Chapter 23: Hearts of Glass

            I stumbled back into the road as the car quickly turned around and sped away- what a fucking douche. I did my best to try to make out the license plate through the tears that were streaming down my face. All I could hear was my voice screaming out for help in the dark of the night. I lifted his shirt, looking for a place to apply pressure, but all I managed to do was get myself covered in blood. It was all over me, it was all I could see, it was in my nose and my mouth and all I could think about was loss. How much I had lost over the course of my short life. It had all begun when I thought I lost Cain and his love, when I lost my hair and my identity along with it, and, now, I was losing Cain all over again. I felt his life slipping away as I held him against me, my shirt soaked with his blood.

            I heard the sirens and felt hands grabbing at my shoulders and arms- they were taking me away. I kicked and screamed for them to let me go. I was yelling out Cain’s name in a hysterical fit, “No! Don’t let them do this! Cain, just wake up, please, just wake up!” I pleaded.

            They rolled him over onto a stretcher and I watched them carry him away to an ambulance. I stood there in silence, sobbing and shaking. Maybe it was the fact that I was piss drunk, but I just couldn’t control all the suppressed feelings I had been hiding in the shadows of my mind. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him forever- knowing that he was gone… permanently. My mind raced; all I could think about was us. What might have become of us had we stayed together? Would we be married? Have kids? No. Maybe not. We might have ended up in this very position, but we’ll never know. Because this is the path that was laid before us and the only one we are meant to take.

            It was then that I realized I had four sets of eyes staring back at me expectantly: Tammy, Rhoslyn, and two police officers. Tammy cast a nervous glance toward Rhoslyn and one of the officer’s voices was muffled in my ears, “She’s still in shock. We’ll have to question her after she gets checked out at the hospital.”

            The world around me felt surreal, lines and colors blurring and merging together like some sort of twisted and dark fairytale. Nothing felt real. Everything was filled with an overwhelming numbness. Sounds were muffled. And I sat there in a daze, things moving and bumping around me. I knew our intended destination, but looking out the window only brought on more confusion as scene after scene flashed by like a spinning carnival ride. We finally arrived at the hospital and they led me inside- from there it’s just one brick wall. All I saw was black.

            I woke up the next morning in a hospital bed. I guess they let me stay the night- that was my only plausible answer. Somehow, I made it back to the front desk without getting lost. I stepped up to the counter, “Excuse me, do you know where I could find Cain Thompson?”

            The nurse looked at me skeptically but replied, “He’s in room 264 in the East wing.”

            I nodded, knowing well what was in the East wing from my extended stay here, “Thank you very much.”

            The East wing was where the ICU recovery rooms were. I didn’t know how I would take what I was about to see. I felt responsible and I really was. He had chased me out into the street. He didn’t have to save me, but he did. One thing was for sure, one life was not worth another. Finally, I got to the door and opened it as quietly as I could, peeking inside to make sure I wasn’t disturbing anything and easing myself into the situation I had been dreading. I looked around the room and he was lying in the bed, alone. It was obvious that people had been here, but Cain had never been one for flowers. I walked over to the bed, letting my hand touch the generic hospital sheets and standing there taking in the sight of what I had done to him.

            He shifted, “Hey there.”

            I smiled, “Hey yourself.”

            “My girl is in the next room,” Cain motioned toward the glass wall that separated us from the next room. A long silence came between us as I stared at her, her back turned to me as she sat in a chair sipping coffee and looking distraught. She was beautiful- her hair flowing down over her shoulders, “Can I tell you something?”

            I nodded, tears in my eyes, “Of course you can.”

            “I really wish that she was you. All the time. Not once in a while, all the time. When I look into her eyes I see you and I wish she was you. But I know that it isn’t going to happen because Klaus gave you a ring and he is perfect. I saw how you looked at him that night. You deserve a guy like him-”

            “Please stop,” I interrupted.

            “Let me finish,” He said sternly. “I made a bad mistake thinking you would be there when I wanted to come back. I knew I would eventually, but it was stupid of me to believe that a great girl like you wouldn’t find a guy better for you than me. I don’t expect you to leave Klaus for me. In fact, I encourage you to go ahead with your wedding plans. You know why? Because I love you. And you’re happier now than I ever could have made you. So please, just let me kiss your forehead and then you can go back to him.”

            I stood there in silence. My mind spinning around and around and different parts of me were tearing into each other like a civil war had begun inside me. It really had. I knew I should turn around and leave, not even give him the consideration of a final kiss goodbye. But what good had it done for me to be filled with bitterness and hatred and spite? Nothing. It hadn’t even driven him away from me- not in mind, body, or soul. The only distance between us had been because I had run. Run from him. From myself. From us. I thought that if I didn’t have to see his face then his memory would eventually fade. Maybe it would have if he had been someone else. If he had meant something different to me. But he wasn’t someone else and he didn’t mean anything different. He meant something to me that I had been denying to myself for years because I thought the void could be filled with perfection and swooning and adventure and it would eventually become a love sprung from dim embers and turn into an uncontrollable wildfire. The truth was that I doubted it would ever happen. Because the cinders that were meant to be prodded back to livelihood were not for Klaus and I had known that all along.