a short story by Hannah Kay
The cold hospital mocked me. The lights overhead white washed my walk, and I sulked through the halls. My heart thumped painfully in my chest, and I thought offhandedly that it was lucky I was in a hospital, because it might break completely.
He sang in my memory. He played his guitar, and the moment I fell in love with him was crystal clear. I could practically taste the warm cranberry muffin I’d been eating. He sat at the front of the cafe wearing ripped jeans and a rock star smile, and I knew he had me from the very first chord - before we spoke a word.
Years filtered by like raindrops, and we drew closer. His name lit up my phone more often than not, but never to be the person I needed. His hand would graze against mine - a friendly gesture - and every inch of me was mesmerized by the most subatomic touches. I would go over our every conversation in my head like a record, but the verdict never changed. I was his friend, his best friend at that. I sat idly by and listened to him talk about her - this her or that her, they were all the same - day in and day out.
If he would have been happy with one of them, maybe I could have let go. Maybe I could have turned off the raging monster in my chest that craved to scream, “It’s not her, it’s me!” If he would have been happy, maybe I would have been able to let him go, but here I am.
The hospital lights flickered, and it brought me back to the record store downtown. It was his birthday, or mine, and we’d just left the bakery. We’d eaten birthday scones and had lattes, and it was absolutely fantastic. He was between ditsy blondes and grinning like a free man, but for once those smiles were for me and me alone.
The smell of sour cigarettes and smoke wafted through the record store from the back alley as he flipped through the records, and I smiled too. I stepped closer, and I placed a hand on his gently. The back of his hand was smooth, and electricity raced between us. My every atom surged, and I wanted him. That day, I honestly thought that day was the moment - our moment. I thought he felt the electricity too.
The hospital was gray and lifeless, and I slipped down the wall. The ground under me was cold, and I placed my face into my hands. The clock on the wall read 4:45, and I knew I needed to hurry. Visiting hours would be over soon, and I couldn’t miss seeing him.
“Carrie?” A tired voice interrupted my mantra. A voice I knew so well by now. She might as well be a part of the family. I peeked up through my hands, and the angry dull lights drained her of color. She wore a heavy gray sweater and a pair of faded jeans, and her face was pale. Just looking at her, she could have been the one in the hospital.
The look that passed between us said volumes, and I didn’t say a word. I rose, and I hugged her. She was his big sister, and I was his best friend. The same vile guilt ran through both of our veins. We both knew we should have seen this coming.
“Are you going to go in?” She asked, and her voice betrayed accusal that I couldn’t refuse. I should have come to visit him sooner. I should have been there for him when he needed me.
I ran a hand through my damp dark hair, calculating the days since she’d called me. I’d been at work, shuffling newspaper articles and organizing files, when the phone at the desk rang. I let it go to voicemail, because I knew if I left the pile on the floor my sixty year old editor would have a fit.
It wasn’t until I arrived home that night that I discovered the seven voicemails and sixteen texts. Two words from 2:43 that afternoon stood out from all the rest. “It’s Nick.”
I was perched on my couch in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt with a blanket and a book, and it was too late to go anywhere, so I merely warmed myself a pot of ramen noodles and forced myself to believe I would go tomorrow. That was three days ago.
I’d spent the next couple nights reading and flipping through the tattered stack of photographs I keep on my coffee table. Dozens of memories were plastered throughout the apartment, but the stacks were the real memories: the time we snuck into the school to swing on the swing set, the time he tried (and failed) to teach me to play his old acoustic guitar… those moments were precious and real, and I wouldn’t trade those moments for any thing in the world. Now, they are all I live for. That boy...before her.
“Carrie? Come on, he wants to see you,” she pleaded softly. Her hand dusted a loose hair from my face, and she forced a weak smile my way. The hospital was toxic and stale. It wreaked of pain, and it was too much, but I nodded, taking the single step to the door.
Heart in my throat, I gripped the cold knob, and I took a step inside. The room itself was shrouded in greenish-gray light, and there was a steady beep coming from one of the monitors on the wall.
Worse than that, of course, was him. Nick lay with his head on a single white pillow encased in one of those oh so sterile hospital bed frames, and he appeared to have lost weight - and a lot of it. His skin was paler than it had been the last time I saw him, but his eyes smiled at the sight of me coming through the door.
Nick shifted an inch underneath his blanket, and then he managed to toss one of his legs from the bed. I began to protest, to tell him no, but he lifted one huge, pale hand to wave me off. “No, Carrie, let me do this,” he said, and he hobbled the few inches in his powder blue hospital gown to slip an arm around my waist. He instantly caved into me with his arms pressed to the small of my back.
“Nicky,” I whispered. His arms enveloped me, and the feeling was irreplaceable. For once, I realized, he needed me like I’d always needed him. A tear slipped down my cheek. He felt so fragile, and I knew I was all that was holding him up. I rubbed his back, and I shook my head. Anger boiled somewhere in my gut, because from the first time I’d seen her three months ago I’d known.
That day I’d planned a coffee date with Nick, just something casual to catch up. We’d both been insanely busy. Thinking back on it, I probably hadn’t seen him in over a week between work and dog sitting Robert’s fluffy Chihuahua named Bruce.
So I’d gone to the coffee shop where he shuffled cappuccinos after I left the office. I wore a pencil skirt and button down, and my hair was in a neat bun on top of my head adorned by a single black pen. I ordered a coffee black, and I staked out a table near the back. The room swelled with the quiet noise of arguing couples, and I rubbed my forearms, scanning the staff.
No Nick, I thought, so when the bearded man in sweats called my name, I gave him a polite smile. “Is Nick here?” He shook his head, and he glanced over his shoulder.
The man’s voice was gruff when he replied. “You the girlfriend?” The question shocked me enough to not answer. Luckily, the bearded man didn’t wait for a reply. He’d already turned to fill another cup.
The coffee burned through the sleeve around the to-go cup, and I frowned, shouldering my bag and heading for the door. Outside, the air bit my nose, and I tugged my jacket closer to my face. Betrayal sliced through me as I realized I hadn’t known there was a new girlfriend. There had been no texts, no calls. Nothing whatsoever in a week. I’d assumed he’d just been taking on extra hours.
I turned the corner and walked down the short path to his apartment complex. It was a six story building with a lobby that smelled like cheese and feet, but it was his. The buzzer’s were broken, so the lobby door was propped open with a folding chair. I pushed the door open fully and surveyed the lobby. It was nothing more than a small room with an old couch surrounded by shabby mailboxes. The office door was shut. I crossed the lobby in a single stride, stepping into the stairwell. I took a sip of the coffee, and I forged up the stairs. Nick lived on the third floor.
Somewhere in the building, a dog barked and growled. The scent of burning hair mixed with week old pizza, and the coffee in my hand no longer tasted appetizing. I tossed the half empty cup into a trash can on the second landing, and then I heard his voice.
“Where are we meeting this guy, anyway?” The words crashed like waves on sand, and then I saw them. Dark circles were cut into the thin skin underneath his eyes, and he wore a stained red t-shirt and jeans. The girl beside him wore a pair of jean shorts that rode to her mid thighs and a white t-shirt. Her hair was pale, and she grinned.
I don’t think she saw me, because she spun on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. She kissed him, and I cringed. Suddenly, the off off white carpet was insanely interesting. Blood ran to my cheeks, and I peered over my shoulder. Too late to escape, I tugged my skirt an inch downward. “Um,” I hedged.
The blonde’s head twerked to the side, and Nick’s eyes darted open. He dragged his eyes from the toes of my flats to the bun on my head, and then a smile spread across his face. The smile of a man that saw his best friend and cared. “Carrie, hey,” he greeted.
The pale girl blushed, and she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Nicky,” she flaunted. Her voice danced an octave higher than most normal girls which didn’t particularly fit the bill. “Who is this?”
Nick opened his mouth to answer, but I crossed the hallway and extended my hands to hers.
“Hi,” I said carefully. “I’m Carrie, Nick’s friend.” The words were hollow, but they were true, so I forced another smile.
The girl nodded and extended a pink nailed hand toward me. “Jewel,” she said. Her voice pinched in the center of her name, and I bit my bottom lip. Jewel, the blonde that was kissing the man I’d had feelings for for years. “How’d you meet my Nicky Bear?”
Her Nicky Bear, I thought, crossing my arms, but Nick cut the girl off with a shrug of his shoulders. “Hey,” he said, turning to look at the girl. “Weren’t you expecting a package? Why don’t you check the mailbox while I talk to Carrie?”
The girl surveyed me once more, and she must have decided I wasn’t a threat, because she nodded. “Alright,” she said. She leaned up to kiss him once more, and then she prowled away without so much as a glance over her petite shoulder.
She was gone, and we looked at one another. He was two heads taller than me, and his smile bread the most paradoxically uncertain comfort. I bit my bottom lip, and he smirked. “Don’t hold back, Car,” he argued with a shake of his head. “What are you thinking?”
God, I thought. I hate that question. It was one of Nick’s signature moves - a smart prestrike that I couldn’t exactly argue with - and beyond frustrating. My fingers slipped through the sagging bun at the base of my neck, because there were too many thoughts to articulate. Too many peculiarities and pesky feelings. “You weren’t at work,” I noted, an evasive maneuver.
He chuckled and flashed another winning smile across the dank hallway. “I dropped a shift,” he answered. “It’s Jewel’s birthday.”
I bit my tongue, wanting to say but it’s work. Instead, I went with an infinitely simpler response. “Oh,” I said.
He nodded and pushed off of the wall, strong arms came around my shoulders, and he smiled. The hug was bottomless, and I blushed at the scent of burning alcohol on his breath. Head against his neck, I breathed the heavy aroma of smoke stitched into his clothes. Even during the two and a half month period he gave them up, he’d always smelled like them. It was a comfort, and he rubbed my back. “Don’t worry so much,” he mumbled with a reassuring smile.
I guess I should have known, I thought as I held him now. His limbs were brittle against mine, and he breathed heavily in my ear. “Don’t worry so much,” he whispered again, shattering the silence with a thud.
I struggled, pulling away frown him with a defiant groan. “I don’t know how you think I could stop,” I said.
He staggered back to the edge of the bed, and I watched him move. Broken, hooked up to an IV, and I didn’t even know what was wrong. “You’re mad,” he said as he plopped on the bed. “Calm down, Car.”
I barked a laugh, because there was nothing that made me angrier than someone telling me to calm down. I crossed my arms, expelling a measured breath. “Where is Jewel?” I spat the name, and he shifted tiredly.
“Do we have to talk about this now?” The feeble voice flipped my stomach. “I feel like shit,” he reminded.
I shook my head. I hadn’t been mad until I saw him like this, and it was too late to retract the mounting emotions. “When would be a better time to talk about it?” I dropped to the chair in the corner of the room and placed my face in my hands. “When you’re six feet under the ground? No,” I said. My cheeks burned, and I bit my bottom lip so hard that blood blossomed against the thin skin there. “Nicholas, what are you thinking? Do you think this is a joke?”
“I guess we are talking about this now,” he mumbled, ruffling his fingers through his hair like it was the most normal action in the world. Like today everything was normal, the setting of this conversation not the East Wing of Highland Medical Facility.
I stared at him. He wasn’t smiling anymore. His expression was set, measured, careful, a wide pout I’d seen so many times before, but he’d never been so pale. “Yes, Nick, we are talking about this now. This isn’t fair. It’s not fair that I’m in a hospital right now. I mean do you ever think about anyone but yourself, Nick? What do you think I would do if I lost you? How well do you think I would handle that?” I hissed, but I didn’t care.
The lights overhead cast a grayish glow on the room, and I wrapped my arms around my shoulders. Frustration bubbled underneath my skin, and I frowned. This was the kind of conversation you knew you would regret later, but you couldn’t stop. What stopped me short, though, was what he said seconds later.
“But you never had me,” he said. His eyes, pale from illness, seared through me, and I felt it like heartbreak. He was right of course, but he’d never said it out loud. We’d never talked about it. We’d swept it under the rug.
Bile rose in my throat, and I wrapped my arms tightly around my waist. “No,” I mumbled. “I never did.”
He stared daggers at me, but seconds later he melted. His molten eyes widened, and he extended a hand to me. “Carrie, I - “ He tried, but I didn’t give him a chance. I stood up. “I didn’t mean that. You know you have me. You’re my best friend. You know that, hey, Carrie, wait!”
But I was out the door. He was right. I’d never had him no matter how much I tried, and I had to go. I could heard the voices calling after me, but I ran. My heart thumped against my rib cage, and I stuttered to a stop outside the hospital. Panting, I bent over with my hands on my knees.
My reflection in the window stared back at me, and I realized I’d never looked so small. I crossed my arms, and my eyebrows twitched together. “I’m done,” I said, and I straightened. The hospital loomed over me, and I shook my head. “So done,” I said, and I walked away.
Heart hollow and tired, I wrapped my fingers around my own wrist and stared at the sun. “No more,” I mumbled, and my shoulders shook just enough to be painful. I walked aimlessly into afternoon sky, and I extended my palms outward. Warmth spread through my skin, and I sighed. “Tomorrow.”
Suddenly, hands grasped my shoulders, and I shook. Dry sobs permeated my body, but the tears never came. “I’m sorry,” his sister gasped, and I braced my head against her shoulder.
“No,” I whispered, a choked sound. I peered up at the hospital, a gray mass of bricks, and I could still feel him. Hands pressed against my back, relying on my strength to keep him from plummeting, and I stared skyward.
The sun rested limp along the horizon, half obscured by the clouds, and I let her hug me. “It’s not you,” I mumbled. “It’s not even him,” I finished, hand grazing the door. My reflection was sad and unsure, but then I displaced the glass from the glass and left the sparkling sun to mingle in the rotting afternoon.
I would be with Nick.
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