Ever After

“I’ll be right beside you, nobody will break you…”

Josh squeezed his unconscious wife’s hand while he sang to her through his own tears. Kali still hadn’t woken up and it’d been two days since the surgery. Josh hadn’t left her side since. He was a mess, emotionally and physically. But his appearance didn’t matter; all that mattered was his wife’s recovery. Never in his life had he had to be put through this kind of pain before. For the first day and a half he didn’t think he’d be able to handle it, especially not if Kali never woke up. The only thing keeping him around wasn’t music this time. It was his new daughter, Avery, that gave him enough hope to soldier on. When he wasn’t by Kali’s side he was in the NICU unit, holding his daughter and telling her about her mommy. He’d look into those big green eyes and they’d give him all the hope he needed. Sometime soon he’d be seeing those eyes on another person who he loved very much. Kali would wake up, he knew it…

“Do you remember when I wrote you that song, baby?” Josh whispered, kissing Kali’s hand. “I wrote it in your journal and you found it at the restaurant, when Chelsea and Alice set us up on that date. You know, I’m pretty sure you fell for me that day; you just didn’t want to admit it yet. But I could see it in your eyes, when that elderly woman told us to kiss; you wanted a piece of this.”

Josh chuckled softly, staring into the unchanging face of his wife. He sighed in such a terribly sad way.

“You need to wake up soon, okay, Kali? I’m cracking terrible jokes over here to pass the time. I’ve cried more in these two days than I ever have before. Your daughter really wants to meet you…our daughter. She’s beautiful, have I told you that enough? I love her already. And honestly, Kali, I really don’t want to go another day without hearing your voice and looking into your eyes to see everything I feel about you reflected back to me. I need you, now more than ever. And that may sound selfish but…well, I really need you to wake up, Kal. So, please…open your eyes, baby…”

There was a light knocking on the door. Josh lifted his face to see Matt standing in the doorway with a vase of lilies in his hand.

“Josh, hey,” he said quietly, “any progress?”

Josh shook his head desolately. “None,”

“I’m sorry, really,” Matt sighed, setting the flowers down with the others and taking a seat next to Josh. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“So do I.”

Matt looked at his friend’s profile. He’d never seen Josh looking so destroyed before. His hair was in disarray, he had quickly darkening facial hair, and his eyes held such intense sadness Matt didn’t like to look directly into them because they broke his heart to pieces. So instead he looked to Kali’s face, still beautiful even comatose, and tried to think of the right words to say.

“She’ll wake up, you know,” he whispered.

“Well I wish the process could be sped up a little bit,” Josh mumbled back.

“Kali’s tough. She’s probably one of the toughest girls I know. She’s been through a lot of shit; you know that better than anyone. She’ll make it through this. She’s probably fighting it off right now.”

Josh leaned back in his seat with a depressed sigh. “Yeah, she’s been through a lot of shit. The sad thing is, most of the shit she’s had to go through has been because of me.”

“Josh, don’t say that—”

“No, think about it, Matt,” Josh turned to face his friend. “When I started doing drugs, she suffered more than I did. She worried about me; I ended up hurting her terribly. She got insomnia, just like I did, over that, did you know? She couldn’t sleep for months because she was so used to staying awake worrying about me. She fell into a fucking depression because of me. I fucked her over. I lied to her, I betrayed her, I acted like a monster around her and I ended up scaring her and hurting her, which was exactly what I never wanted to do. And then there’s this shit. The accident was all my fault and I’ll never live it down. She told me to pick her up, she reminded me to do it, and I still forgot about her. If I’d just gone to pick her up she wouldn’t have had to walk. She’d still be perfectly fine and our daughter wouldn’t be in the NICU. This is all my fucking fault, it always is.”

Josh put his head in his hands and shuddered with oncoming guilt and tears.

Matt put his arms around his torn friend.

“Josh, you’re wrong. Yeah, Kali may have been really distraught when you went to rehab, but we all were. And when you got back you wasted no time making her the happiest girl in the world. You fixed her, just like she fixed you. All you ever needed was one another. She forgave you for everything because she loved you and you loved her back. And the accident wasn’t your fault, you’ve been told that. She was hit by a drunk driver, Josh. It’s not like you ran her over with your own car. Get those thoughts out of your head, alright? They’re unhealthy. Not everything is your fault, and if Kali were awake right now she’d be kicking your ass for thinking that.”

Josh nodded a little. “Yeah, probably.”

“So let it go, man. She’ll be awake soon enough, you’ll see. Then everything will be okay and you can go home with your healthy little family.” Matt choked up a little on the last word. He swallowed and looked away, taking his arms off of Josh.

“You okay?” Josh looked at Matt, who refused to make eye contact with him.

“Yeah…fine,” Matt nodded. “I should go, though. I just wanted to drop off the flowers from Chelsea and I.”

“Ah, yeah. What’s the deal with you guys? Are you going to propose to her soon or what?” Josh asked. “Distract me with your gossip.”

Matt sat back down and sighed. He took a moment before answering.

“I-I don’t know, maybe…I just don’t think right now is a good time,” he mumbled.

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t feel right,”

“Okay…? Sometimes you just have to take a chance, you know?”

“I’m not really one for chance-taking these days.”

“C’mon, Matt,”

“No, I’m not ready.”

Josh shrugged and turned back to his unconscious wife. “Alright,” he mumbled, “but you don’t know what you’re missing.”

Matt scoffed a little. “Your wife is in a coma, Josh. No offence, but I’m glad I’m missing out on that.”

Josh half-turned his face towards Matt. “How about you don’t say shit like that to me?” he warned.

“What? Are we just not going to talk about what’s right in front of us, Josh? She’s unconscious!” Matt pointed to Kali’s motionless body.

“Hey, shut up!” Josh yelled. “I know she’s in a coma! And I know it was my fault, and I’d really rather not talk about that. I’m giving myself enough grief so you can stay out of it, thanks.”

Matt sighed. “That’s not what I meant…”

Josh had Kali’s hand in his again and tears were flooding his baby blues. He squeezed her fingers gently.

“C’mon, baby,” he pleaded shakily as if Matt wasn’t there, “if you can hear me, squeeze my hand, move a finger…do something, Kali. Please let me know you’re still in there somewhere…”

Matt watched in silence as his heart broke. His friend was gone again, lost in his guilt and sorrow, which was a quick wave to drown under. He hadn’t meant to upset Josh; he just hadn’t wanted to say the real reason behind his unwillingness to get married. He wanted everything Josh had, but he didn’t think he wanted it with Chelsea. He wanted it with someone he couldn’t have, someone he desperately wanted to wake up. And he was just going to have to live with that for the rest of his life.

“Kali, c’mon…please…” Josh begged.

“I should go…see you around, Josh,” Matt put a hand on Josh’s shoulder but his friend barely noticed it at all. With a sigh, Matt left the hospital room.

As he was leaving, he ran into Chelsea, who was just about to go inside the room.

“Hey, sweetie, how’s she doing? How’s Josh?” Chelsea asked with sympathy in her eyes.

Matt sighed. “No difference. You probably shouldn’t go in there right now. Josh is a mess; he won’t even notice you’re there.”

Chelsea’s brow furrowed. “He’s zoned in on her again?”

“He’s really trying to bring her back, Chels. He’s just lost right now.”

“God, I feel terrible…a new baby that hasn’t even seen its mother yet and its father is a mess…” She shook her head. “This is awful.”

“Yeah. I’ll see you at home, okay?” Matt started to walk away from her.

“Babe, are you okay?” Chelsea asked with worry in her voice.

“I’m fine. I’ll see you at home.”

“Matt…”

Chelsea watched her boyfriend walk away from her without a single look back. She was confused and worried and most of all she felt hurt. What had she done? She looked back through the narrow window in the door to Kali’s room and she saw yet another broken person bent over a virtually lifeless woman on a stark white bed. The tears came then, and Chelsea couldn’t stop them. She’d prided herself on being a strong person, but when her own boyfriend didn’t want to talk to her for reasons unknown and her best friend wouldn’t wake up in the hospital, she couldn’t keep herself together anymore. She slid down the wall to the floor and cried harder than she’d ever cried before. She wanted Kali to wake up, she wanted Josh and Avery to be okay, and she wanted Matt to love her like he used to.

More than one person in Vancouver that day realized just how fragile life can be. One minute it can be perfectly normal, going just according to plan, and the next someone’s in the hospital and multiple hearts are fracturing in painfully hollow chests. In the amount of time it takes someone to accelerate their vehicle, everything can be destroyed. And with that destruction comes all the other bad things in people’s lives that had previously been hidden under the rug. They creep out like shadows and slip one cold hand around a throat while the other stabs a chest. Nothing is okay and all hope is lost. Sometimes life can be just like a house of cards; with one breath of air it can come tumbling down. It takes a lot of patience and time to build it back up again. And while you wait it out, you must deal with some things you never wanted to in the first place and hope things take a turn for the better, because the worst is a road no one ever wants to take.