PROLOGUE
The hallway was dark.
Immensely dark, gloomy, and quiet.
Just the thing I needed for such an incredibly daunting day. The position I was in right now, many people would kill for, but not me. Of course, I, the lucky one as many people would hearsay, was the one who was aching from my nose to my toes. My heart anguished from such a horrid day full of heartbreaks, sadness and tears. As my heart bled from the inside out, I cried, wishing I had a way out of here.
Just a week ago, I was the happiest person alive.
But not anymore. As I came to the end of the hallway, I paused, thinking about him, wishing I could still fell his warmth beside me. If only I could feel the strength in his grip, see the luster in his hair, to hear and feel his words envelop me in a blanket of comfort once more. But now I would never be able to experience that, ever again, because now he was ice cold, hidden amongst 6 feet of dirt and snow, buried along with all the others.
Leaving me alone.
I didn't want to be in anymore interviews, no more TV shows, no more radio stations. I just wanted to visit him in peace. I wanted to be alone, with no one else there but him. I guess that was just too much to ask. I wanted to cry, to let the screams come hurtling out of my mouth to feel the sensation of being freed from an iron grip. I wanted to see him.
But I had to hold my grip for the President. I knew this was a big thing, so I answered the questions solemnly.
"So, Doctor, the press has been saying that you did this research with another partner, but only your name is on the filed report- is it true?" asked Channel 69.
"Yes, it is." I replied,"Another doctor and I had decided to work on it together. Before we had completed it, he was diagnosed with cancer. I told him that we'd find the cure before it was too late, but, we just weren't fast enough. He died recently, and on his deathbed, he told me to put only my name on it, so I wouldn't have to share the credit with some "lame victim to cancer" As he worded it. The least I could do was to do that for him."
"So it really isn't just your cure, it's his cure, too?" asked ABC.
"Yes, that is correct." I shot the answer back at them. Thankfully, it was time for the president to come out and grant me some lame award.
As the president stepped out of his limo, bodyguards creeping by his heels, he made a hand signal and someone off in the distance pulled a rope, and looming into vision, a huge blimp with my cheesy smile plastered to the bottom. On the side of the bright red blimp were the words, "A Cancer Patient's Hero." I could barely restrain myself from running away to get out of here, and be anywhere but here. That should have been his face on that blimp, his natural smile, perfect teeth and shimmering hair, not my dull, fake face. As Mr. President stepped up to the podium, I winced as I saw he was wearing almost the same suit as what HE was wearing that ever so dreadful night, the night when we went out for dinner, and then he was sent to his deathbed. I needed to get away, very far away.
I just couldn't. So I managed to hold myself back until the end of the ceremony, where I was presented a medal of honors, the one that he should have been getting all along.
As soon as I got home I threw that medal in a box and shoved it in the back of my walk-in closet. I never wanted to see it again. I wanted to erase the last year of my life, to re-weave the fabric time, to not allow it to make that life-changing turn, and to undo the breakage of one thread, and keep that thread going for the rest of time.
And just then, I was happy, remembering him, feeling his touch, remembering all the laughs and things we did together. I was laughing, remembering that day when he spilled chemicals on my blue jeans, as they started to disintegrate.
But then I woke up. My life had been changed to a drastic point when I could never go back, never return to the way things were, to forever have my name in history books, to always be feeling guilty that if I had worked just a little bit harder, that he would still be here with me and we would be celebrating together with parties and dinners and such. Now, all that is a thing of the past. I'll have to learn to move on.
