Treads on a Heart

I looked at Mrs. Smith with a flat look. She looked back at me and opened her arms. I wanted so much to give her a hug, for what we had seen together could never be unseen. i dont think that anyone would have taken it nearly as well as we did. Instead, we got in her car, a 2009 Ford Mustang, and went to the hospital. As we went in to see about Emma, we heard a couple of people talking quietly outside the door. They were talking about what had happened to one of their patients. "She looks like the tread pattern goes to her heart", one was saying. The other said, "yeah, and did you hear about what the people were doing when the ambulance crew found them?" We walked by as they said that and i looked at both of them with as soft a look as i could. It still hit them like a Mack truck when they figured it out. "You're him aren't you?", she said. I nodded solemnly as we continued walking into the main room. I walked up to the counter and asked to see Emma while trying to show as little pain as possible. i must've still shown a lot of pain though, because the nurse behind the counter led me to a chair in a small office and told me that she'd get the doctor for me. As she did that, i knew what i wanted so much to be false must be true. A few seconds later, the doctor came in. Just in time to see me break down.
I looked at him with tears streaming out of my eyes and asked, "shes dead isnt she doc?" He looked at me with the softest eyes I had seen in a long time and said, "she might as well be, son. Her chance of survival is less than one percent. She also has a DNR on file." When he said that, my heart dropped even farther. "Can i see her?", I asked. He took me to her room and said, "she's in a coma. She won't hear a thing you say, but you can still talk." I picked up her hand gently and brushed the hair from her face. As I did that, she took a breath of her own. I stopped and looked at her face and brushed the back of my hand over her cheek and she took another breath. I called for the doctor and asked him if that was a rare occurence or if she had been doing it for a while. He said that it was known to happen every once in a while and asked me to do it again. I traced her jaw gently with the tip of my finger and she took in a breath. The doctor was so shocked that he had me do it for the nurse just so there was another person to back up our claim. As soon as the three of us had regained our composure, we went to the top doctor on duty. We convinced her to come with us and see if Emma actually had a better chance than we thought. By the time we got back though, she was gone.
The top doctor looked at me as I started to slide down the wall. "I'm so sorry", she said "I wish there was something we could do to help you." As i sat against the wall, she stood over me and said, "it's normal for someone with so much hope to be shocked like this. You just have to take it at your own pace." I looked at her and actually understood better what my mother had said when i was young. She would always tell me that everything had to come to an end, and when it does, you have to be prepared to face it and make the best of it. Now i understood what she meant. Even when she died, i didn't understand it nearly as well as i did at that moment.
As i got in Mrs. Smiths car to go home, she turned on the radio. It was an old song by Frank Sinatra, Fly Away, that Emma loved. She reached to turn it, but I stopped her and started to sing along. This was the song we first danced to at the swing club after we met. "I thought you would like to listen to something else", she said. I replied, "this is the song that we really got to know each other by." She looked at me for a second and shook her head for a second as she realized how bad i was hurting. "Thank you, Mrs. Smith", I said out of the blue, "for everything." We pulled up at the hotel just then and she turned to look at me.
As I sat and looked at her, she said, "you have no idea of the shit I went through just to get you in my department. You probably dont remember it, but I was one of your family's friends. I promised your mother before i left town, that if we should ever cross paths, I would do all I could to help you." I stared at her for a second and blushed scarlet. As I moved my hand nervously through my hair, I looked at her and said, "what do we do now?" She looked at me and took my hand as though it were on fire. "Come to my room with me", she said, "I'll treat you right. Like a woman should treat a grieving man."
She took me to her room and started the tub going as hot as it would go. "First off, a good soak should help your muscles relax" she stated as i got in. As I sat back, she said, "if you'd like, i could help you wash those hard to reach places." I looked at her and reached out as if to touch her gently, but ended up leaving my hand hanging in midair. She took that as a sign that I wanted her help, and started getting undressed to get in. "Why don't you order room service?", I asked casually. "What? How can you be hungry at a time like this?", she exclaimed. "I'm not ready for this as you seem to think i am", I said calmly. "Then you should've said something", she said as she covered herself up again. "I just did, didnt I?" I said with a smart ass grin. I got out of the tub and dried off with one of the towels. She just leaned against the wall and stared at me.
In my room, I lay back on the bed thinking about all that had happened in the past few days and what was going to happen next. I would go back to Quantico and keep going with what the world threw my way. Thats what i was going to do. I heard a soft knock on my door, and got up to check who it was. As I got there and looked out of the peephole, all I saw was black. Odd, I thought, but not unheard of. As I opened the door, all i saw was a black jacket thrown over my head and the feeling of a light squeeze coming from my waist. I felt the pressure ease up and pulled the jacket off my head. There stood my first girlfriend. Ever. We had kept in contact and made sure that the other knew what was going on, but I never expected to see her here at a time like this. I looked at her with a confused look and she just smiled. "Jennifer called me and asked me to come out here to be with you", she explained. I thought for a minute and figured out that she meant Mrs. Smith.
We went out to dinner after we had gotten her things settled and talked about all that had happened in recent days. She asked if I needed anything, and I said, "just some time to gather my thoughts." As we finished dinner she asked what was going through my mind the most at the moment. "The way I felt when we didnt see her after the truck", was my answer after a brief pause. She looked at me and took my hand gently while looking at my face. We sat there holding hands and talking until the staff had to ask us to leave. Turns out there was more than she had let on going on in her life too. "I had a boyfriend recently" she said, "but it turns out that he was an asshole and a user too. He wasn't as great as I was led to believe." I turned her hand over as we walked down the street and looked at her palm. She still had the scar I had given her before we broke up. She let go of my hand and looked at it, then smiled at me. "That old thing again? When will you ever just give up and accept that it happened?", she asked gently. "When it goes away or we stop talking", I said and looked at her.