A Melody from the Heart

She looked so different in just a few weeks’ time, but to me she didn’t look any less beautiful as she was lying on that hospital bed with her eyes closed. She had dark circles that were lying underneath the delicate skin below her eyes and she looked like her bones would break with just one touch because she had lost so much weight. I think at that first moment I saw her, I knew what was wrong, but I just chose to ignore it. I didn’t want to believe it, so that’s where I protected myself. I told myself that nothing serious was wrong. And it was then that I knew Audrey had been telling herself the same thing for months before this…

She had been sleeping, but she knew something was different than before she had dozed off. She could feel it in the air around her, but she didn’t want to open her eyes because she was afraid she would be disappointed. She was afraid he wouldn’t really be there.

Or, she was afraid of what would be even worse: if she opened her eyes, only to find that she was dreaming of him once again. She couldn’t get him off of her mind since she had first gotten into that awful hospital bed a few days ago, and each day her longing for him became stronger and stronger. She had started to depend on him so much without realizing it, and now it killed her that when she needed him the most, but they were separated by countless miles.

Audrey knew she would have to open her eyes sooner or later, either to face her cruel dreaming or her empty reality. The usual painful lump was gathered in her throat once again, and she slowly let the light hit her eyes as she braced herself for whatever she was faced with.

And there he was, sitting right beside her bedside looking the same as he had when he had left her standing on the sidewalk, all alone. Those eyes still could stare right into the very depths of her soul, a place where no one had ever been able to reach before. There wasn’t anger on his face like there was the last time he saw her though, there was only concern. Just the sight of his handsome face once again made her heart ache.

Her eyes were beginning to burn. She wouldn’t allow herself to blink because every other time she closed her eyes when she woke up and he was sitting there, he disappeared and she was once again left with that emptiness that hurt worse than anything else in the world. Her eyes began to tear out of their need to close, and she said a sad goodbye to him in her mind as she lost herself in the darkness once more.

Audrey didn’t want to open her eyes again, because she knew he would be gone this time, but she knew she couldn’t keep her eyes closed all day. Once she opened them again, she was surprised to find him still sitting there, beside her bed.

“Audrey?” he asked cautiously. He was sitting with distance between them, like he was afraid to get too close to her. Audrey though about how her dreams were getting more and more awful. He had never spoken to her in them before. This time, she closed her eyes with force and silently wished for him to go away. It hurt so much less not to see him at all than to have him taken away from her again. She opened her eyes slowly, only to find him still sitting there, now with a look of confusion on his face.

“Are you real?” she asked. Her voice was soft and raspy from sleeping most of her time in the hospital, but she somehow still had her edge to her voice. She didn’t like to be bossed around in the real world, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let her own mind play cruel tricks on her, especially where her newfound weakness was concerned.

He didn’t say anything in response to her question. All he did was pull his chair forward and reach for her hand. He squeezed it gently, being careful not to pull on her IV line, and the warmth from his hand radiated all throughout her body in a matter of seconds.

The amount of emotions that hit her brought her closer to tears than she had been in almost twelve years. Audrey then knew that she would never be able to push him away the way she had attempted to a few weeks ago. She was in too deep now; she knew how bad it hurt to be away from him. She knew she was being selfish in letting him know she had missed him, but it was so hard not to.

“Oh, Matt,” Audrey said softly. It was the first time he had ever heard her say something without a guard up, and her voice was raw with emotion. “How did you-“

“That doesn’t matter,” he replied as he moved from the chair onto the corner of her bed. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in close. He was surprised to find that she felt even thinner than she looked.

It was something that was new to her, to be forgiven. And to be forgiven without any words even being exchanged was unimaginable, but the time that they had spent separated was completely forgotten as Matt just held her. He held her until her body relaxed and he knew she was asleep once more.

All of Audrey’s life she had never found anywhere she belonged without putting on a false façade, but she realized that here, in Matt’s arms, there was no reason to be anyone other than her true self.

When Audrey woke up again, Matt was gone, and she was afraid that everything she had seen just a few hours ago really had just been a dream, and the sinking feeling that she got as she looked around her hospital room was awful.

She could see her mother sitting in the hospital waiting area, where she hadn’t left for days. It always left Audrey with a bitter feeling, how her mother was so cold and unfeeling, and just when everything went wrong again, she decided it was time to care about her daughter once more. Audrey made it clear that she didn’t want her mother hanging around in her hospital room all day, so she had taken to hovering around the door of her room instead.

Audrey knew it was just a little bit harsh to deal with her mother that way, but with all of the things that had been floating around in her mind since she had been admitted, it was just easier to keep her at a distance. She was using all of her energy to keep what little sanity she had left together, and she couldn’t spare any of it to stomach any of her mother’s sickly sweet worrying.

She looked out of the glass walls of her room, still unable to find Matt anywhere, and with each passing second, the panic that he actually had never been to visit her at all rose.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be back in a minute,” a voice that was unwelcomingly familiar said from the doorway of her room. Audrey turned to find no one other than Brian staring back at her. Now she was sure that everything she had seen before was real because there was no way she would ever have a dream about Brian coming to visit her. “He just went to get some coffee. You’d been sleeping for around four hours, so I persuaded him to go and get something to take a break. I told him I would watch over you.”

“Why are you here?” Audrey asked him bluntly. She didn’t really feel like playing games with him right now. She barely had enough energy to stay awake for longer for a few hours at a time, which meant she would never be able to find enough energy to engage in verbal swordplay with him, or just deal with his bullshit for that matter.

“I didn’t think you were going to be too happy to see me,” Brian said as he examined his fingernails. “But Matt has been my one of my best friends for most of my life, so I wasn’t about to let him run across the country just to see the girl who had stomped all over his heart. All he did was mope around for weeks after we left.”

His words made Audrey feel bad. She had never meant to hurt Matt that deeply, she just wanted to do what she thought was best for him.

“I never meant for our relationship to get to the point it did,” she said, trying to explain herself. She didn’t know why she felt the sudden urge to explain her actions to someone who had always treated her like dirt.

“Yeah, well whatever happened, you did something to crush him,” Brian said coldly. It was clear he was mad at her for hurting his best friend. “I came with him to make sure you didn’t dig any deeper into his wounds. He barely healed from the last time you decided to scratch his heart out.”

“It wasn’t like that, Brian!” Audrey said. She tried to sit up in her bed, but she decided against it since it would take up more energy than she could afford at the moment. “I did it to keep him from getting hurt. I did it because I knew-“

“You’re up finally!” Matt said as he pushed his way into the room, bumping into Brian a little harder than necessary. Something told Audrey that Matt had warned Brian against being confrontational like this before they had arrived at the hospital.

“Yes,” Audrey said with a small smile, trying to brush aside her conversation with Brian, although he was still looking at her. He wasn’t glaring at her anymore though. It was more like he was studying her now. “What I’d like to know is why you’re all the way back in New York when you’re supposed to be on tour right now.”

“Your mom called me,” Matt said a little apprehensively.

“I knew it! I knew she was going to go behind my back and call you, even though I told her not to,” Audrey said under her breath. She didn’t have much time to complain about her mother, however, because there was a knock on the door, causing everyone to turn around.

Standing in the door way was a man dressed in a white lab coat, holding a clipboard, with Audrey’s mother standing right behind him. It was clear this was Audrey’s doctor, coming in to tell her some news.

Audrey’s heart dropped into her stomach. She didn’t want Matt to know what was going on, and quickly thinking, she made her eyes grow wide, trying to catch the attention of her doctor without anyone else noticing. Matt was too busy greeting the doctor to notice Audrey’s silent plea, but Brian’s eyes never left Audrey as he watched her shake her head slightly and mouth “Don’t say anything”.

“Good evening, Audrey,” the doctor greeted as he looked over the chart he held in his hand. “How are you feeling today?”

“Just tired. Very tired,” she replied with a small smile.

“I was just stopping by to see if you had reconsidered any of the treatment options we had discussed the other day. I know you were set in your ways, but I was hoping some time to think may have made you change your mind.”

“No, my answer is still the same as it was the other day, and nothing you can say is going to change my mind,” Audrey said. Matt noticed her voice was softer than usual, but it still wasn’t lacking the strength behind it. He was hoping to be clued in as to what was going on, but at the same time, he knew if Audrey didn’t want him to know what had happened, he wasn’t going to find out. Right now, he knew all she wanted was for him to be there, even though she hadn’t wanted her mother to call him in the first place.

“I really wish you would reconsider,” the doctor said with a frown. “There’s still a chance the options you don’t want to try could work. Lots of patients have great success rates with those treatments, even if they are as far along as you are.”

“I know, but I think I’m just going to stick with what we discussed earlier,” she said. When she talked about her options with her doctor, she knew it was hard not to let her doubts and emotions creep into her expressions, which was rare for her. And what she didn’t know what that Brian noticed what was reflected in her eyes, and suddenly, everything made sense to him all over again.

“Well, I thought it was worth at least one more try,” her doctor said with a shrug. “I’ll be back tomorrow to discuss our next step in proceeding with the bone marrow transplant.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Audrey said. “Have a good night.”

She watched the doctor leave through the doorway, and it was then that she saw the light of realization on Brian’s face. She knew he knew what was going on, and she wanted anything but for Matt to find out what was going on right now. She was sure the mention of the bone marrow transplant gave him somewhat of a hint of what was going on, but she was putting all of her faith in the hope that Matt wasn’t too medical savvy.

“Matt, can you go get me some soup and crackers from the cafeteria on the fourth floor? I’m feeling just a little bit hungry, and I don’t want to wait for hospital food. My mother will show you where it is.”

Matt, of course, gladly left the room to get her what she wanted, and, of course, she wasn’t actually hungry. She hadn’t had a real appetite in weeks, even before she was admitted into the hospital. Her request was only a ploy to get Matt to leave the room so she would be able to talk to Brian alone. She was hoping Brian saw right through how fake her request really was, and, by the look on his face, he did.

As soon as Matt and her mother were out of sight, Audrey said, “Can you close the door for me please.”

Brian gladly complied, and when he turned around to face her, there was a look on his face that he had never worn when looking at her before. Instead of his usual mild annoyance, there was a look of understanding, curiosity, and sympathy. Just with that look, Audrey knew Brian understood everything she had ever done when it came to dealing with Matt, but she still wanted to explain things to him in her own words.

It was awhile before either of them spoke, as they just sat there in silence, studying each other. They were two people who, up until a few minutes ago had quite plainly despised each other. But, now, they had a silent understanding.

“This is serious, isn’t it?” Brian asked quietly. “Somewhere, deep down, Matt knows this is serious, too, but he’s not going to let himself realize it until someone tells him plainly.”

“I know,” Audrey whispered, in her newly weakened voice. Her emotions were blending in with her words, like running colors, and it was making her so uncomfortable to have her feelings so vulnerable at the moment. “I know I have to tell him everything that is going on, but I can’t bring myself to do that to him. I never meant for things to get this way.”

“I know you didn’t,” Brian replied, looking down at the floor. They were having a deep conversation, and it was odd for the both of them since all of the words they’ve ever exchanged before had been less than friendly. “You have to be the one to explain everything to him, I understand that. I won’t tell him what I picked up on.”

“Thank you.”

“I was kind of hoping you would tell me everything. It would put all of the pieces in place,” he said. “It might even make it easier for you to tell Matt what’s going on down the line, if you were able to tell me first. Just think of it as the practice before the big show. It helps, but it never quite compares to the real thing, to the big show. The show that everything is resting on.”

Audrey sighed and looked down at her hands. Since she couldn’t confide in Matt, the only person she had started to trust with her emotions in a very long time, she found herself longing for someone else to tell everything to. She couldn’t confide in her mother, so that left her with no one. But, she was beginning to realize, sometimes the best support comes in the most unlikely places. Sometimes, the things that help us the most appear when we aren’t even looking for them.

“Yes, I will tell you everything,” she said. It was the first time she had ever shown a weakness in her voice as her words waivered. “But, it’s a much longer story than you think.”