Forever Fades Away

“Brian?” I peeked behind a curtain.

“Come right in, I’m just finishing up,” Delia said. She pulled a curtain back and smiled. “Just cleaning up Mr. Haner here.” I saw her dispose of a bag in a biohazard can. She dumped her gloves in there as well.

I looked at Brian, he had a small grin on his face. His face was pale but no sweat covered his face.

“Why--”I cut him off.

“Yes, why so serious. I remember that and I still don’t think it’s funny.” I took a seat on the bed with him. I looked at him, at his eyes, his hair, and his nose.

“I’m so sorry,” he spoke up.

“You have no reason to be sorry. I’m the one that should be sorry.” I gently played with the sheets on the bed. “Its really hard to see you in here, again. For whatever reason I thought this would be it. I just sort of shut up and didn’t move. I didn’t cry, didn’t get angry, almost didn’t care. Then I got angry with myself because I thought those horrible things. I know had it been me in the hospital, you would have reacted the way everyone else was expecting you to.”

I couldn’t look into his eyes, it hurt me too much.

“I don’t expect you to act any way, Mae. The only thing that I ask of you is to love me the way I love you.”

“And that’s why I think I feel so guilty now. My love could never compare to the love you have for me. You’ve done so much for me, you took me in, loved me when no one else would. You let me be…me.”

“Why do you feel like this? What brought all this on?”

“Do you not wonder what else is out there? Do you not wonder sometimes that you may have possibly wasted time on me? You have your pick of women out there, and yet you pick the most difficult, most childish, woman out there.”

“Since when have you felt so insecure about yourself, Mae?”

“This has nothing to do with being insecure Brian. I just want to know.” I was almost begging him now.

“Alright, yeah I used to wonder. I used to wonder what it was about you that kept me coming back to you. Yeah, your right I do have my pick of women out there. I could have any one I damn please, and I’m not trying to be a cocky mother fucker right now. But guess what? I didn’t fucking go out looking for it. I didn’t need to, because I had you. When will you just learn to accept that I love you Mae?” his voice was rising now. He was upset.

I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.

“I can accept that, but what I cannot accept is why this is happening! Why can’t we just live our lives as normal as possible? For once in my fucking life I am happy. I have it all. I don’t need anything, and yet here we are,” I started to sob now. “I have nothing to blame Brian, and I don’t know why but I need that something or someone.”

He sat there speechless. I don’t think he knew what to do. His arms tried to pull me closer, but I resisted. I sad on his bed and held myself as I sobbed.

“That’s the way life is sometimes, I suppose. We can’t do anything about it baby, but we have each other and together we can pull through anything.”

“And that’s where I’m struggling. What if this doesn’t get better? What if we’re in and out of hospitals? It hurts so much to see you so down. I’ve never seen you depressed up until all this happened. If you’re not happy Brian, it will affect me twice as much.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled it towards him. He tenderly kissed my hand and he looked back at me. His eyes showed pain more so than ever.

“Blame me,” he said. I looked at him but he didn’t meet my eyes. “If we never had met, you wouldn’t be going through this pain right now.” I had barley heard what he had said when he finished his sentence.

“I can’t do that, Brian.”

“Yes you can and I want you to.”

“I’ve already put the blame on myself, you’re a little too late.”

“Just blame me!”

“No!”

We both looked at each other and stared. Brian suddenly started to laugh. I felt pretty stupid as well and started laughing along with him. We were pathetic, we were arguing like five year olds. Maybe Zack was right, I needed to grow up. He grabbed me and pulled me down onto the bed with him.

It felt so soothing and comfortable right now. I only needed to close my eyes and everything felt normal, almost.

I finally started to hear the white noise around the room. The light fixtures made their own unique sound. The heart monitor gave a beep each minute and printed out any changes in its activity.

“I’m so tired right now, but I don’t want to fall asleep,” Brian said. I opened my eyes and looked back at him.

“Get some sleep, you still have a lot of antibiotics in the baggie.”

“Don’t leave, promise?”

“I won’t go anywhere.”

I looked at him and notice a slight sheer of sweat on his face again. I wasn’t sure if he had noticed it yet. His breathing started to get shallow, and faster.

The heart monitor started to beep more often. Something was wrong with him.

“Are you okay, love?” I asked him. He wouldn’t open his eyes. I tried to shake him.

“I’m fine, I swear,” he opened his eyes. “I’ll always love you Mae, no matter what. Can you make sure to tell everyone else I’ll always love them too?” he asked.

“Do you want me to call them in?” I laid my head back down. I was still worrying about the sudden change in Brian.

“I asked you not to leave,” he laughed awkwardly. “Promise me,” he paused a bit.

“Brian, what’s wrong? I lifted my head again and saw he was sweating a lot more. I saw and immediately jumped off the bed. Brian somehow managed to grab a hold of my arm.

BRIAN

“Don’t, please.” I pulled her back. She sat down on the bed next to me. I was trying too hard to not cry right now, but tears had started to form.

I wanted to tell her everything and anything at that moment. I just didn’t know how to say it all or where to start.

“Everything will work out, just give it time.” She looked confused to as what I had said to her. To be honest I had no idea what I was talking about either. It just flew out of my mouth before I even knew it.

I wish I could tell you I experienced flashing lights and visions before my eyes. I didn’t see anything except Mae looking at me.

It was depressing to be honest. I wanted the reassurance that everything would be better wherever I was going, but I didn’t see anything.

I felt my heart beat harder than it had ever done before. As before, it hurt each time my heart beat, only this time, I didn’t want it to stop. If the pain stopped, it meant it was all over for me.

I needed more time. I still needed to talk to my parents and brothers before I left. I mentally told myself to not give up.

I looked over to where Mae had been standing; she was gone. All I saw around me were the nurses in panic mode. Was it really this serious?

A deep dark sleep overtook my body. I couldn’t fight it this time.

Maybe this was it…