Remember Me for Centuries

I wasn’t exactly sure of what had happened. The next time I opened my eyes I was in a hospital bed with my mother on my side.

“How are you feeling?” She had asked placing her soft hand on my forehead.

“What happened?”

“You took a bunch of Ativan, you nearly overdosed.” I remember hearing the torment in her voice as she spoke those words.

“The doctors were able to pump your stomach before it was too late.”

Everything began to come into focus-being inside my car in front of Best Buy listening to Jeff Buckley singing “Hallelujah,” taking a whole bunch of my anxiety pills-

“I think it will be best if you came back home, all your stuff are still in your room.”

I couldn’t say no to her, not after what I had just put her through, so I just nodded.

“I’m going to tell the nurses you’re awake.” She told me as she gave me a kiss on the forehead.

I sighed feeling like a complete jackass. What kind of person puts their own mother through that?

“Don’t beat yourself up.”

I turned to my side and even though her back was facing me I knew it was the same girl from before.

“Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” There was a hint of bitterness in her tone.

“You were there, wherever that was and then again in the operating room, that was you.”
She nodded and kept staring out the window.

“Are you some kind of…?” I hesitated-“guardian angel?”

A small snort escaped her as she laughed. She turned around, her red hair still as vibrant and her eyes just as dark as before.

“I don’t know why but I just keep running into you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Wentz?”

I turned around to see a nurse standing by the doorway “who were you talking to?” she asked sounding a bit curious.

I turned back around ready to point at the redheaded girl but she just shook her head.

“Nobody I was just talking to myself.” I said sounding like a complete idiot.

My eyes followed the stranger as she walked around my room while the nurse checked on me to make sure everything was okay with me-apart from almost overdosing.

“Everything seems to be in order, Doctor. Rosen will come and check on you in a few minutes.”

I thanked the nurse and waited until she was out of the room to face the redheaded again.

“What’s your name?”

“My name is not important.”

“Why are you here? Why couldn’t the nurse see you?”

“You know, you ask a lot of questions.”

“Questions that I want answers for.”

She sighed and walked back to the window. “Madeline, that’s my name. I don’t know why I’m here all I know is that you made it out alive and I-” she breathed in deeply and exhaled out slowly before she turned around to look at me “didn’t.”

I stared at her, the light coming in through the window illuminated her, just like it had done the first time I saw her, she was mesmerizing-“Wait, what do you mean you didn’t?”

“I took a whole bunch of anti-depressants but I guess it was too late for me.”

I could see the tears glistening in her eyes, the way she looked like she was going to break down and fall apart in front of me but she didn’t. She blinked the tears away and then made her way towards me.

“For some reason I just keep running into you. I guess you’re stuck with me.” She smiled and with a blink of an eye she was gone.

I looked around cautiously but she was nowhere to be found.