In the End

It doesn't even matter how hard I try to meet the expectations of Angela Petrelli and Nathan, her son. I'd been dating her youngest son, Peter, for over a year and she still looked down her nose at me. I was by far no wealthy person, like them. Peter had strayed from his family's money in order to live on his own, away from his now deceased father's influences. I was so nice to them, I smiled when they made their snide remarks and never once said something back. You'd think that would be enough.

I'd gotten an unexpected call one night from Nathan, telling me Peter had collapsed and was being flown back to Manhattan from Texas. That's why I stood there in front of the soda machine, waiting impatiently for the bottle of water to come tumbling down. When it did, I snatched it from the slot and hurried back to the hospital room. I had no idea why he'd been in Texas and no one was willing to tell me. I'd been left in the dark, fearing for my boyfriend's life.

Two weeks I'd been there, cooped up in the hospital, hoping Peter would wake up from whatever was wrong with him. Walking past the glass window of the room, I looked right into the eyes of Nathan. He was leaning against the window, his expression hard, but worried. I hesitantly entered the room. Mrs. Petrelli turned her head to look at me, then went back to watching over her younger son.

"Jade,"she said, in one of her rare moments of acknowledging me.

"Hello, Mrs. Petrelli,"I said softly, looking past her at Peter. She moved away and I hurried to sit on the side of his bed. I slipped my hand into his burning one.

His eyelids constantly flickered, a sheen of sweat covered his face. It killed me to see him like this. I didn't have a clue what was wrong with him, only that the longer he remained in this coma, the worse it would be for him.

"Have you gotten any new news?" I asked, figuring I wouldn't get an answer.

"Persistent idiopathic fever," Mrs. Petrelli said. "It means they have no idea what's wrong." She sat down on one of the chairs beside Nathan and sighed. "Fly in the best doctors in the world just to have them tell me they don't know what they're doing in four different languages."

"His heart, they don't know how much more he can take,"Nathan spoke. I swallowed hard and looked over at the ECG. Time was a valuable thing. It was like watching a suspended pendulum swing over his body. It would be there everyday, swinging, until it came to its arrival and ended his life. I listened to the clock on the wall tick his life away in the short moment of silence.

"Twenty-six years old and he's going to die of a heart attack," Mrs. Petrelli said. Luckily, my head was turned away so she couldn't see the pained expression on my face, my eyes shut tight as I dared not to think of something so horrible as that.

"He's not gonna die, Ma," said Nathan, giving me a glance that meant he was trying to reassure me as well.

"Well, he will unless I do something." Mrs. Petrelli got up from her chair.

"Why don't you just let doctors do what they do?" Nathan objected, but his mother just waved him off and left.

"I wish I knew what was going on in there," I said softly. That statement made Nathan shift uncomfortably in his seat, so I looked at him. "Nathan, what's going on?"

He was silent for a long time, staring at some empty place on the wall. "Something that he has to tell you. Not me,"he finally said, looking up at me with an expression I couldn't place. My eyes moved back to Peter and I wondered what on earth was going on...

Two weeks, I stayed with him, barely ever leaving his side. The strain that it put on me emotionally was enough to bear without thinking that he wasn't going to survive. Now he was gone. One moment he was laying there...and then next he was awake, flailing and screaming in panic. It took his mother and me a while to get him to calm down, then, in a rave, he'd gotten up and left. His excuse was "he had to get away". Away from what? I'd spent all that time, trying to hold on for his sake, worrying myself sick that he was going to die and he just up and left. If only I'd known sooner I'd wasted it all just to watch him go.