Status: active
Conversations of the Mind
Time
1993: …
1994: I could see colors and shapes, and they no longer got mixed; now I could tear them apart. I could differentiate the faces of the people surrounding me, their voices and the tones they used when they talked to me.
I could see the bottle with the white liquid inside sitting in front of me, but even if I stretched my arm to get it, I was not able to reach it. The tips of my fingers wiggled in anxiety and the saliva in my mouth started to increase. A few sound escaped my lips but they didn’t form an exact word. In that exact moment a woman appeared in front of me, she smiled at me and took the bottle in her hand, giving it to me. She laughed happily as I took the bottle to my mouth and drank the milk until there was none left.
1995: My footsteps were loud and heavy, i stumbled from one side to the other as I walked. However, everything was drowned with the sound of my laughter, it crashed against the walls that got out of sight as I ran past them.
But, after a bad step I tripped and a low sound echoed through the hallway, my laughter vanished; giving place to the incontrollable sobs that always followed a fall. Not even thirty seconds passed when there were already other footsteps accompanying the echo of my own, Thomas Reed took me in his arms and leaned me against his chest, rocking me from side to side as he made soothing noises.
1996: My small hand got lost inside his large one, but that simple act provided me with the biggest sense of safety someone could ever feel. It was for that same reason that the small drops of salt water slipped down my cheeks, because I didn’t want to let go of his hand, I didn’t want him to leave me in that place.
My father released my hand and crouched in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulders. His wide smile was colored with a spark of sadness.
“Don´t be sad, Lexie. You´ll only be here for a few hours and you´ll meet a lot of other kids.” His voice showed excitement about the idea of his only daughter starting school, but it broke his heart to see the tears of his little girl due to not wanting to separate from him.
1997: I pulled with all the strength I had. The other girl was pulling as well, trying to take my teddy bear from my arms. But that was my favorite toy and I was not about to let someone steal it from me, so I leaned towards her and sank my teeth into her arms harshly. The girl let out a scream and dropped the teddy bear to the ground, crying loudly as she made all the mothers in the playground look at us.
A shot woman with a hair so bright it couldn’t possibly be her own ran towards us with a hurry and picked up the girl from the floor sending me a nasty glare while she did it. In that exact moment my own mother appeared to clams things down, saying the bear was mine and that I only wanted the girl to give it back.
1998: The floor squeaked with each footstep, and that alone made me think twice before taking another one. I looked around once more only to get even more scared with the darkness that surrounded me. A noise broke through the hallway and I jumped slightly before taking of running towards my parents room, I opened the door quickly and saw them sleeping in their bed.
I walked on my tip toes to where my father was, he was the one with the lighter sleep and it was always easier to wake him up. When I was standing at his side I shook his arm softly but it didn’t work, so I shook him harder until he opened his eyes.
“Daddy,” I said quietly covering my mouth with a shaky hand.
He rubbed his eyes with his hands and looked at him. “What is it, Lexie? You had a bad dream?” I nodded my head without saying a word. “Come, sleep here with me tonight,” he said moving the covers so that I could slide in.
1999: “I have something for you,” said my dad, my mom was standing at his side with a large smile awaiting my reaction.
“What?” I asked excitedly moving closer to them and giving small jumps of expectation.
My dad laughed. “But are you sure you want me to give it to you?” His laughter got louder when he noticed how happy I was as I said ‘yes’. “Okay, okay, I´ll give it to you.”
I turned to see my mother and she opened the door of my room, before it was open all the way a dark brown puppy ran into my room and towards me barking while he wiggled his tail.
2000: “‘Oh grandmother, what big ears you have’ she said.” My father´s voice was close to my ear and it tickled me when he said certain long words. “What does it say next?”
I stared at the brightly colored book with focused eyes, I frowned slightly when I decided I could not really understand what it said. “‘All the… be-better to… hear… hear you w-with, my d-dear’.” I finished reading.
“Very well,” my dad said as he placed a tender kiss on the side of my forehead. Then he went on reading. “‘But, grandmother, what big eyes you have’.”
2001: I was sitting in the old fashioned red velvet chair of the therapist’s office as she looked at me with interest. I had honestly not said a single word since the session started, and I was more than anxious to get out of there.
But the woman was not about to give up, so she spoke again. “Alexis, you can trust me. Isn’t there anything you would like to talk to me about?”
“No,” I answered flatly.
I found it very annoying that everyone thought that only because my parents got divorced I needed a psychologist because that was certainly not the case. I had seen the separation coming from a long time, things were just not the same with my parents; they fought all the time and I couldn’t but wait to see what happened next.
2002: “Alexis, this is Roxanne,” my dad said from a side. In front of me stood another girl, she was not old, I didn’t even think she was my age, but my dad seemed very interested in us being friends.
“Hi,” I said with curiosity, she smiled and waved her hand.
“We will leave you along for a while so that you two can get to know each other a little and play for a moment,” added the woman who was standing behind the girl called Roxanne, she directed a smile in my direction and then one in her daughter´s direction as if to encourage her to get closer to me.
2003: “You´re getting married? Are you serious?” The questions came out of my mouth with surprise and quite a bit of distaste.
My dad pulled his lips in a tight line. “What so bad about that? I thought you got along great with Rox.”
I nodded my head as I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah, sure. As a friend she´s fine, but I´m not so sure I want her as a sister.”
“Why not?” he asked with an arched eyebrow. “You´ve known her for a long time now. Don´t you think it would be good to have a little sister and a little brother?” Of course, I was forgetting Lillian´s other child.
I couldn’t say I didn’t expect it even a little, my dad and Lillian spent an awful lot of time together lately and it was more and more obvious each day that they were trying to unite our families. But I still couldn’t make up my mind about having another family, I didn’t have such great memories of the last one. I wasn’t sure I wanted a new mother when I didn’t even see my own.
But it was also very easy to see how happy my dad was when he was with her. I decided I could accept her as my father´s wife, but it would take some time to accept her as a mother.
2004: It was the first time I went to the beach and I was sure it would be an occasion I would remember all my life. The way the sand felt against my toes, the freshness of the water when it crashed against the shore, the rays of sunlight hitting me fully on my back and the singing of the seagulls as they patiently waited for food.
I turned around and a smile graced my lips as I saw my family. Dad was sitting next to Roxanne as he helped her build the most perfect sand castle, Lily was comfortable laying on a towel with her eyes covered by sunglasses and a drink in her hand, Shane was focused on a tiny crab that tried to escape the barriers of the castle, but every time it moved Shane would block it with his hand.
These were out first vacations as a family and they were better than I had imagined.
2005: “…here´s your change, it´s “2.50. Have a nice day,” said my grandpa to the man on the other side of the counter. When the man was out of the coffee shop my grandfather turned to me with a large smile.
“When I´m older will you let me work here with you?” I asked as I observed the old fashioned café he owned.
He pretended to think about it for a moment before answering. “I don´t think your father would be very happy with the idea of his daughter working in a café. No, you will grow up to do big things,” he exclaimed with his eyes big for emphasis.
“You think so?” I smiled.
He nodded his head with excitement as he turned around to continue slicing an apple for the apple pie he was making. “Of course, I am certain.”
2006: Shane stared at me with a scared expression all over his face, his hands were tied into knots and he wouldn’t stop moving then anxiously. Roxanne shot him a look of irritation, but apart from that she did say anything. It wasn’t until I grabbed the phone and started dialing the numbers when he jumped with worry.
“Would you cut it out?” Rox asked annoyed.
But Shane shook his head. “Dad said if we called anyone that was not family he would take away my video games.”
“Yes, but dad isn’t here, is he?” she replied. The little boy shook his head again. “See? It´ll be alright, as long as you don’t say anything to him he has no reason to find out.”
But my younger brother didn’t seem convinced, so I felt the need to intervene. “Shane, do you want pizza yes or no?” He nodded. “Then we´ll get one; just don’t say anything to dad, alright?”
One more time the boy nodded. I knew that when the idea of eating pizza sank in his head he wouldn’t hesitate much longer about getting it; his hunger was stronger than any fear he could have.
2007: It was Valentine´s day and I had my backpack filled with small gifts from my friends, I had gotten them a small box of chocolate in the shape of a heart that I had attached a very long and detailed letter to. Walking down the hallway of the school I could see how everyone around me interchanged gifts and candy, a few couples hugged after he gave the girl a flower and the girl smiled brightly.
When I reached my locker I spun the numbers and opened it. Inside there wasn’t anything of real interest, just a few book and notebooks. But when I was putting away what I needed I felt someone tap my shoulder and I turned around. In front of me stood a boy, I could recognize him as some that was in the class above mine and in his hands stood a single rose, accompanied with the shyest of smiles.
2008: There was a knock on my door but I couldn’t find the interest inside me to get up and open it, or even speak up. As if there was no need, the door cracked open and my dad walked in slow and carefully, his eyes resting on me. He took a seat by my side without saying anything at first; I tried to pretend as if I hadn’t noticed his sudden presence and kept my eyes on the photo in my hands.
“Alexis, it´s not healthy for you to stay locked up here so long,” he said with sadness coloring his voice. “You need to get out of the house for a while.”
But I didn’t have the strength to answer him; I just looked up at him with the endless tears that ran down my cheeks. He couldn’t fool me, as much as he tried, his eyes reflected the same depression that was shown in mine, he just knew how to handle it better.
I moved towards him and hugged him around the waist. “I miss him so much.”
It hadn’t even been a week since my grandfather´s funeral and I already felt as though it had been years since I had last seen him. I felt alone and without the strength to do anything, I was drowning in the need to wake up and realize it had all been a dream; that he had not died and had not left me here alone. But no matter how large my hope was, I couldn’t even bring myself to close my eyes enough to have a few hours of sleep.
2009: I blew strongly the candles of the cake and straightened up once again. All around the table, in which stood a delicious chocolate cake, were all the people close to me. My whole family was here, including my uncles and aunts and cousins who I didn’t normally see. My friends were here too, the ones who had been in my life for many many years.
I was sure no one would be satisfied with me only blowing the candles, they wanted more, and not long passed before they all started chanting for me to take a bite of the cake. Not wanting to take the excitement away from them, I leaned forward as I tried to open my mouth as little as possible. But it was fruitless, chocolate icing covered my nose and all around my mouth.
Laughing, I leaned back again trying to swipe the remains of the icing from my face. Between the most known faces around the table I found the one I knew the best. My father grinned widely while he held the video camera filming everything that had happened.
2010: “I can trust you, can´t I, Lex?” The look of trust my aunt Sarah was directing me was stronger than any other anyone had ever given me. With the exception of my father, of course.
I smiled at her. “Of course you can. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I hope so, because I am lying to your father about this and I don’t like that,” she replied with an uneasy expression.
“I know, and you have no idea how much I appreciate that, seriously.” I nodded wishing I could make her understand how much it meant to me to have her by my side.
The doorbell rand and I couldn’t diminish the size of the smile that wanted to devour my entire face. I thank Sarah was again and walked out the door, ready to head out into the night without the worry of my father not agreeing with me going on a date.
2011: I burst into my room without saying a word to anyone. The sky was dark across the window and I crumbled on my bed as soon as I was close enough to it. Tears swam out of my eyes and down my blushed cheeks and I felt as if it was getting harder to breathe.
“Lex,” Roxanne called from the other side of the door. I didn’t answer, so she called again. “Lex, c´mon, open the door and tell me what happened.”
I felt as though my heart was breaking but at the same time I felt like a stupid little girl for acting this way, so I stood up and unlocked the door. My sister opened it and walked in without waiting a second, my parents were out for the night so I didn’t have to worry much about them seeing me in this state, and if there was one person I trusted enough to talk to, that was Rox.
She sat across from me on the bed and directed her sad eyes at me. “What happened?”
I breathed in deeply as if that would make it easier for me to speak without my voice cracking. “He cheated on me,” I sobbed out failing completely at my attempt to hold myself together.
Rox moved closer to me and wrapped me in a hug. She couldn’t say she was very surprised; she had had a bad feeling about her sister´s long-time boyfriend since she met him. “Oh, Lex, he´s an asshole, don´t let him do this to you. Don’t let it affect you this much.”
Pulling away from her I shook my head. “I don´t want it to affect me like this, but I can´t control it. How could he do this to me?” I let my head fall in my shaky hands and cried as my sister ran her fingers through my hair and kept repeating me how he didn’t deserve me to be this worked up about him.
2012: It was a Saturday and, as usual, my parents had gone to a big fancy dinner with a few couples of doctors colleagues of my father. Roxanne and I were in charge of our younger siblings and we decided to go out for a walk, it was very difficult to keep such young kids cooped up in a house without any fun activities. It was already night and the streets were filled with the lights of the cars that passed by, Roxanne was absorbed in a conversation on her cellphone with her boyfriend, a conversation that was to blame for the dreamy and happy expression in her face. I was focused on the twins, they were the youngest and they liked to run from one end of the sidewalk to the other, turning to see me each time I told them not to get too far away. Shane was strolling besides Rox with his eyes on the ice cream cone in his hands as if the most stressful thing was to eat the whole thing before it melted.
I pulled my cellphone from the pocket of my jean shorts making sure it wasn’t too late and my parents wouldn’t be home before us. A sigh escaped past my lips as I noticed Jeremy and Jason had once again gone too far ahead, I picked up the pace of my steps trying to get to where they were.
“Jason, Jeremy, come here!” I shouted at them with a knot in my throat as I noticed they were in their own little world and didn’t hear a word I had said. “No!”
My body reacted on its own and I was now running, my feet moving with a speed I had never known I had, my breathed quickened and soon my entire body started to ache. I was running as if that was going to save my life, the people that were walking down the sidewalk turned to stare at me confused and some were upset when I bumped into them. I was running for what felt like hours, my mind couldn’t analyze the time for it had only been a few seconds. I was running to keep my brothers to walk in front of a nearing bus.
When I reached them I took both their wrists and pulled them, moving them out of the street. My heart didn’t have a chance to rest or my mind to take relief that they were safe. Not even ten seconds passed before my body got hit, a hit so strong it sent me completely out of anyone´s reach, so strong my entire body collapsed and I was lost into darkness.
&&
Just like it happened in movies, everything was in absolute silence for a fraction of a second. And after that everyone went into panic. Strangers who had seen what had happened rushed to see if the poor girl had died, the driver of the bus walked down the steps with shaky legs and a cold sweat in his forehead despite the light breeze of the fall in Seattle, some people yelled for other to call an ambulance.
Roxanne´s cellphone was the last thing on her mind at the moment, her eyes were drowned in water and her feet moved quickly towards her sister, Shane´s ice cream was now on the floor and the twins stared at Alexis body with their eyes open wide until one of them broke down crying and the other followed him immediately.
Roxanne Nicholls was trying to remember what she had been once taught in her first aid class. Check the pulse. Her index finger moved closer to her sister´s neck and she felt a slight sigh escape her lips when she found a pulse. Her body decided to relax a little in the midst of all the chaos around her.
The ambulance arrived and they took the girl whose one bright future was now blurry, her sister stayed with her brothers as she tried to call her parents on the phone to explain them what had happened. The conversation was quick and not entirely coherent for Roxanne´s brain still could assimilate everything that was going on around her.
A minute passed, two, three. Sarah Reed, Dr. Thomas sister arrived where they were and climbed out of the car way too anxious and concerned. The girl hugged her aunt tightly, Sarah caressed her hair softly before telling her they had to go to the hospital, she didn’t need an answer because Rox was already walking towards the parked car.
The hospital had always been a known place to the Reed family, Dr. Thomas worked there so he and his wife and kids spent a lot of time there. It had always seemed a happy place where the kids chatted and played of being doctors with the nurses, they would go to the new born wing and look at the babies soothingly, picking up the cutest one.
That night, Harborview Medical Center was a dark place, the hallway in which they were all waiting for the smallest but vital piece of information that could be provided by the staff was almost empty, only a few chairs pushed up against the wall and the Reed family covered in tears.
Thomas was standing leaning against a wall, his eyes were closed tightly as the silent tears slipped down his cheeks, his hands were fisted inside his pockets and his head hung down with a sorrow he could not control.
An unexplainable amount of disturbing thoughts swam through him mind even if he tried with all his will to ignore them. How was Alexis? Why were they taking so long in telling him anything, any news at all? How much longer would he have to wait for someone to come out and talk to him? How much valuable time passed since she was hit until the ambulance took her to the hospital? How large were the damages? How would he live if something were to happen to his daughter? How many more questions would he come up with before he knew something?
Seventy four questions. After seventy four long and worrying question Dr. Wallace finally came out of a door and walked towards them.
“Tom,” he greeted him with a calm but emotionless voice.
“Charles, how is Alexis?” Mr. Reed did waste a second to go straight to the chase.
The doctor seemed uncomfortable, his mouth twisted to a side in a strange expression as he dug his brain for the best way to say what he needed to say. “The situation is complicated, Tom, you need to understand that. He received a very bad hit.”
But Tom didn’t have the strength to walk around the right answers for long, he could no longer take not knowing how his daughter was. “How is Lex?”
“She received hits in several parts of the body, she has three broken ribs on her left side and a broken arm,” said the doctor, he tried to speak quickly because he hated the expressions of hope that hung in the faces of all the people present. “But that´s not the worse part. She received a very dangerous hit to the head, there was a lot of internal bleeding, I tried to stop it but there was not much I could do. Alexis is now on a coma.”
Thomas closed his eyes forcefully and leaned back against the wall again as if his body was not enough to hold his weight. Alexis, his only blood daughter, was his life. Of course, since Lillian and the rest of their kids arrived they too became a part of his happiness. But Alexis had been the one who had motivated him to pull through after his divorce and who had helped him find happiness with his new family.
Roxanne, in the midst of her sobs, broke the silence. “And now what?”
“There´s nothing we can do, in cases like this the only solution is to wait. I need to be very honest with you, you need to understand that the possibilities of her waking up as very slim, most patients in a coma never do,” relied the doctor trying to speak around the knot that had been formed in his throat. He and Tom had been close friends for a long time, after all, and he had known Alexis since she was a baby.
The news they already imagined brought a new wave of pain, it was so big and so obvious it could be felt in the air, suffocating any person who tried to breathe it. Each member of the Reed family and Roxanne´s boyfriend who had arrived not long ago, were lost in their own world.
Thomas Reed knew he could not fall into a depression because, as much as he wanted to throw everything away and wait for his daughter to wake up, he knew he had other children to take care of an a wife to tend to. Lillian was in complete silence, she cried silently because even if Alexis was not her blood daughter, they had spent so much time together she no longer saw the difference. Roxanne was leaning against her boyfriend, her body vibrated aggressively with the cries that accompanied her breathing; she found it terrifying that could be the last night she would ever speak to her sister. Sarah was covering her face with both hands as she sat back down on a chair; her mind was not giving her a single thought. Shane walked towards his mother and hugged her as his head fell against her chest. Jason and Jeremy watched their family with a depressing curiosity; they knew something was wrong, they just didn’t understand what it was.
Everyone was consumed by pain, for they knew this would be something that would change all their lives.
&&
Roxanne was once again in her sister´s hospital room, the room that seemed to have become her own home, she had a book one hand and a water bottle in the other. Her eyelids were heavy and they threatened to close permanently, but she was persistent and she blink several times trying to stay awake.
A sound from her side was enough to push away any trace of exhaustion from her body, it sounded as if someone was drowning in their own saliva. Concerned, she turned her head towards her sister who had been completely asleep for the past seven months. Alexis´s hand was in her throat and her body was erect, her eyes were closed tightly as she coughed repeatedly.
The girl, surprised but ecstatic that her sister was awake, felt as she could explode with all the emotions inside her head. She thought for a moment and realized it was natural for her sister to be scared after spending half a year unconscious, she would sure be terrified if it had been her. So, after shooting Lex the biggest smile, she turned around and walked into the hallway.
Her voice was so loud and filled with happiness that everyone in the hallway turned to see her. “Nurse,” she called to the closest woman, “call Dr. Wallace, Alexis woke up!”
2013: …
1994: I could see colors and shapes, and they no longer got mixed; now I could tear them apart. I could differentiate the faces of the people surrounding me, their voices and the tones they used when they talked to me.
I could see the bottle with the white liquid inside sitting in front of me, but even if I stretched my arm to get it, I was not able to reach it. The tips of my fingers wiggled in anxiety and the saliva in my mouth started to increase. A few sound escaped my lips but they didn’t form an exact word. In that exact moment a woman appeared in front of me, she smiled at me and took the bottle in her hand, giving it to me. She laughed happily as I took the bottle to my mouth and drank the milk until there was none left.
1995: My footsteps were loud and heavy, i stumbled from one side to the other as I walked. However, everything was drowned with the sound of my laughter, it crashed against the walls that got out of sight as I ran past them.
But, after a bad step I tripped and a low sound echoed through the hallway, my laughter vanished; giving place to the incontrollable sobs that always followed a fall. Not even thirty seconds passed when there were already other footsteps accompanying the echo of my own, Thomas Reed took me in his arms and leaned me against his chest, rocking me from side to side as he made soothing noises.
1996: My small hand got lost inside his large one, but that simple act provided me with the biggest sense of safety someone could ever feel. It was for that same reason that the small drops of salt water slipped down my cheeks, because I didn’t want to let go of his hand, I didn’t want him to leave me in that place.
My father released my hand and crouched in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulders. His wide smile was colored with a spark of sadness.
“Don´t be sad, Lexie. You´ll only be here for a few hours and you´ll meet a lot of other kids.” His voice showed excitement about the idea of his only daughter starting school, but it broke his heart to see the tears of his little girl due to not wanting to separate from him.
1997: I pulled with all the strength I had. The other girl was pulling as well, trying to take my teddy bear from my arms. But that was my favorite toy and I was not about to let someone steal it from me, so I leaned towards her and sank my teeth into her arms harshly. The girl let out a scream and dropped the teddy bear to the ground, crying loudly as she made all the mothers in the playground look at us.
A shot woman with a hair so bright it couldn’t possibly be her own ran towards us with a hurry and picked up the girl from the floor sending me a nasty glare while she did it. In that exact moment my own mother appeared to clams things down, saying the bear was mine and that I only wanted the girl to give it back.
1998: The floor squeaked with each footstep, and that alone made me think twice before taking another one. I looked around once more only to get even more scared with the darkness that surrounded me. A noise broke through the hallway and I jumped slightly before taking of running towards my parents room, I opened the door quickly and saw them sleeping in their bed.
I walked on my tip toes to where my father was, he was the one with the lighter sleep and it was always easier to wake him up. When I was standing at his side I shook his arm softly but it didn’t work, so I shook him harder until he opened his eyes.
“Daddy,” I said quietly covering my mouth with a shaky hand.
He rubbed his eyes with his hands and looked at him. “What is it, Lexie? You had a bad dream?” I nodded my head without saying a word. “Come, sleep here with me tonight,” he said moving the covers so that I could slide in.
1999: “I have something for you,” said my dad, my mom was standing at his side with a large smile awaiting my reaction.
“What?” I asked excitedly moving closer to them and giving small jumps of expectation.
My dad laughed. “But are you sure you want me to give it to you?” His laughter got louder when he noticed how happy I was as I said ‘yes’. “Okay, okay, I´ll give it to you.”
I turned to see my mother and she opened the door of my room, before it was open all the way a dark brown puppy ran into my room and towards me barking while he wiggled his tail.
2000: “‘Oh grandmother, what big ears you have’ she said.” My father´s voice was close to my ear and it tickled me when he said certain long words. “What does it say next?”
I stared at the brightly colored book with focused eyes, I frowned slightly when I decided I could not really understand what it said. “‘All the… be-better to… hear… hear you w-with, my d-dear’.” I finished reading.
“Very well,” my dad said as he placed a tender kiss on the side of my forehead. Then he went on reading. “‘But, grandmother, what big eyes you have’.”
2001: I was sitting in the old fashioned red velvet chair of the therapist’s office as she looked at me with interest. I had honestly not said a single word since the session started, and I was more than anxious to get out of there.
But the woman was not about to give up, so she spoke again. “Alexis, you can trust me. Isn’t there anything you would like to talk to me about?”
“No,” I answered flatly.
I found it very annoying that everyone thought that only because my parents got divorced I needed a psychologist because that was certainly not the case. I had seen the separation coming from a long time, things were just not the same with my parents; they fought all the time and I couldn’t but wait to see what happened next.
2002: “Alexis, this is Roxanne,” my dad said from a side. In front of me stood another girl, she was not old, I didn’t even think she was my age, but my dad seemed very interested in us being friends.
“Hi,” I said with curiosity, she smiled and waved her hand.
“We will leave you along for a while so that you two can get to know each other a little and play for a moment,” added the woman who was standing behind the girl called Roxanne, she directed a smile in my direction and then one in her daughter´s direction as if to encourage her to get closer to me.
2003: “You´re getting married? Are you serious?” The questions came out of my mouth with surprise and quite a bit of distaste.
My dad pulled his lips in a tight line. “What so bad about that? I thought you got along great with Rox.”
I nodded my head as I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah, sure. As a friend she´s fine, but I´m not so sure I want her as a sister.”
“Why not?” he asked with an arched eyebrow. “You´ve known her for a long time now. Don´t you think it would be good to have a little sister and a little brother?” Of course, I was forgetting Lillian´s other child.
I couldn’t say I didn’t expect it even a little, my dad and Lillian spent an awful lot of time together lately and it was more and more obvious each day that they were trying to unite our families. But I still couldn’t make up my mind about having another family, I didn’t have such great memories of the last one. I wasn’t sure I wanted a new mother when I didn’t even see my own.
But it was also very easy to see how happy my dad was when he was with her. I decided I could accept her as my father´s wife, but it would take some time to accept her as a mother.
2004: It was the first time I went to the beach and I was sure it would be an occasion I would remember all my life. The way the sand felt against my toes, the freshness of the water when it crashed against the shore, the rays of sunlight hitting me fully on my back and the singing of the seagulls as they patiently waited for food.
I turned around and a smile graced my lips as I saw my family. Dad was sitting next to Roxanne as he helped her build the most perfect sand castle, Lily was comfortable laying on a towel with her eyes covered by sunglasses and a drink in her hand, Shane was focused on a tiny crab that tried to escape the barriers of the castle, but every time it moved Shane would block it with his hand.
These were out first vacations as a family and they were better than I had imagined.
2005: “…here´s your change, it´s “2.50. Have a nice day,” said my grandpa to the man on the other side of the counter. When the man was out of the coffee shop my grandfather turned to me with a large smile.
“When I´m older will you let me work here with you?” I asked as I observed the old fashioned café he owned.
He pretended to think about it for a moment before answering. “I don´t think your father would be very happy with the idea of his daughter working in a café. No, you will grow up to do big things,” he exclaimed with his eyes big for emphasis.
“You think so?” I smiled.
He nodded his head with excitement as he turned around to continue slicing an apple for the apple pie he was making. “Of course, I am certain.”
2006: Shane stared at me with a scared expression all over his face, his hands were tied into knots and he wouldn’t stop moving then anxiously. Roxanne shot him a look of irritation, but apart from that she did say anything. It wasn’t until I grabbed the phone and started dialing the numbers when he jumped with worry.
“Would you cut it out?” Rox asked annoyed.
But Shane shook his head. “Dad said if we called anyone that was not family he would take away my video games.”
“Yes, but dad isn’t here, is he?” she replied. The little boy shook his head again. “See? It´ll be alright, as long as you don’t say anything to him he has no reason to find out.”
But my younger brother didn’t seem convinced, so I felt the need to intervene. “Shane, do you want pizza yes or no?” He nodded. “Then we´ll get one; just don’t say anything to dad, alright?”
One more time the boy nodded. I knew that when the idea of eating pizza sank in his head he wouldn’t hesitate much longer about getting it; his hunger was stronger than any fear he could have.
2007: It was Valentine´s day and I had my backpack filled with small gifts from my friends, I had gotten them a small box of chocolate in the shape of a heart that I had attached a very long and detailed letter to. Walking down the hallway of the school I could see how everyone around me interchanged gifts and candy, a few couples hugged after he gave the girl a flower and the girl smiled brightly.
When I reached my locker I spun the numbers and opened it. Inside there wasn’t anything of real interest, just a few book and notebooks. But when I was putting away what I needed I felt someone tap my shoulder and I turned around. In front of me stood a boy, I could recognize him as some that was in the class above mine and in his hands stood a single rose, accompanied with the shyest of smiles.
2008: There was a knock on my door but I couldn’t find the interest inside me to get up and open it, or even speak up. As if there was no need, the door cracked open and my dad walked in slow and carefully, his eyes resting on me. He took a seat by my side without saying anything at first; I tried to pretend as if I hadn’t noticed his sudden presence and kept my eyes on the photo in my hands.
“Alexis, it´s not healthy for you to stay locked up here so long,” he said with sadness coloring his voice. “You need to get out of the house for a while.”
But I didn’t have the strength to answer him; I just looked up at him with the endless tears that ran down my cheeks. He couldn’t fool me, as much as he tried, his eyes reflected the same depression that was shown in mine, he just knew how to handle it better.
I moved towards him and hugged him around the waist. “I miss him so much.”
It hadn’t even been a week since my grandfather´s funeral and I already felt as though it had been years since I had last seen him. I felt alone and without the strength to do anything, I was drowning in the need to wake up and realize it had all been a dream; that he had not died and had not left me here alone. But no matter how large my hope was, I couldn’t even bring myself to close my eyes enough to have a few hours of sleep.
2009: I blew strongly the candles of the cake and straightened up once again. All around the table, in which stood a delicious chocolate cake, were all the people close to me. My whole family was here, including my uncles and aunts and cousins who I didn’t normally see. My friends were here too, the ones who had been in my life for many many years.
I was sure no one would be satisfied with me only blowing the candles, they wanted more, and not long passed before they all started chanting for me to take a bite of the cake. Not wanting to take the excitement away from them, I leaned forward as I tried to open my mouth as little as possible. But it was fruitless, chocolate icing covered my nose and all around my mouth.
Laughing, I leaned back again trying to swipe the remains of the icing from my face. Between the most known faces around the table I found the one I knew the best. My father grinned widely while he held the video camera filming everything that had happened.
2010: “I can trust you, can´t I, Lex?” The look of trust my aunt Sarah was directing me was stronger than any other anyone had ever given me. With the exception of my father, of course.
I smiled at her. “Of course you can. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I hope so, because I am lying to your father about this and I don’t like that,” she replied with an uneasy expression.
“I know, and you have no idea how much I appreciate that, seriously.” I nodded wishing I could make her understand how much it meant to me to have her by my side.
The doorbell rand and I couldn’t diminish the size of the smile that wanted to devour my entire face. I thank Sarah was again and walked out the door, ready to head out into the night without the worry of my father not agreeing with me going on a date.
2011: I burst into my room without saying a word to anyone. The sky was dark across the window and I crumbled on my bed as soon as I was close enough to it. Tears swam out of my eyes and down my blushed cheeks and I felt as if it was getting harder to breathe.
“Lex,” Roxanne called from the other side of the door. I didn’t answer, so she called again. “Lex, c´mon, open the door and tell me what happened.”
I felt as though my heart was breaking but at the same time I felt like a stupid little girl for acting this way, so I stood up and unlocked the door. My sister opened it and walked in without waiting a second, my parents were out for the night so I didn’t have to worry much about them seeing me in this state, and if there was one person I trusted enough to talk to, that was Rox.
She sat across from me on the bed and directed her sad eyes at me. “What happened?”
I breathed in deeply as if that would make it easier for me to speak without my voice cracking. “He cheated on me,” I sobbed out failing completely at my attempt to hold myself together.
Rox moved closer to me and wrapped me in a hug. She couldn’t say she was very surprised; she had had a bad feeling about her sister´s long-time boyfriend since she met him. “Oh, Lex, he´s an asshole, don´t let him do this to you. Don’t let it affect you this much.”
Pulling away from her I shook my head. “I don´t want it to affect me like this, but I can´t control it. How could he do this to me?” I let my head fall in my shaky hands and cried as my sister ran her fingers through my hair and kept repeating me how he didn’t deserve me to be this worked up about him.
2012: It was a Saturday and, as usual, my parents had gone to a big fancy dinner with a few couples of doctors colleagues of my father. Roxanne and I were in charge of our younger siblings and we decided to go out for a walk, it was very difficult to keep such young kids cooped up in a house without any fun activities. It was already night and the streets were filled with the lights of the cars that passed by, Roxanne was absorbed in a conversation on her cellphone with her boyfriend, a conversation that was to blame for the dreamy and happy expression in her face. I was focused on the twins, they were the youngest and they liked to run from one end of the sidewalk to the other, turning to see me each time I told them not to get too far away. Shane was strolling besides Rox with his eyes on the ice cream cone in his hands as if the most stressful thing was to eat the whole thing before it melted.
I pulled my cellphone from the pocket of my jean shorts making sure it wasn’t too late and my parents wouldn’t be home before us. A sigh escaped past my lips as I noticed Jeremy and Jason had once again gone too far ahead, I picked up the pace of my steps trying to get to where they were.
“Jason, Jeremy, come here!” I shouted at them with a knot in my throat as I noticed they were in their own little world and didn’t hear a word I had said. “No!”
My body reacted on its own and I was now running, my feet moving with a speed I had never known I had, my breathed quickened and soon my entire body started to ache. I was running as if that was going to save my life, the people that were walking down the sidewalk turned to stare at me confused and some were upset when I bumped into them. I was running for what felt like hours, my mind couldn’t analyze the time for it had only been a few seconds. I was running to keep my brothers to walk in front of a nearing bus.
When I reached them I took both their wrists and pulled them, moving them out of the street. My heart didn’t have a chance to rest or my mind to take relief that they were safe. Not even ten seconds passed before my body got hit, a hit so strong it sent me completely out of anyone´s reach, so strong my entire body collapsed and I was lost into darkness.
&&
Just like it happened in movies, everything was in absolute silence for a fraction of a second. And after that everyone went into panic. Strangers who had seen what had happened rushed to see if the poor girl had died, the driver of the bus walked down the steps with shaky legs and a cold sweat in his forehead despite the light breeze of the fall in Seattle, some people yelled for other to call an ambulance.
Roxanne´s cellphone was the last thing on her mind at the moment, her eyes were drowned in water and her feet moved quickly towards her sister, Shane´s ice cream was now on the floor and the twins stared at Alexis body with their eyes open wide until one of them broke down crying and the other followed him immediately.
Roxanne Nicholls was trying to remember what she had been once taught in her first aid class. Check the pulse. Her index finger moved closer to her sister´s neck and she felt a slight sigh escape her lips when she found a pulse. Her body decided to relax a little in the midst of all the chaos around her.
The ambulance arrived and they took the girl whose one bright future was now blurry, her sister stayed with her brothers as she tried to call her parents on the phone to explain them what had happened. The conversation was quick and not entirely coherent for Roxanne´s brain still could assimilate everything that was going on around her.
A minute passed, two, three. Sarah Reed, Dr. Thomas sister arrived where they were and climbed out of the car way too anxious and concerned. The girl hugged her aunt tightly, Sarah caressed her hair softly before telling her they had to go to the hospital, she didn’t need an answer because Rox was already walking towards the parked car.
The hospital had always been a known place to the Reed family, Dr. Thomas worked there so he and his wife and kids spent a lot of time there. It had always seemed a happy place where the kids chatted and played of being doctors with the nurses, they would go to the new born wing and look at the babies soothingly, picking up the cutest one.
That night, Harborview Medical Center was a dark place, the hallway in which they were all waiting for the smallest but vital piece of information that could be provided by the staff was almost empty, only a few chairs pushed up against the wall and the Reed family covered in tears.
Thomas was standing leaning against a wall, his eyes were closed tightly as the silent tears slipped down his cheeks, his hands were fisted inside his pockets and his head hung down with a sorrow he could not control.
An unexplainable amount of disturbing thoughts swam through him mind even if he tried with all his will to ignore them. How was Alexis? Why were they taking so long in telling him anything, any news at all? How much longer would he have to wait for someone to come out and talk to him? How much valuable time passed since she was hit until the ambulance took her to the hospital? How large were the damages? How would he live if something were to happen to his daughter? How many more questions would he come up with before he knew something?
Seventy four questions. After seventy four long and worrying question Dr. Wallace finally came out of a door and walked towards them.
“Tom,” he greeted him with a calm but emotionless voice.
“Charles, how is Alexis?” Mr. Reed did waste a second to go straight to the chase.
The doctor seemed uncomfortable, his mouth twisted to a side in a strange expression as he dug his brain for the best way to say what he needed to say. “The situation is complicated, Tom, you need to understand that. He received a very bad hit.”
But Tom didn’t have the strength to walk around the right answers for long, he could no longer take not knowing how his daughter was. “How is Lex?”
“She received hits in several parts of the body, she has three broken ribs on her left side and a broken arm,” said the doctor, he tried to speak quickly because he hated the expressions of hope that hung in the faces of all the people present. “But that´s not the worse part. She received a very dangerous hit to the head, there was a lot of internal bleeding, I tried to stop it but there was not much I could do. Alexis is now on a coma.”
Thomas closed his eyes forcefully and leaned back against the wall again as if his body was not enough to hold his weight. Alexis, his only blood daughter, was his life. Of course, since Lillian and the rest of their kids arrived they too became a part of his happiness. But Alexis had been the one who had motivated him to pull through after his divorce and who had helped him find happiness with his new family.
Roxanne, in the midst of her sobs, broke the silence. “And now what?”
“There´s nothing we can do, in cases like this the only solution is to wait. I need to be very honest with you, you need to understand that the possibilities of her waking up as very slim, most patients in a coma never do,” relied the doctor trying to speak around the knot that had been formed in his throat. He and Tom had been close friends for a long time, after all, and he had known Alexis since she was a baby.
The news they already imagined brought a new wave of pain, it was so big and so obvious it could be felt in the air, suffocating any person who tried to breathe it. Each member of the Reed family and Roxanne´s boyfriend who had arrived not long ago, were lost in their own world.
Thomas Reed knew he could not fall into a depression because, as much as he wanted to throw everything away and wait for his daughter to wake up, he knew he had other children to take care of an a wife to tend to. Lillian was in complete silence, she cried silently because even if Alexis was not her blood daughter, they had spent so much time together she no longer saw the difference. Roxanne was leaning against her boyfriend, her body vibrated aggressively with the cries that accompanied her breathing; she found it terrifying that could be the last night she would ever speak to her sister. Sarah was covering her face with both hands as she sat back down on a chair; her mind was not giving her a single thought. Shane walked towards his mother and hugged her as his head fell against her chest. Jason and Jeremy watched their family with a depressing curiosity; they knew something was wrong, they just didn’t understand what it was.
Everyone was consumed by pain, for they knew this would be something that would change all their lives.
&&
Roxanne was once again in her sister´s hospital room, the room that seemed to have become her own home, she had a book one hand and a water bottle in the other. Her eyelids were heavy and they threatened to close permanently, but she was persistent and she blink several times trying to stay awake.
A sound from her side was enough to push away any trace of exhaustion from her body, it sounded as if someone was drowning in their own saliva. Concerned, she turned her head towards her sister who had been completely asleep for the past seven months. Alexis´s hand was in her throat and her body was erect, her eyes were closed tightly as she coughed repeatedly.
The girl, surprised but ecstatic that her sister was awake, felt as she could explode with all the emotions inside her head. She thought for a moment and realized it was natural for her sister to be scared after spending half a year unconscious, she would sure be terrified if it had been her. So, after shooting Lex the biggest smile, she turned around and walked into the hallway.
Her voice was so loud and filled with happiness that everyone in the hallway turned to see her. “Nurse,” she called to the closest woman, “call Dr. Wallace, Alexis woke up!”
2013: …