debating on stupid things.

Shaun had taken to reading her entries from her journal in hopes that it would help to jog her awake. And today had seemed like no ordinary day for Shaun. Until he realized he was on the very last page of her journal. Talking about how she felt herself growing distant from Shaun with all the trips he took; how badly she wanted for them to work; how she couldn’t even bare the thought of possibly losing it; how she loved him so much; etc.

Shaun felt it too. He hadn’t been purposefully pushing her away. It just came with the territory in a way. He set down the journal on the bedside table carefully and took her hand in his. He cleared his throat, gulping down the lump that had grown in his throat and began in his now raspy voice,

“I don’t mean to push you away, Kenny. I figure if I ignore the problems, they’ll just go away. And I realize running away on all those trips doesn’t help us. I promise to be a better boyfriend, I swear,” He felt his eyes start to water up, but he did nothing to choke back the tears. “But you need to wake up. Please.” He begged. “I can’t lose you. Not like this. Not now. Especially not now. I need you so much. So much that it hurts. Kenny, please.”

He lowered his head, holding her hand tightly and began to sob. He just couldn’t hold it in any longer. He had been putting on this brave face for everyone else so they wouldn’t have to worry. It had only been a matter of time before he had his own breakdown.

“S-shaun…?” He heard a hoarse whisper. He hadn’t heard the door open, but snapped his head up to see if someone had come inside. The door remained shut and no one new stood in the room. He furiously wiped his eyes of the tears, thinking he had imagined the whole thing when he heard it again. “Shaun.” Said the same hoarse whisper. He felt Kennadi’s hand that he was holding began to wiggle.

His head snapped over to Kennadi. Kennadi’s eyes were squinting, trying to adjust to the light. She slowly looked at him confused. “W-what…” She tried to manage to talk, but realized she couldn’t from the dry throat.

Shaun didn’t care about anything at that moment, he lunged across the bed and embraced her tightly without trying to hurt her. His tears had now come back in the form of happiness. She wrapped a arm around him weakly, still confused by the whole situation.

“Oh, thank God!” Shaun exclaimed. “Thank god you’re awake!” He pulled away and kissed her bandaged head.

“What’s happened?” She managed to ask.

“You’ve been in a coma.” Shaun said, not parting with her. It seemed like a dream, as if he were to pull away, she would fall back into her lifeless slumber. “For six weeks. And you’re finally awake!”

She nodded feasibly, trying to make sense of it all. She then looked back and Shaun with a small smile and said, “You smell.”