Thanks to the great reviews, you guys are AWESOME, I get nervous so it's a great self esteem boost! My new rule, that I'm going to try incredibly hard to stick to, is to update every Thursday.
This chapter is shorter, and I tried to lengthen it but I didn't want to drag on and bore the crap out of you so…it's the length it is.
R&R
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CeeCee and Adam came in today, again.
They'd been in a couple times in the past week. Trying to cheer me up, offer me support.
They tried but rarely worked. I hardly smiled when Adam cracked a stupid joke, or when CeeCee made a smart joke to counter Adam's stupid joke.
I didn't even laugh at his confusion.
I was still unfazed and numb.
It was nearing the end of visitor hours. Andy and the guys had finally left. Jake made me eat the food. It was as bitter and dry as I had expected, and it wasn't Andy's cooking. I only ate it for Jake. Though I'd never tell him that.
I was once again sitting in the chair closest to my mother, right next to her bed. The lights in the room were dim, creating dusty shadows around the room.
If I strained my ears enough, I could hear the nurse on night duty typing busily away at her computer. Other than the noise from the keyboard and my mother's machine's almost silent beeping the hospital was fairly silent.
Not much happened in this quiet town. Besides my incidents I guess.
Is this what mom went through all those times I landed myself in her position. Which is watching an unconscious body. It'd happened more than once or twice.
It was almost a tradition, not one I liked. More like those ridiculous relative ones you hide behind the bushes to avoid.
But all those broken bones, and late nights of her worrying about me. I have no idea how she survived as my mother without breaking down and running to the mental house, let alone a therapist.
Wait, scratch the last part, Mom did have a therapist. Although I don't think she went running, rather pushed her on me, but whatever. Mother dropped the therapist when we moved out here for a 'clean start' which I guess did happen, with the occasional muddy hands, but sometimes you can't help getting your hands dirty in deep trouble.
I guess I kind of understand now.
I promised to myself that I would finally tell mother that I see ghosts. I can't keep it from her any more. It isn't fair nor right. I have to tell her. This incident was a real eye opener for me.
I would tell her…if she woke up.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped a soft blanket around me. I gripped it tightly as if it would make me unreachable, unbeatable, unbreakable. I liked being distanced.
At length, everything looks different. Looking in through the window, you see things in a bizarre manner and its oddly comforting. That's what its like now.
If I push myself as far away as I can, I'm just a bystander who has no emotion. I just watch as life and pain and perhaps death unfold right before my eyes.
The same eyes that were watching my dying mother.
They traveled up and down her delicate body, landing on the bumps in the sheets where her feet were. That's when I noticed the tall figure in the door way.
He stepped in, into the room, into the light, into the death. His hands were in his jean pockets; his face was low and groveling.
"Hi," he said shyly.
"Hi Paul," I whispered from my knees. My words muffled due to my knees smothering them.
"How are you doing?" he asked nervously. His voice wavered like he was afraid to ask the wrong thing and have me flip out. Don't blame him. I've done that a lot, especially to him.
Although tonight, I don't think I have the energy. I don't have the energy to do anything, except sit here and watch the world through a distant window.
It's been like that for awhile now. Sitting, breathing, watching. Waiting.
"Been better," I whispered again. "How'd you know?" I asked. I didn't bother clarifying that I wanted to know how he knew where I was, let alone why.
"CeeCee," he answered. He pulled a chair up beside me and sat down. I flinched as the chair's legs scraped against the ground. I felt his gaze on me, but I kept mine on my mom.
"Doesn't take her long does it?" I said with a slightly bitter laugh. I wasn't bitter or angry with CeeCee, just with everything else
The world even. It always wanted to screw me over.
"No, I guess not," he said quietly.
Silence fell upon us. But it was a comfortable one. Peaceful that someone could just sit there and not make me feel bad or uncomfortable.
Nothing had to be said, just his presence was nice.
He was just another bystander watching through the window with an unfazed expression.
Since Jesse came back Paul and I had become friends. Not necessarily as close as CeeCee or Adam—he hung around with really different people—but I could turn to him with questions or my problems and he'd often help.
We still have shifter lessons though. He insisted. At least he doesn't pounce on me or anything. And he's been talking to his grandfather—who amazingly hasn't kicked the bucket yet, but we know its coming—giving him more insight about shifting.
It's better this way. Paul and I being friends, I mean. I don't have to constantly worry about what crazy scheme he's made up. And its great being able to ask for help from someone else besides Father D.—who is way too forgiving and calm—and Jesse—who can be really overly protective.
Even though he's started helping ghosts move on instead of his previous method, I'm-gonna-make-a-slave-out-of-you-now-be-my-minion, he understands that sometimes, you just really need to kick some ghostly ass.
Not that I've seen him take a swing at one, probably thinks he'd break a nail.
I haven't mediated once since I've been in with mom though. Haven't even seen a ghost, not that I've wanted to, I'd probably just ignore them. Just a little odd, I guess, especially since I'm in a hospital.
Better that way, though. Ghosts not popping up, I mean. Sometimes I feel so overrun by them.
Like they want to control my life and steal whatever social life I try to create.
"Can I…fix it, like we did with Jesse?" I asked breaking through the thick silence.
Fixing this mess was all I wanted. It was something that had been on my mind for a while. What ways could I bring mom back? Is there even a possibility?
Could I pop back to the day where mom was in the accident and tell her not to go out. Stop her, slow her down. Steal her keys and hide them between the couch cushions and pretend I didn't know where they were. Better yet blame it not Dopey. Not let her go out…
At least not right then.
"No," he answered. "It's not a good thing to jump through time a lot. It can make things unstable, let alone the fact that it really kills you," he shrugged slightly. His stare still fixed on me.
"Don't I know it," I said sardonically. I waited a few moments, "Is there anything I can do?" I asked.
I just wanted something.
Some piece of information that would restore the little hope that was being carved away. I wanted to save Mom.
Delicate fingers were searching for some little piece. I felt like screaming at Paul, yelling for him to give me that little piece to clutch to my heart.
"Hmm," he said, thoughtfully. "Have you checked Shadowland for her?" he asked.
"Uh, no," I mumbled slowly. I hadn't either. I didn't know if I could do that. I guess it makes sense that that would be where she was. In after-life's waiting room. Deciding where she would go. Whether it's on earth or else where. "Should I?" I asked, turning my head slightly to his gaze, as I predicted, transfixed on me. His glassy blues shined amidst the low lighting of this wretched room I'd taken refugee in. They were mesmerizing.
"It's a possibility," he said, once again shrugging his shoulders.
"I guess," I said. "Thanks."
"No problem," Paul stood up to leave. He stopped at the door, turning on his toe, "You okay, Simon?" he asked sincerely.
"Like I said before, been better," I said to the floor. "Night Paul."
"Night Simon," he said turning and leaving. I watched his confident figure stroll down the hall, disappearing around the corner.
What was it about Paul that he could never be hurt. That no matter how hard anyone can try to hurt him, break him, torture him, ruin him that he always stands up and looks at the world dominantly.
I wish I had that power.
The power to tell the world that I don't care.
But I can't, because I do care.
I waited until later that evening—a couple hours after Paul left—to do what I was planning.
Although I would look asleep I didn't really want a nurse to walk in and freak out when I didn't wake up. Its not like anyone could get into a deep sleep in these god damn uncomfortable chairs.
I placed myself on my regular chair so that I looked like I was sleeping. Pulling the blanket over me half hazard-like, I closed my eyes and pictured Shadowland.
The many doors, the long never ending hallways. The thick rolls of fog that covered the ground, and the black top with bright stars.
When I opened my eyes I was, as predictably, there. In the place that used to bring me nightmares.
It wasn't so bad now. Kind of comfortable. Comfortably silent, like the one with Paul. Except here I was alone. Alone with doors, fog and stars that were just a little too artificial. But all the same it was tranquil.
Quiet and peaceful. But, don't get me wrong, it was creepy as hell. Eerie, as always, but not all that bad.
"MOM!" I shouted into the quiet halls. The sounded echoed into the darkness. Rolling through the fog in a thunderous bellow.
I began walking, no where's in particular. Not into the light—I remember what the gladiator guy said—and I didn't touch the doors. I just wandered down the hall.
I didn't really know what I was doing. I never really do, I just jump and hope to fly, or at least land without breaking my neck.
I just wanted Mom.
My feet made slow shuffling movements beneath the hiding of the fog. I strolled down the hall, passing the identical doors, yet never getting anywhere.
I wasn't going anywhere, I was looking. And I only found the same things. Doors, fog, and stars. No ghost of my mother.
This was the first place I'd been in the past six—almost seven—days. And I wasn't really here, just my soul.
Time passed. Lots, I'm not really sure. I'm just guessing a lot due to how many doors I'd passed by. I was weary and tired. Whatever hope was left, was dying, fading into the fog.
Maybe I didn't take it with me; maybe it's still on earth, lying next to my mom's dying body. Hope and Helen dying together. Dying slowly, silently and surely.
Where was Mom? I mean, where was she really? Does she even know, does she feel pain, has she already moved on?
I don't think she's moved on. Otherwise her body would have died. Flat lined and finished.
Who knows?
I don't, that's for sure. These days I don't know anything.
I passed more doors and I was beginning to feel doubtful, that was until I heard the noise.
An insignificant word to anyone else, but me it meant the world. That one word slowly moving down the halls. Making its way through the fog, fighting all the way to my ears.
I heard it and all that hope I thought was dying was raised just that little bit more. Maybe, just maybe…
A tiny delicate tone drifting towards me on the fog…
"Susie."
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Hum, I think that's the closest thing I have to a cliffy, so far.
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