To loose a friend is painful. To watch them wither away, to feel that there was something that you could have done. To see them, dieing whether on the inside or outwardly is painful. To watch both is doubly so. It's not that you are hurt personally it's that they hurt that hurts the worst.
When I walked into that hospital room, so white and utterly sterile and truly fragile, I fought to control the emotions that warred in my stomach, like opposing forces, dark and light. I swallowed hard.
She was utterly still her wrist firmly wrapped in a new looking cast. Her eyes closed and her hair cut short to reveal the stitches on her neck. Or rather the white bandages covering it. There was no sign that anyone had been there besides the doctors who came and went leaving nothing more than a few more notes on the clipboard that was resting on the bedside table.
She had changed since the last time I'd seen her. She'd been covered in blood then, the cut on her neck, thank God that it was only a cut, the double fracture of her wrist and the numerous other cuts not shown by the heavy dark blue blanket that covered her.
I nearly jumped when her eyes opened. The jolt that was by now all too familiar ran through my body and suddenly I was staring from the inside. She was wrecked, though still in her own way whole and beautiful. And that broke my heart. The gaze seemed to last for hours and then I was standing staring down at her. She smiled and closed her eyes, and I knew as I watched them flutter shut that the blue would dull within hours. My heart stopped and my knees gave out from under me, I was keeling, my hand wrapped around hers begging with someone I knew couldn't hear me no to leave.
I was staring up at a nurse.
I was in the waiting room sitting in a chair when the door opened expelling the clan through it.
Questions ringing in my ears.
Her mother's silence.
Rich's eyes.
Lisa's tears.
I shook my head.
The blur of colors and sounds and brief impressions seemed to last for an eternity and then I was standing in front of the hospital staring out at the passing traffic. Numb to the bone, there was about as much feeling in the rest of my body as there was in my left hand.
The darkness of my home was a relief. Bob's not greeting me was also a relief. I flopped onto the couch and sat staring grimly at the blank wall in front of me.
She'd loved me.
I knew that, had always known it in a way. And yet neither of us had felt we could have acted on what we both knew existed.
Looking back I wondered why not even though I knew. But then hind sight is always 20/20 even if what seems obvious and right at the time was not plausible or even possible.
To loose a friend is painful, I've known that for awhile. But to loose someone with whom things aren't over…That goes beyond any pain.
Yeah I know a little angst-y so I'm going to post this before I think better of it and hope that no one comes after me with anything sharp. Listening to depressing music is to blame that and other fic's along the same lines. Anyway I'll stop babbling. Hope you enjoyed. Everything belongs to Mr. Butcher.