Nights Like This

This was strange. I walked outside the hospital room and turned to see William sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair against the wall next to the door. It was like I was seeing him for the first time since I’d come back from Warped Tour, or even before then, back before all of this drama had unfolded. It just seemed like forever ago that everything between us had happened, like it was just a part of the distant past, though the pain was certainly as present as ever. Sitting there, looking even more fragile than his thin frame usually afforded, William ceased to be the unattainable object of my adoration and the unintentional cause of my great anguish. In that moment he was simply my friend, someone I had grown up with, someone who was caught in that precious place in between ‘friend’ and 'family.’

Of course all of this was made possible by the fact that we had all been violently displaced from our daily lives by my mother’s sudden coma. If given the choice, I’d take the pain and strained relationship with William over this any day. But the situation was this: My life, William’s life, and whatever ways our two lives overlapped had been completely put on hold by this crisis. Our story had been jarringly interrupted, and whatever issues we had with each other and with our own respective emotions would have to be put on hold, would have to be buried beneath the worry, guilt, fear, insecurity, and general turmoil that this situation had incited in all of us. It was both difficult and easy at the same time. If I even thought about William in the way I’d been used to thinking about him, the pain bled through to the surface like a freshly opened wound. But, faced with the danger my mother was in, it was surprisingly undifficult (because I certainly couldn’t call it easy) to separate that William, and everything he represented, from the William that I now saw before me, worried and nervous and, for the first time in a long time, unsure.

“Hey Will,” I said heavily, letting the greeting escape from my mouth along with a great exhalation of breath and tension.

My words floated across the large space between us and fell flat when they reached William. I could almost see them hit the invisible wall he’d constructed around himself and crash to the floor. He either hadn’t heard me or had no desire to reply; I had no idea which was more likely.

A few seconds went by, and then a few more, and I didn’t know what to do. Should I have assumed he didn’t want to talk to me? Or had he just not heard me? I decided to just start talking. I’d get my point across; he could choose to listen or not.

“Look William. I know things have been weird between us. And I know that you’re not doing well right now with what’s going on with my mom. None of us are. And I just hope that you know that no matter what happens, you’re a part of the Carden family. Nothing will ever change that. I’m sorry that things have worked out this way. I hate it, actually. But I know that we can’t really dwell on that right now. We need to be there for each other and for my mom. That might require us to bury our past for a little bit, but I’m willing to do that. I know this is weird. Trust me, I know. But I mean...there’s a bigger problem right now, way bigger than just you and me. So I’ll say it again: You’re family and you’ll always mean a lot to me, and to Mike, and of course to our mother. I’m really glad you’re here. It means a lot to all of us.”

Wow. I had said a lot more than I’d meant to. I tend to just start talking, and keep talking, and then everything just comes spilling out and I try to keep talking to make it better but then I just make it worse. It’s a serious problem, especially in times like this one, when the whole situation is very fragile to begin with.

I waited for him to respond, to show some sign that he had heard me, to even look up and acknowledge my presence. But he just sat there, hands clasped tightly, much like every muscle in my body as I stood there looking anywhere but at his face.

“William?” I tried again. Suddenly he raised his head, eyes shifting from the floor to my face. I immediately moved my eyes away from his own, alerted to do so by the instant pain his gaze caused. Instead I focused on his lips, which had, to my surprise, lifted slightly, a faint grin coming across his face.

“Thank you, Hannah.” His words were weak, especially in comparison to his gaze, whose force I could feel without even looking at him.

“Is that it?” I couldn’t help asking. William’s eyes widened microscopically at my outburst, causing me to rephrase and, once more, to look away from him. “I just mean, uh, if you need to talk, I’m here for you. Just you being here is such a great help, and I want to repay you with the same support.” There I was, blathering on again. I clenched my jaw shut to avoid making a bigger fool of myself and waited for William to say something.

He stood up, slowly and unsteadily, as if he’d been sitting down for far too long. In fact, I was sure at least one of his legs had fallen asleep. As I was leaning against the door frame, he towered over me even more than usual. He nodded his head toward the doorway.

“Let’s get back in there, shall we?” He said it with a tinge of irony in his voice, as if he were a soldier on his way to war, facing some dreaded task with feigned courage. He was just as scared and worried as I was. And we were both hiding it.

The idea of “being strong for someone” really only works if the other person is weak. I should have expected that we’d both be hiding our emotions in this situation. After all, we’d done it all summer. And now our stubborn personalities kept us from dealing with our feelings about my mom as well. With both of us being strong, neither of us could cope. We were both balancing precariously on the edge of sanity, and it was only a matter of time before one of us came tumbling to the ground.