Her name dribbles off his tongue as she hates herself for waking up. She clenches her eyes tight as he opens his wide, shock rumbling through their veins as they both realize this isn’t what they expected.
He fumbles for her hand as her eyes flutter, unaware of the florescent lights staring back at her. Tears find their way back to his grey eyes and he grasps her hand as if she was floating away.
His heart sinks to a lowly level of contempt as he realizes that this could be a hallucination. He wasn’t known to be a lucky-kind-of-guy. He was the goofy one who tripped up the stairs. He was the brokenhearted one who drank half a dozen beers to blur the memories of an uncanny kiss. He was the guy who never had it his way no matter how many times he wished on stars or prayed for something more.
So when color rushes through her pale cheeks and her body wriggles under taut bed sheets, he aches for a reason as to why this sprig of luck is suddenly thrust upon him.
Minutes ago he was feeling stranded enough to believe he would be okay when he walked through the wary hospital doors. He was on his way to convincing himself that after a couple of beers he would be able to sleep somberly, thinking of anything but the red streaks across her delicate face. He was almost prepared for the pain to finally set in during the next few weeks when he couldn’t hear her laugh or gaze at her smile. But when her eyes open for the first time and her fingers radiate under his palms, he knows that he isn’t going crazy.
She squirms, feeling nothing but warmth engulfing her right hand. She doesn’t know where she is and frankly, doesn’t care. Opening her eyes is a priority, but she knows that that would lead to facing reality. Instead, she focuses on the hand tangled with hers and wonders whose it is.
She always believed in being happy. Even if she was standing in some forbidden situation where all paths made a wrong, she moved on because someone was always hurting more than her. She always believed that crying herself to sleep wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If there were splinters in her heart or sodden tears plastered to her cheeks, she welcomed the pain with open arms because it probably wouldn’t get worse than that. But mostly, she believed that time was the best medicine. If she collapsed under the daring sun or cried between damp sheets and wistful stars, she never regretted her choices, but fell like she’s never fallen because she knew that eventually, there would be nowhere to go but up.
So when her eyes emerge from their imminent darkness to see his eyes gleaming with tears and staring into hers, she realizes she shouldn’t have smiled like nothing was wrong, talked like everything was perfect, or acted like her life was a silly dream. Because finally, she could agree with the better half of her heart and think yeah, he was worth the ache.
She breathes deeply, hating the light seeping into her shrinking retinas and feels her skin singeing and bruises throbbing with her increasing pulse. He can sense her discomfort and tightens his fingers around hers.
He dares not say anything and keeps his tearful eyes focused on hers, hoping she’ll realize what a miracle she is to him. He feels lightheaded and wants to scream thinking of the consequences he will presumably have to pay. She’ll probably keep her distance from now on, knowing that he pushed her to the brink of an untimely fall. She’ll probably say a simple “hello” when he enters the office, just to be polite and to not overlook their prior status of best friends. She’ll probably move on and find another man, just like he found another woman, and she will be happy because she had another chance. But he’ll probably never get another chance because this was it. Her breath and the warmth of her hand are enough to marvel over; enough to keep him going for the next few months.
She feels utterly grateful for him to be there with her. If she could, she would whisper “I love you” in his ear too many times. If she could, she would reach for his face and pull his soft lips to hers. If she could, she would stand, take his hand, and lead him to her favorite veiled hillcrest and let him hear the wind, see the stars, and feel the moon. But she’s trapped to a hospital bed and is restricted from what her heart is screaming for.
The finality of his gaze hurts as she realizes how she should have told him it was her fault earlier. If she wasn’t too occupied with how red her eyes looked from crying too much in the morning, she would have said told him that she missed his laugh. If she wasn’t worried about him catching her awkward gazes during the work day, she would have told him that she needed his gazes so she could capture the uncanny feeling that he thought about her for at least a moment of his day. If she wasn’t naïve to pain and oblivious to how much she could destroy herself when he smiled at everyone but her, she would have told him that she was not able to live without the picture of his smile folded in her heart.
He begins speaking, each word pouring over her broken limbs to seal apprehensive cracks and bangs. Words like “it was my fault” and “I hate myself” feel like salt on her open wounds and seize her complacent composure. He doesn’t want to sound pathetic because he knows he’s been there with her too many times. For once he wants the words to make sense as they dangle from his lips and hover in the tense space between them.
“I’ve hated how we’ve been ignoring each other,” he says, the words stumbling off his tongue hesitantly. “And for a while, I’ve been pretending to be okay with it. Every time I saw you I felt horrible…like I had my chance but I was too much of an idiot to make something of it.”
He can feel tears but he needs to be strong. He gently pulls his hand from hers and pushes them over his face. She gazes at him, her brow creased, yearning to do more than impotently watch him disintegrate from the release of his fervent thoughts put to words.
He pauses, looks deeply into her eyes, and continues quietly, “I kind of lost my connection with the world. I just don’t care anymore. About anything.”
The moon blithely burnishes through the foggy window, revealing an overcast sky and dying stars. Animosities creep down the insipid walls and spill to an unforgiving floor, where harsh memories, tears, and regrets of “why wasn’t I a nicer person to her,” “I forgot to say goodbye,” and “I will always love you” stain unremittingly. A tremor rumbles through his weary body as she blinks with the intangible feeling of dismay perched over her chary eyes.
He pauses again, struggles to maintain composure, stares at the floor, and presses on, “So when I saw you looking so helpless and hurt because of me – because of something I did – it made me realize I had given up.”
He winces, his eyes wander from her lips to her eyes, and he says, “I hurt you, Pam. And I never thought I would hate myself this much.”
He leans forward and brushes his lips softly to her hand. She is unable to create even a hint of a smile and vulnerably looks into his grief-stricken eyes. A doctor enters for moments that seem to last for hours and states mottled words that they are scared-to-death to hear. When “release” and “just a few days” spill from the doctor’s lips, a roar of exhilaration thunders through Jim’s body as he watches her eyes vary three shades lighter. The doctor exits the cramped room, and they are compressed with overwhelming feelings of “there may be a new beginning.”
He feels like he’s thousands of feet up in the night air. She feels like screaming to towering mountains that she’s okay. He forgets to breathe when a smile spreads across her lips. She remembers how much she loves this man when his eyes linger on hers for seconds too long. He realizes he’ll never get over her because she was his to begin with and he’ll never move on because she will always be smiling for him, giving him a reason to believe. She realizes she’ll never take him for granted because she almost lost him again and she’ll never cry herself to sleep because she can say she had another chance.
He brushes his hand against his cheek to wipe away unnecessary tears. He can’t deny the butterflies in his stomach as he gazes out the window, his eyes caught in the beautiful mess of stars drifting between lucid clouds and a placid night sky. She follows his gaze and forgets her bruises, cuts, and pains because those stars are dangling from the hope she was clinging to all along.
A whimper escapes past her lips and his eyes dart to hers. He instinctively reaches for her hand and whispers, “why are you crying?” She half-smiles and opens her mouth ever-so-slightly, “it’s silly,” she struggles to reply. He tightens his fingers and gently reaches to wipe a tear from her rose-colored cheeks. He smiles gently and says, “it can’t be.”
She looks toward the stars and her eyes glimmer the colors of the mauve night sky. She feels weak as her lips part, her response tickling her tongue, “they look brighter when I cry.” Tears swell and his hands begin to tremble as he thinks, “yeah, this is her.”
Life offered them a dream beyond any of their never-ending dreams, protected hopes, and story-book wishes. For the first time in their lives they were ready to except their painful strides as beautiful mistakes and move on, knowing their hands would never again be cold, their smiles would never again be lonely, and their hearts would never again be broken. Pam and Jim’s contagious stories of lust would intertwine like pieces of a forgotten puzzle and nestle into a promise that would last them many forever’s to come.
Author's Chapter Notes:
They deserve another chance.
Chapter End Notes:
I'm sorry to report that this is the final installment in this story. I enjoyed writing every facet of it and will miss it terribly! But more stories are on the horizon! ;D
Dwangie is the author of 25 other stories.
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