Paying For All the Days I've Not Spoken
By: Olivia
I should have told him that I love him.
They nurses are wheeling Declan away on the gurney. He's looking at us, at Peggy and I, smiling but his eyes are glazed over. I'm not even sure he can really see that we're here. The drugs have already taking their effect. But I know he feels that we are here.
"C'mon, Miranda," says Peggy as she puts a comforting hand on my arm and leads me to the waiting room. "It's going to be awhile."
We find two free seats next to one another. Both of us are lost in our own thoughts and our own fears and yet our thoughts and fears all center on the same man-Declan.
What if the cancer has metastasized? What if Declan does die on the operating table?
I angrily and fearfully try to push these thoughts aside.
I can't contemplate life without Declan. I had built up walls around my heart and around my soul until one day this pushy Anthropology Professor comes storming into my Physics lab wanting me to test a sample of "something." Declan's habit of pushing people, of barging into their lives to try and help them despite themselves, is the thing I find most annoying about him and the thing I most love.
Slowly he has taken the wall apart that I had so carefully constructed to keep people out, to keep myself from getting hurt by their rejection. I didn't even realize he had done it. Somewhere during all those investigations I had grown to care about him as I had cared about no other before him. He's the person I feel the most comfortable to be around, the person I can depend on when I'm in trouble, and the person who I have fun with. He's my best friend. He's the one who encourages me and praises me. He doesn't make me feel like some many other's have-that I was strange and different, that I was unlovable.
Declan makes me feel loved. I mean I know he loves me as a friend, but my heart fears that it is no more than that.
I cast a sidelong glance at Peggy. I use to be so jealous of her. When Declan started to bring her into our investigations, I couldn't stand her because I didn't know her, I didn't give her a chance. But I know that she is just as much my friend as Declan is. And despite her protests, I know she too loves Declan the way I love Declan.
It hurts to admit that maybe she would be better for Declan than I would.
I brush these thoughts aside. I don't want to go there. There is that place that Declan chooses one of us and one of us gets hurt. I love Declan but I would never want to hurt Peggy.
It's no use contemplating this anymore. Declan could die today. It's too late to tell him that I love him as more than my best friend, as a woman loves a man, as a heroine loves her hero.
I know that he knows that I love him as a friend. He could see it in my eyes, well my tears any way, as I sobbed, as I pleaded for him to go through with this operation. I can still feel his arms around me as he held me close, trying to stop my tears, calm my fears, by telling me that he would go through with the operation. It was the only way to save him and he couldn't give up, I wouldn't let him give up, not without a fight.
So I sit here paying for all the days I've not spoken the love for him that I've feel within my heart.
I should have told him that I love him.
I feel Peggy gently touch my arm and I follow her gaze to see Alice coming towards us with coffee. I can tell from her smile and the coffee that she has only come to keep us company and yet there is this fear that grips my heart for the briefest of moments. What if Declan is right? What if she is the angel of death?
The End
"And if I die before I learn to speak, will money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep."-"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Pocket"
By: Olivia
I should have told him that I love him.
They nurses are wheeling Declan away on the gurney. He's looking at us, at Peggy and I, smiling but his eyes are glazed over. I'm not even sure he can really see that we're here. The drugs have already taking their effect. But I know he feels that we are here.
"C'mon, Miranda," says Peggy as she puts a comforting hand on my arm and leads me to the waiting room. "It's going to be awhile."
We find two free seats next to one another. Both of us are lost in our own thoughts and our own fears and yet our thoughts and fears all center on the same man-Declan.
What if the cancer has metastasized? What if Declan does die on the operating table?
I angrily and fearfully try to push these thoughts aside.
I can't contemplate life without Declan. I had built up walls around my heart and around my soul until one day this pushy Anthropology Professor comes storming into my Physics lab wanting me to test a sample of "something." Declan's habit of pushing people, of barging into their lives to try and help them despite themselves, is the thing I find most annoying about him and the thing I most love.
Slowly he has taken the wall apart that I had so carefully constructed to keep people out, to keep myself from getting hurt by their rejection. I didn't even realize he had done it. Somewhere during all those investigations I had grown to care about him as I had cared about no other before him. He's the person I feel the most comfortable to be around, the person I can depend on when I'm in trouble, and the person who I have fun with. He's my best friend. He's the one who encourages me and praises me. He doesn't make me feel like some many other's have-that I was strange and different, that I was unlovable.
Declan makes me feel loved. I mean I know he loves me as a friend, but my heart fears that it is no more than that.
I cast a sidelong glance at Peggy. I use to be so jealous of her. When Declan started to bring her into our investigations, I couldn't stand her because I didn't know her, I didn't give her a chance. But I know that she is just as much my friend as Declan is. And despite her protests, I know she too loves Declan the way I love Declan.
It hurts to admit that maybe she would be better for Declan than I would.
I brush these thoughts aside. I don't want to go there. There is that place that Declan chooses one of us and one of us gets hurt. I love Declan but I would never want to hurt Peggy.
It's no use contemplating this anymore. Declan could die today. It's too late to tell him that I love him as more than my best friend, as a woman loves a man, as a heroine loves her hero.
I know that he knows that I love him as a friend. He could see it in my eyes, well my tears any way, as I sobbed, as I pleaded for him to go through with this operation. I can still feel his arms around me as he held me close, trying to stop my tears, calm my fears, by telling me that he would go through with the operation. It was the only way to save him and he couldn't give up, I wouldn't let him give up, not without a fight.
So I sit here paying for all the days I've not spoken the love for him that I've feel within my heart.
I should have told him that I love him.
I feel Peggy gently touch my arm and I follow her gaze to see Alice coming towards us with coffee. I can tell from her smile and the coffee that she has only come to keep us company and yet there is this fear that grips my heart for the briefest of moments. What if Declan is right? What if she is the angel of death?
The End
"And if I die before I learn to speak, will money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep."-"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Pocket"